Raw Captured Image processing

Question

I intend to take raw images using a Canon which gives *.CRW and DNG format raw images. I have below question regarding processing of those raw capture

1] What all tools(I am ready to purchase/freeware) would allow me to process these raw images. The Image processing features I am looking to be able to run on these raw images is as follows:-

False Pixel Correction, Green channel noise removal, Black pixel clamping, Debayering, Color Correction,Auto White balance, Color Conversion(to YUV space), Image sharpening filter, Lens distortion correction, Vignetting correction, color fringing removal,Gamma correction, De-noise filter,Contrast enhancement, Deblurring. and allow to store a .BMP/.YUV processed output file.

Would Adobe Photoshop CS + Lightroom do most/all of these features?

2] Would a Canon/any other camera, allow to capture in raw video mode? i.e. a Video sequence in raw format?

Any pointers would be useful to me.

thanks,

-AD

Answer 1

First off, I do not believe there are any Canon cameras that produce a DNG directly. You would need to convert your .CRW/.CR2 files to DNG if thats what you want to store/archive your images.

As for the feature requests:

1. I do not believe there is any single tool that does everything you are asking for. I am a heavy Lightroom + Photoshop user, and as far as I know, those two support the following:
   • Noise Removal: Lightroom 3.x has amazing noise removal capabilities, far superior to any other product outside of a custom deconvolution algorithm. You can apply judicious luminance noise reduction, and maximum color noise reduction, and get near perfect results. Lightroom 3.x's noise management tools can easily correct for stuck/hot/false pixels, and it usually doesn't need that much correction to eliminate them.
   • Lens distortion correction: Lightroom 3.x also brings lens profiles to the table. There is a pretty large out-of-the-box library of profiles for common lenses from Canon. It is also possible to create your own profiles for other lenses. This feature can also remove color fringing, as well as correct for a variety of other optical aberrations.
   • Color & Exposure tuning: Both Lightroom and Photoshop w/ ACR offer extensive tools for color correction, white balance (automatic, preset, or selected from pixels in the image), exposure control (exposure, highlight recovery, black level/clamping, and fill light adjustment), contrast/brightness control, as well as vibrancy/saturation control (either overall, or for several key color channels.)
   • Vignetting: Lightroom has some very convenient vignette tools that allow you to either correct for mechanical vignetting, or add your own post-crop vignetting for artistic effect.
   • Image sharpening: Photoshop has a fairly extensive set of features that can help with image sharpening, including the Unsharp mask, noise-based sharpening, and the ability to use layers and masks to achieve various forms of sharpening or contrast enhancement.
   • Debayering: I think you are referring to demosaicing here, in which case when working a RAW file in Lightroom or Photoshop+ACR, this is done automatically for you when you save to a non-RAW format. Generally, RAW editors simply apply your edits in a non-destructive fasion directly over the raw bayer pixel information, and only demosaic upon final output to print or another image format. If you want more control over the demosaicing algorithm, you might look into some OSS programs based on DCRAW. Another tool that offers some useful low-level demosaic tuning is Deep Sky Stacker, an astrophotography stacking tool.
   • Color space conversion: Photoshop is an excellent tool for color management. It does not directly support YUV, as far as I know, however it does support editing in Lab* space. I am less familiar with YUV space, however I do know that it is similar to Lab space as both are Limunance/Chrominance color spaces. You can definitely save to .BMP format, as well as .TIFF or even .PSD if you need to store more than just pixel information. You may have to look at custom file format plugins to save to a .YUV file, or look into third party/OSS programs to handle YUV space editing.
2. RAW video capture is a very new concept. I do not believe that any off-the-shelf DSLR cameras support RAW video capture yet. The rumormill has it that the Canon 5D III or Canon 1Ds IV will be the first DSLR to offer full-frame RAW video recording...however it is just rumors at the moment. Canon has supposedly demonstrated prototype full-frame RAW video in Europe somewhere, however I have not seen any real evidence of this yet.

Answer 2

1.

There is no raw image converter/editor I know of which provides all of those features, though you can do all that with a combination of Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop and some scripting. The only one I'm not sure about is deblurring, depending on what you need it for the smart sharpen might work for you. Oh and you might have to do the hot pixel mapping yourself, don't think there's a filter for that though you might get by with a custom action. I could probably offer a better answer if you could let us know what your ultimate goal is, from the requirements it sounds like you're doing some sort of batch processing of raws to create a [timelapse?] video.

2.

There's no way to get raw video from a Canon camera presently, this may be unlocked with a firmware hack at some point but I wouldn't count on it.