Looking at a one for photography

Hello, Im looking into getting a small net book to download files from compact flash cards to an external hard drive, Im not mega worried about how big the internal is. I would rather keep a linux based os but would also if poss be able to look at raw files, I realise I would have to load some form of imaging software for this, or would I be better off loading xp on there? thanks

 

I'm a pro photographer, and I tried the Linpus route 1st... installed some linux RAW viewers, converters, GIMP etc etc.... but the workflow is still too complicated. That's the main reason I just installed XP instead, PICASA for RAW viewing/minor editing, Arcsoft RAW thumbnail viewer.... that's it. I think it's much more effecient, less headaches.

PS- yup there's a PICASA for linux, tried it. Still too combersome.

 

One word- DigiKam:

http://www.digikam.org/drupal/about/overview

 

If you just want to view raw files, I would suggest `ufraw'. It handles many raw formats -- it certainly makes easy work of my Nikon pics. You can batch-convert to TIF or JPEG or something -- but this takes a bit of practice -- or you can use ufraw as a file-handling plugin for Gimp.

Personally, I wouldn't do photo editing on a One -- there's just not enough engine-power for crunching 10MP images with umpteen layers. But downloading from a camera is no problem, and basic viewing and format conversion are no problem.

 

I use Bibble for looking at RAW files - works fine on my Aspire (using Linpus) but it's not free.

 

What advantage does it have over ufraw? The problem that I have with ufraw is that it won't automatically do white-balance correction from a shot of a grey card. I'd be interested in anything that can do that properly in Linux -- it's a major bottleneck in my workflow.

But, then, since I've already mortgaged my house to buy Photoshop, and a Windows PC to run it on, and Windows, I'm not sure I'm up for spending more money :/

 

As a professional photographer I was looking for a small compact laptop that I could bring on trips to surf on, mail from, look at videos, play solitaire and browse through my photos with.
I have a real good laptop, but it is heavy and drains the battery quite quickly, so it´s not that good "on the road". I got a tip from a friend about the Acer Aspire and I chose the version with 120GB harddrive (as it will act as a backupstation for my photos "on the road") and WinXP.

It was love at first sight !

I have installed some games, FireFox, Officepackage, WinSCP and lots of imageviewers and "photostuff". Works like a charm.
I would recommend "Camera Mechanic" for browsing photos/slight editing of photos, I have it and it is really good.

 

You can have a 14 day trial of Bibble and see if you like it. It works on both Windows and Linux (and Mac). It understands certain cameras/lenses, so you might not have to do any white-balance correction specifically for your camera, but if you want to you can play around with the temperature, tint values etc, or you can click on any part of a photo to set that to white (I think that's what it does - I never use it).

Check it out, including the manual if you want to check out White Balance more carefully, here:

http://www.bibblelabs.com/learn/index.html

But it's probably easier to just download the trial version and play with it. It's one of the few apps I've bought recently, and I really like it.

 

Thanks -- I'll look into that. I'm curious about how you do white balance correction, however, if not from a grey card or at least some grey area. But I guess that's a photographer question, not an AA1 question

 

In brief, i think you just select the white balance tool and whereever you click on the picture with it you're saying 'this is white,adjust the picture accordingly'. You're really just picking a single value-the temperature- so unless you need the result to be accurate for some specific technical reason you should be ok with that tool then tweaking the result manually as required.

 

Thanks. That's pretty much the same way that the Photoshop white balance tool works as well. To be honest, I never tweak white balance manually -- not only do I not really have an eye for it, when I sit down to process photos I usually have 2-300 to do in one go. And then I want as much of the process to be as automatic as I can. With PS, I can include a grey card in one of the shots, read off the colour temp, and then correct the whole bunch in one go. I can do that with ufraw as well, except that getting the right colour temp from the grey card is a bear (unless I'm missing some clever way to do it).

Oh well. I've I'd know about Bibble a couple of years ago, I could probably have saved myself about £700

 

Thanks for the replies, Ill more than likely get the version with a hard drive as its not much more, If I cant get on with the linux Ill either try alternative distros or Ive got a licenced copy of xp around here somewhere so Ill fish that out and maybe dual boot. As long as I can get it to read cf cards and write to an external hd Im happy.