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Raw Digital Photo Decoding in Linux

Not affiliated with Canon, Nikon, Kodak, or any other company named herein.

Welcome! If you are wondering how to connect your digital camera and download images to a Linux PC, go to the gPhoto homepage. My software is for processing those images after downloading them.

If you're downloading JPEG files, you don't need my software at all. The image has already been processed inside the camera. All digital cameras made since 1997 produce JPEG images, so why would you want to do it any other way?

Well, despite the convenience and ubiquity of JPEG, there are some disadvantages. JPEG is a lossy format -- to fit a big image into a small file, a lot of information is thrown away. That's why midrange and high-end digital cameras offer an alternative: Raw, unprocessed CCD data files, for which the camera manufacturer provides special decoding software.

Of course this software is for Windows and Macintosh only, and there's no source code. So it's useless to users of other operating systems, programmers hoping to design a better interpolation algorithm, and historians not yet born in an era when the only Windows machines will be in museums.

So here is my mission: Write an ANSI C program that decodes any raw image from any digital camera on any computer running any operating system.

That program is called dcraw.c, and it's become a standard tool within and without the Open Source world. It's small (about 4000 lines), portable (standard C libraries only), free (both "gratis" and "libre"), and when used skillfully, produces better quality output than the tools provided by the camera vendor.

Here's my resume. I do freelance consulting related to dcraw, and I'm also available for full-time work in BIOS engineering or UNIX system administration.

I can be reached by sending e-mail to cybercom dot net with the username "dcoffin".

My Code

There are no restrictions on this code, although I would like to receive credit for it. Donations are welcome, especially if you're using my code commercially. For hackers only:

Other dcraw-based solutions

The following image viewers use dcraw or pieces of dcraw.c to decode raw digital camera images:

Frequently Asked Questions

I don't have a C compiler. Could you send me an executable?
No, but Francisco Montilla provides up-to-date Mac OS and Windows executables on his website. And Benjamin Lebsanft has volunteered to maintain Windows executables optimized for specific CPUs.

If you're familiar with the DOS command line but don't know C, you can install this free C compiler for Windows and compile dcraw.c quite easily.

How can I read the EXIF data (shutter speed, aperture, etc.)?
For JPEG files, Matthias Wandel wrote an excellent utility called "jhead". For Canon CRW files, try this tool by Sven Riedel. Also Peter Galbavy's website and mailing list have a lot of information about CRW format.

Do you have any specifications describing raw photo formats?
No. If such documents exist, the camera companies keep them under lock and key. Dcraw.c is the best documentation you can get without resorting to espionage.

Why is 16-bit output dark, flattened, or unreadable?
If you want pretty pictures straight out of dcraw, stay with 24-bpp output. 16-bit linear output is the best raw material for professional image editors such as PhotoShop and CinePaint, but it's no good for most image viewers.

Could you please add an option for TIFF / PNG / BMP / JPEG output?
No. Dcraw writes PPM only. To convert to other formats: 
dcraw -c crw_0001.crw | pnmtotiff -truecolor > crw_0001.tiff
dcraw -c crw_0001.crw | pnmtopng > crw_0001.png
dcraw -c crw_0001.crw | ppmtobmp > crw_0001.bmp
dcraw -c crw_0001.crw | cjpeg > crw_0001.jpeg
I used the Netpbm toolkit in these examples. ImageMagick also does command-line format conversions. Both are free.

What does the "-f" option do? What's "four-color RGB"?
If you see patterns like this in your output images, use the "-f" option. Otherwise, don't.

Why are there false colors along edges within the image?
Because of interpolation. This is a hard problem, easily defined:
  1. Take a three-color RGB image. At each pixel, set two color values to zero.
  2. Reconstruct the original three-color image as best you can from the remaining one color per pixel.
This research paper by Ting Chen compares various color-interpolation algorithms. Dcraw uses his favorite, the Variable Number of Gradients Method, with Bilinear as an option for quick test images.

Other methods are described in the research of Rajeev Ramanath and at http://dsplab.ece.cornell.edu/.

The Foveon X3 Capture chip requires a different kind of interpolation. Unlike CCD arrays, it captures three colors at every pixel location. But the colors are not well separated, so the raw data looks very gray. Enhancing the color without also enhancing noise is very difficult.

How do I get my camera to take raw photos?
For some Nikon Coolpix cameras, you need to enable a special "DIAG RAW" mode.
For Casio cameras, see Maurice Delaney's website or read this discussion on dpreview.
For the Minolta DiMAGE G400 and G500, go here.
For the Minolta DiMAGE Z2 and Nikon Coolpix 2100/3100/3700, go here.

For other cameras, refer to the User's Manual.

Does dcraw work with my camera?
Most likely, yes. The cameras listed below are supported. If your camera is not on the list, try dcraw anyway. If it doesn't work, post a raw image to a website and e-mail me the URL. If you don't have a website, use dropload.com.

Ideally, your sample image should show a standard white card or color chart in direct sunlight, with other colors in the background.

History

It started in February 1997, when I bought a Canon PowerShot 600. Decoding the raw data was more difficult than I had expected, knowing nothing about filter arrays, colorspace conversion, etc. But in August 1997, I found a decent interpolation technique, and finally was able to create images comparable in quality to Canon's.

Word slowly spread, and people asked me to do other cameras, sending me sample images to decode. I added support for the PowerShot A5 in May 1999 and the PowerShot A50 and Pro70 in May 2000.

In late September 2001, after months of effort, I finally figured out the lossless compression algorithm used by the PowerShots Pro90, G1, G2, S30, S40, and EOS D30/D60 cameras.

I solved the Canon EOS-1D on Jan 28, 2002 and the Nikon compressed NEF format on March 24, 2002. Olympus ORF format is not compressed, so it's much easier to decode.

On November 19, 2002, I was laid off. During that month, I added nineteen Kodak cameras, the PowerShot G3/S45, the Canon EOS-1DS, the Fuji S2, and the Minolta DiMAGE 7. In early December, I replaced the whole color-interpolation system, yielding sharper images for all cameras.

On December 10, I attacked the Sigma SD9. I solved the compression algorithm on December 31, then spent another six weeks constructing a Foveon-specific interpolation routine to enhance color and reduce noise.

Misc. Stuff

A detailed description of the PowerShot 600 written in 1997.

renum A bash script to rename all files in the current directory, numbered by date of last modification. For example, 

	renum rover 56

will rename the files to "rover-0056.jpg", "rover-0057.jpg", "rover-0058.jpg"...

lcfile A Python script to rename files and directories to lowercase.

Patches for XV 3.10a

XV is still my favorite image viewer, even though its last official release was in 1994. In case you're still using this antique, here are some useful patches for it:

To install them, unpack the xv-3.10a distribution. From the parent (not the xv-3.10a subdirectory) do:

cat patch1 patch2 | patch -p0