The LightZombie Project

Thanks to kurt, we now have the Mac build for the new dcraw 9.16. The new dcraw is in beta status, and the builds can be obtained via the following links:

As is often the case this time of year, the day is starting out gloomy in Southern California, and I'm feeling particularly gloomy this morning. Word is out that the Mozilla Foundation is giving up on their Thunderbird email client.

You might well be wondering what that has to do with the LightZombie Project. The answer is a bit indirect, and we need to start with some history.

Yes, Dave Coffin has produced yet another update to dcraw — the third in about two weeks. This one adds support for the Sony RX100 and the Samsung NX-1000. Coffin didn't update the version number, so it still says 9.16.

I've updated the source files on github and checked in beta versions of the Windows and Linux builds in the usual spots. We're still looking for someone to do the Mac build.

I've checked in a bunch more Raw Tone Curves for cameras added in the dcraw 9.15 and 9.16 releases.

Here's what's new:

• Canon G1 X
• Canon 5D mk III
• Fuji X-S1
• Nikon D4
• Nikon D3200
• Sony NEX-F3
• Sony SLT-A37
• Sony SLT-A57

These are in addition to the new templates already mentioned:

We're still waiting for a Mac build of dcraw 9.15, and Dave Coffin has released 9.16. This release includes support for the Canon Rebel T4i/650D plus some minor stuff. I've merged the LightZone updates at the github site, and done a build for Windows.

I've also created an interim Raw Tone Curve for the T4i/650D. I say "interim" because the usual Raw captures that I'd use for calibrating the curve aren't yet available.

I picked a few camera models and produced Raw Tone Curve files for them. Surprisingly, the Fuji X-Pro1 Raw decoding seems to work. I don't know how, but it looks reasonable to me.

The new Raw Tone Curve files are:

Dave Coffin has released version 9.15 of dcraw. The timing is a problem; I'm going to be tied up for most of the next week.

I did check it into the git repository, and merge the changes into the LightZone version. It was a blind merge, and there were a lot of changes this time, so it's certainly possible that something broke. I did verify that it compiled under Windows and that the resulting dcraw.exe would open at least one of my Canon CR2 Raw files, so I know it's not a total disaster. :-)

Adobe has finally released DNG converter 7.1. Dave Coffin usually releases a new version of dcraw about a week after that. Then I can generate the updated dcraw source code for LightZone. I'll also generate the Windows build, and we'll have to rely on volunteers for the Mac and Linux builds.

April, 19, 2012: Within the next 48 hours, hopefully in the early morning hours (U.S. times...), these servers will be upgraded. This will probably mean an outage of service resulting in our site being off-line for 2-3 hours. Do not be alarmed, just check back later.

Once before we made a plea that we needed technical assistance for both MAC and Linux. Well, mate-ees, we still do. In fact so far we've gotten precious little. We're not kidding, we need some assistance in these areas especially. Lots of new camera profiles will need to be done this year. I will remind all of you that it is in your own best interests for this to happen. Support comes from the community collectively, now, and that is the only place it's coming from. We need to be able to hold on until this thing is truly open sourced.