How to quickly view Leica DNG images

[MikeMyers]

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I guess I'm a bit spoiled. I usually shoot in JPG format with a Nikon, and review the images in Windows Explorer. Now I'm shooting with the Nikon and an M8, but I haven't found a quick way to view the Leica images. What I really want, is to find some utility that will work with Windows Explorer, and will let me review them just as I now do with the Nikon images, using Windows Explorer. Is there any way to do this?

 

 

I think I made a mistake here. I did explain "what" I wanted to do, but I didn't say "why" I wanted to do it. There are lots of answers posted here, but none of them really solve my situation. Let me explain.

 

First, I do a lot of traveling, and one thing I do is volunteer work at a hospital in India. They send me to several smaller hospitals around South India. Among other things, I'm always taking photos, and since the people at the hospitals usually like the photos, they want copies. What I do (with my Nikon) is copy over all my (jpg) images from my Nikon CF card to one of their computers (that may or may not be on the internet), then quickly go through the images and delete anything that I don't feel is good enough. They're then free to do whatever they like with the photos. Some of the people at the hospitals ask for an image file, and I always give them the 'jpg', or show them how to copy it from the hospital computer I had left the images on. I usually travel around India with only my camera and a USB memory device, and I rarely take my laptop.

 

Second, sometimes I want to go into a local photo shop to get some prints made. If possible, I'll take the images to the shop on a memory stick. If I can't do that, I'll just take the card out from the camera and let them copy the images. (I don't like doing that, because I'm always worried about viruses.)

 

Last, if the location does have email, sometimes I want to send a few of the photos out to someone.

 

 

 

Anyway, with my Nikons (meaning I'm using 'jpg') all the above is effortless. No matter what computer I get to review my images, even a Mac, it's easy. Ditto for getting prints made. Ditto for sending a few photos as attachments to an email. Since the Nikon jpg image looks just as good as the Nikon nef image, I don't lose anything I need, by shooting in jpg.

 

With the Leica M8, I've found that the jpg images are not as good as the dng images. They don't have all the detail. For that reason, I prefer shooting in dng. But this causes problems:

a) the hospitals and people at them are unlikely to have computers that will show dng images.

the shops that make quick prints are unlikely to be able to deal with dng images.

c) if I email a dng image to someone, it is going to be FAR too big a file size, which will cause problems... and even if I could email an image, the person I sent it to wouldn't know what to do with it.

 

On my next visit to India, I'd like to bring the Leica, and not take my Nikon gear. I would take the M8 and bring along an M3 for backup. While you guys have helped me with how I do things "at home" (or on my laptop) I need to figure out what to do when I'm away from both, and only have access to someone else's computer. I'm beginning to think my only options are to shoot in 'jpg', or 'jpg+dng'.

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[wparsonsgisnet]

Hi Mike,

 

I realize that everyone has their preferred software and such. For me this is ACDsee Pro 3. This is one program which can easily read and show thumnails from the DNG and without any changes to the file, convert them in real time in memory to display them in High-rez on screen. It is very fast. I have used many different programs but always go back to ACDsee. It works on both 32 and 64bit and downward compatible from windows 7. It also has an import module for cf/sd cards and the possibility to edit files and such, though I use PS for that.

Kind regards,

 

Etienne

 

Etienne, thanks for this post. I really like ACDC and will prob buy the pro version.

 

Many thanks.

[wparsonsgisnet]

...

On my next visit to India, I'd like to bring the Leica, and not take my Nikon gear. I would take the M8 and bring along an M3 for backup. While you guys have helped me with how I do things "at home" (or on my laptop) I need to figure out what to do when I'm away from both, and only have access to someone else's computer. I'm beginning to think my only options are to shoot in 'jpg', or 'jpg+dng'.

 

Mike, I think that's your only option at this point.

 

Other than slowing down the camera, there's no drawback to shooting dng + hi-res jpg.

[ArtZ]

Mike,

 

As I said in my previous post, you should use Adobe DNG codec if people use Vista or Windows 7 in 32-bit environment. Everyone can download it for free (or you can have it in a USB memory key -it takes only 1MB) and you can also print DNG images using Windows Photoviewer.

 

I also travel a lot and I like to share my pictures with other people who don't have necessarily computers that show DNG images. I have always with me the installer "DNGcodec_r1_051208.msi" and people are happy with this solution.

 

Cheers

[cidereye]

Or as said by kully, simply download the excellent FREE FastStone Image viewer here as it will work on ALL Windows O/S:-

 

FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

 

As long as you change the settings in options as I suggested in #36 it works perfectly and anybody can download it for free anywhere in the world. By far the best viewer I've ever used over the years and so glad I now found out how to view DNG files in it so easily.

 

It supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF and DNG).

[Jamie Roberts]

Hmm, why do you think I don't want to do that?

 

Why should I use a card reader, when I can copy the files to my computer directly from my Nikon/Canon/Leica camera? Presumably when Leica put the USB connector on the side of the camera, they expected people to do this, yes?

 

 

As to 'dng' being so common, as I recall my computer didn't know what to do with 'dng' or 'nef' images until I added additional software. I've only just now figured out how to deal with them effectively. On the other hand, 'jpg' images are pretty universal. Take one to any photo shop in the world, and they'll make me a print. I wouldn't expect that from the other formats.

 

Two things, Mike...

 

First, card readers are optimized for delivering files to the computer; they're more reliable and don't require special drivers. They also don't require external power sources, and they can be improved; your camera will always operate at the same speed.

 

They also don't tie up the camera. If you have multiple cards, you're also not stuck feeding them serially from the camera. Finally, you don't need your camera around, so if it's in use while someone else is downloading cards you can still get the job done

 

Next, just because something is proprietary or special purpose doesn't mean it's not common. Yes, JPEG support is built into the OS; WORD document support is not universally built into the OS (even on Windows!), and neither is MPEG2 or 4, but they're all very common nonetheless.

 

Come to that, you can certainly take a NEF file or DNG file to any photo shop in the world with current Photoshop and they can print it It'll probably look like crap, but it will print.

 

The difference is really that raw files are made for people who know what they're doing, and JPEGs are "cooked". It's a lot easier to print (or preview) because it's already created; the RAW data means you still have lots of interpretive choices left.

 

So--once more--the fastest way to preview actual RAW data is to use the special purpose software that reads the RAW data, and not just the JPEG preview (though that may be enough to decide whether to keep or kill the file, don't get me wrong. On an M9 or M8, though, the preview isn't big enough to do that, so rather than create one you may as well just feed them into something like C1 and trash the ones you don't like).

[Jamie Roberts]

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{snipped}

On my next visit to India, I'd like to bring the Leica, and not take my Nikon gear. I would take the M8 and bring along an M3 for backup. While you guys have helped me with how I do things "at home" (or on my laptop) I need to figure out what to do when I'm away from both, and only have access to someone else's computer. I'm beginning to think my only options are to shoot in 'jpg', or 'jpg+dng'.

 

For what you want to do, that is exactly what you have to do. It's a drag, because as you know, the M8 is not the best JPEG making camera out there. But without a computer I'm not sure what else you could do if you need JPEGs and only have the camera.

 

Won't they be good enough for distribution? They're not that terrible, in my recollection...

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}By far the best viewer I've ever used over the years and so glad I now found out how to view DNG files in it so easily.

 

Yes, but much slower for viewing DNG files than C1 v5.1.1 on my Windows 64 Vista box. Better than AC/DC though

[cidereye]

Yes, but much slower for viewing DNG files than C1 v5.1.1 on my Windows 64 Vista box. Better than AC/DC though

I totally agree Jamie, well for DNG files.

 

I usually use C-1 for workflow/conversion but for just browsing pics find FastStone great if a bit slow for DNG files. Mind that said I'm running solid state hard drives where pretty much everything is instant on my AMD based Win 7 64 main system. Even CS4 fully opens in just a few mere seconds, best upgrade I've ever made for performance.

[Jamie Roberts]

I totally agree Jamie, well for DNG files.

 

I usually use C-1 for workflow/conversion but for just browsing pics find FastStone great if a bit slow for DNG files. Mind that said I'm running solid state hard drives where pretty much everything is instant on my AMD based Win 7 64 main system. Even CS4 fully opens in just a few mere seconds, best upgrade I've ever made for performance.

 

Interesting....

 

I'm running a combination of SAS drives and plain old fast SATA drives. The SAS's are very quick, though probably nothing like the SSDs, though I don't have to recondition, them either

 

But honestly what I see with all of the "viewers" is that they take processor time to figure out the actual DNG. So it's not so much disk time but CPU cycles that are causing the delay.

 

It's the same for C1 and DNGs, except you pay the price up front when you let it think about everything and generate previews and so on. After that, though, it's truly quick. For me, I grab a coffee while C1 thinks and then do all my editing

[nzav]

I understand you're not interested in Macs (and thus Aperture). However, my workflow with the M8 and my iMac and Aperture is very smooth and easy. I come home from a shoot, bring the memory card to my computer and slot it into my cardreader. Aperture pops up with a preview of all the images on the card. I create a project and click on the import icon which is now pointed at my new project. Seconds later (or a couple of minutes for a lot of images) the pictures are in aperture, fully examinable in DNG. I can adjust the settings, exposure, color temperature, etc. in Aperture. I can select all the images and click slideshow and I get a great slideshow of all the DNG images.

 

One thing Apple does well is integration. Aperture is a combination of Lightroom and iPhoto -- raw developer plus image organization tool. I'm sure you can put all this together on the PC, but it's delightfully easy on the Mac.

 

Your workflow description can be just as easily accomplished in Windows using Adobe Bridge (part of Photoshop). Just like you, I insert the SD card in my computer, which opens an autoplay window asking if I want to download the images from the card into Bridge. Then Bridge will ask where I want the files saved. The downloaded files will also have all copyright and any other preset metadata templates applied.

 

I can download all of the files, or only preselected ones, and have the names automatically updated as they are copied to my personal file identification system with just a couple of mouse clicks.

 

Bridge is a very powerful image browser, file manager, and image editor/sorter. The next step is selecting the edited raw images in Bridge and send them to Adobe Camera Raw for conversion and opening in Ps.

 

I am not trying to argue the pluses or minuses of either OS, I'm simply saying the Mac side has no magic tricks that can't be done in Windows as well. I have used both systems, and the Windows platform gave me a head start over the Mac in using 64-bit Photoshop during the CS4 prerelease cycle by well over a year. Fortunately, Mac users will finally get that opportunity when CS5 is released.

 

Incidentally, although Adobe was blamed by Mac users, the 64-bit version of Ps for the Mac OS is one generation behind Windows because Apple decided to abandon further development of the "carbon" 64-bit platform in favor of "cocoa" midway through the CS4 prerelease cycle. Up to that point, there was a 64-bit version of CS4 for the Mac in development right along with the Windows version.

 

Again, I did not respond to start or fuel a flame war over OS platforms, I'm just making a point that you use which ever system you are comfortable with - Mac or Windows, it does not matter to me. The bottom line is both systems do crash, have bugs, and neither is capable of magic. The idea that Mac is so much easier to set up and use is a tired, but often repeated myth...

[MikeMyers]

Two things, Mike...

 

First, card readers are optimized for delivering files to the computer; they're more reliable and don't require special drivers. They also don't require external power sources, and they can be improved; your camera will always operate at the same speed.

 

They also don't tie up the camera. If you have multiple cards, you're also not stuck feeding them serially from the camera. Finally, you don't need your camera around, so if it's in use while someone else is downloading cards you can still get the job done

 

Next, just because something is proprietary or special purpose doesn't mean it's not common. Yes, JPEG support is built into the OS; WORD document support is not universally built into the OS (even on Windows!), and neither is MPEG2 or 4, but they're all very common nonetheless.

 

Come to that, you can certainly take a NEF file or DNG file to any photo shop in the world with current Photoshop and they can print it It'll probably look like crap, but it will print.

 

The difference is really that raw files are made for people who know what they're doing, and JPEGs are "cooked". It's a lot easier to print (or preview) because it's already created; the RAW data means you still have lots of interpretive choices left.

 

So--once more--the fastest way to preview actual RAW data is to use the special purpose software that reads the RAW data, and not just the JPEG preview (though that may be enough to decide whether to keep or kill the file, don't get me wrong. On an M9 or M8, though, the preview isn't big enough to do that, so rather than create one you may as well just feed them into something like C1 and trash the ones you don't like).

 

 

If there are other reasons against downloading from the camera, maybe I'll change my mind, but these reasons aren't enough to change what I now do.

 

1 - Neither my card reader nor my camera requires a power source - just plug in the USB cable. I suspect any gain or loss of speed depends more on how "fast" a card I am using, and downloading from my camera is at least as fast as doing so from one of my card readers.

 

2 - Yes, if I have to change cards, I've just got to do that - but I'd have to do the same thing with the card reader. (I'm not sure my Nikon and Canon software will even start up automatically if I don't plug in the camera.) This isn't all that important to me either, as both ways work, and I sometimes use the camera, sometimes a card reader.

 

3 - I'm not sure I can take an 'nef' or 'dng' image to the small photo shops I go to, and expect them to be able to do anything with it. Mostly, I go there for making inexpensive 4x6 prints to give away, and I doubt if they know anything other than jpg. Some of them might have Photoshop, but most have some kind of automated printing program into which you feed jpg images, and prints come out at the other end. Not fine prints, but adequate for my purpose...

 

4 - for my Nikons, I disagree with this: "The difference is really that raw files are made for people who know what they're doing, and JPEGs are "cooked". It's a lot easier to print (or preview) because it's already created; the RAW data means you still have lots of interpretive choices left." The raw files certainly give a person better control, but a Nikon print from a jpg looks just as good as a Nikon print from an nef. Obviously, for the Leica, that is not correct. Anyway, I'd reword your sentence to say: "The difference is really that raw files are made for people who want more control over their images, and JPEGs don't allow that kind of control."

 

5 - the fastest way for me to preview my images is to open them up in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer (I think it has a new name now for Win 7) and quickly go through the whole bunch, either hitting <del> or the "next" key as I go through all of them. This gets rid of the complete mistakes, such as out of focus images, or those wonderful shots of the inside of my lens cap. :-)

 

 

 

If there is a good reason why it's better to NOT connect the camera to a computer, I'll immediately stop doing so, but if not, it's the simplest and easiest way I know of to get my photos from my camera to my computer.

[MikeMyers]

For what you want to do, that is exactly what you have to do. It's a drag, because as you know, the M8 is not the best JPEG making camera out there. But without a computer I'm not sure what else you could do if you need JPEGs and only have the camera.

 

Won't they be good enough for distribution? They're not that terrible, in my recollection...

 

 

I don't know how to answer that. I guess it all comes down to "how good is good enough"? I made a comparison to check this out. The first image in this page is a Leica jpg; the second is a jpg image made from a Leica 'dng':

Leica/Nikon image comparison photos - mikemyers' Photos

I figure for small prints, the jpg is just fine, but if I ever want to print in a larger size, or crop, I'll be sorry that I didn't shoot in 'dng'.

 

If I stop worrying about all that stuff (say, if a friend asks me to take 50 shots of a building somewhere) I'll just use 'jpg' and not lose any sleep over it. On the other hand, if I'm taking a photo which I care about, shooting in jpg to me is like shooting through a dirty filter.

[MikeMyers]

Or as said by kully, simply download the excellent FREE FastStone Image viewer here as it will work on ALL Windows O/S:-

 

FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

 

As long as you change the settings in options as I suggested in #36 it works perfectly and anybody can download it for free anywhere in the world. By far the best viewer I've ever used over the years and so glad I now found out how to view DNG files in it so easily.

 

 

I went to the FastStone page, and noticed a link for the new beta version: FastStone Image Viewer. I started reading about their "portable" version:

portable

A zip (compressed) file that includes all the required files to run the application independently from any folder you dump it in. Major advantage is that you can carry it around on a memory stick / USB flash drive, or copy / migrate from PC to PC via simple copying of files. No installation is necessary.

 

 

 

 

I was thinking - if I install the portable version on a memory stick, and carry that around with my camera, presumably it will allow me to view images using FastStone on any computer I happen to have access to... I think there's a bug using it on my Win7 computer, but for the most part it works just fine. I'll have to try it on a different computer that doesn't have any fancy software installed on it yet.

[cidereye]

 

 

I was thinking - if I install the portable version on a memory stick, and carry that around with my camera, presumably it will allow me to view images using FastStone on any computer I happen to have access to...

 

Yes Mike, it will/should be ideal for that.

[!Nomad64]

Just my 2c: I use Rawtherapee to check and view my DNGs. It's free and available for either Windows and Linux, which fits me perfectly.

If anyone needs to view his DNGs on the move with limited or no access to PCs, a viable solution might be a Hyperdrive storage device, natively supporting DNG. This will also solve backup issues.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Bruno

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

If I stop worrying about all that stuff (say, if a friend asks me to take 50 shots of a building somewhere) I'll just use 'jpg' and not lose any sleep over it. On the other hand, if I'm taking a photo which I care about, shooting in jpg to me is like shooting through a dirty filter.

 

I still say you're making this too hard....

 

Shoot RAW + JPG, give away the JPEGs, and process the DNGs when you get home to a computer. As I said, they're not that bad--if you nail the shot, that is

[carlos.paula]

Friends, how to quickly view, simple edit and save Leica M8 DNG files in JPG format? I am using the Adobe Lightroom but it is a very confused to me.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Jeffry Abt]

I use Photo Mechanic a standalone image browser and workflow software that lets me Ingest, Edit, and Export photos. I use it for batch processing all the time. (full support for IPTC and Exif metadata). From Photo Mechanic I go into Photoshop! I can't imagine anything simpler. Camera Bits, Inc.

[jaapv]

Import, use the quick edit aand export to a folder on your desktop.