RAW-Friendly Picasa Replacements?

bodhisoma@gmail.com wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I shoot RAW from my Nikon D50 and it's often desirable to weed through
> a large number of images, keeping ones with the best sharpness
> (assuming all other things are equal). I'm currently using Picasa 2
> to sort through the digital negatives but there are some issues...

Rawshooter Essentials is pretty good. Free for the basic version, fast
with RAW and it builds in the adjustments you make, on the fly as you
zoom to maximise performance, I believe it'll hold zoom as you advance.
Actually the Nikon D200 will hold zoom as you advance for culling
sharpness in the field at greater than 100% zoom! I was not happy with
the actual RAW conversions but noone else has mentioned this objection.

Thumbs Plus might be worth looking into.

I still use ACDsee (an old version) for culling at full zoom though
newer versions are not so great last I heard. Super fast for flipping
through jpegs though and great for renaming, drag & drop sorting &
searching.

Most browsers will just read the embedded jpeg (which is fast &
sensible) but what you might consider is either shooting raw plus jpeg
or extracting the jpegs for quick culling. The DNG converter will remove
the embedded jpeg as an option saving space. I do raw plus jpeg & cull
the fast jpegs then only download the raw files fromt he disk by using
the DNG converter which saves on download time & storage space and
enforces the practice or dumping bloated raw files from the archives
while allowing a full archive or jpeg version of pics that I might later
find some use for.

> 1) Picasa seems to try and "adjust" or "normalize" the files so they
> have roughly the same brightness when displayed. The problem is that
> if I shoot something dark, Picasa displays it brightened with a ton of
> noise.
>
> Here is an example.
>
> http://farm1.static.flickr.com/139/3...f6896907_o.jpg
>
> The red numbers represent the shutter speed (apterture and ISO remain
> fixed) and as you can see, the displayed images don't get too much
> darker after 1/8 or so. Toward 1/750 you can see hoizontal banding as
> Picasa automatically compensates.
>
> It's not causing any problems with the NEF file itself, obviously, but
> it would be nice to see all files in a folder as JPGs created by (RAW
> + settings) = display.
>
> 2) Picasa will not let me flip between images while staying in loupe/
> zoom mode. If I advance to the next pic, the zoom is pulled back to
> the normal "fit screen" mode. Makes comparing adjacent pics very
> difficult.
>
> So can anyone suggest a software package that will:
>
> a) Not arbitrarily adjust the RAW file during display;
>
> b) Stay zoomed in while flipping through images.
>
> Also, know how Picasa will change a picture by saving those
> alterations in a seperate file, then displaying the original pic with
> your changes "wrapped" around it? It would be nice if I could easily
> and quickly apply settings (eg, color mode III, normal contrast,
> fluorescent color balance) to a whole folder. These settings could
> then be laid over the NEF file when viewed.
>
> I realize I could just run a batch of those settings usingj Nikon
> Capture Editor but I'd like to avoid that if possible.
>
> Does such a beast exist?
>
> Thanks much in advance,
> Jason
>