How to EDIT Canon raw files in Linux

Last time I talked about a good way to preview photos. But when I started to edit raw photos, I ran into a problem. There's a program called DCRaw that plugs into Gimp and lets you load raw photos, including Canon's new raw format. Good. There's a GUI for that program, called UFRaw. Even better. And GQView will take the active photo and send it straight to Gimp for you. Fantastic. But here's the problem: the photo looks like it was dipped in mud.

For some reason, the raw photo looks great in GQView. But UFRaw tweaks it somehow and makes it look horrible. I don't know why. And I don't really know how to fix it. But I found a workaround: there's a button in UFRaw called "Auto Adjust Curve." Press the button, and it fixes the color balance, saturation, etc. Not quite the same as the original photo, but still very nice.

Fine, I'll take it.

J

Update:  Convert it from raw to jpeg and have it not look as good as the original image?  What the hell's the point of that?  UFRaw kept making my pictures look worse and it drove me nuts, so I found a better alternative: exiftool.  Turns out Canon sticks a jpeg "preview image" inside the raw file.  Even though they call it a "preview," it's the same size and quality as the original raw file.  So if your original file looks good, and you don't need color correction, then don't bother with DCRaw, UFRaw, and Gimp.  Just use exiftool and pull out the preview image.

Done.  And it looks gorgeous.