RawSpeed and Rawstudio: exciting projects

These are exciting times for photography on Linux. With Krita 2.0 round the corner and GIMP getting (some) higher bit depth functionalities in its next 2.8 version.

Rawstudio is not sitting still either with a couple of great projects down the line.

First, there is this rewrite project to turn operations into plugins. The idea is to make it easier to create new operations and make them optional so as to keep Rawstudio core tiny and speedy:

I see the following reasons for a (simple) plugin-infrastructure in Rawstudio:

1. We keep getting requests for exotic and specific ideas that doesn’t belong in the Rawstudio core, but many are very valid feature requests.
2. We need to do something to limit interdependencies inside Rawstudio. We’re not far from spaghetti-code.
3. 3rd party developers could contribute easier.
4. We need an easy path from idea to implementation, as of now it’s a long and hard walk to implement even a simple filter.

Plus there is a blog entry from Klaus Post announcing RawSpeed, a new RAW file loader designed for speed, which will be used by Rawstudio

So my main objectives were to make a very fast loader that worked for 75% of the cameras out there, and was able to decode a RAW file at close to the optimal speed. The last 25% of the cameras out there could be serviced by a more generic loader, or convert their images to DNG – which as a sidenote usually compresses better than your camera.

If you combine these news, we are looking into: an enhanced RAW processing software and high bitdepth retouching softwares available for two main tookits (QT and GTK). Nice 🙂

Also, the World Press 2009 winners have been published…