Dcraw

dcraw

Original author(s)	Dave Coffin
Stable release	8.73 / 2 June 2007
Platform	Platform independent
Type	RAW decoding software
License	Free software
Website	dcraw website

dcraw is an open source computer program able to read several raw image formats, and convert them into the PPM and TIFF image formats. It is written by Dave Coffin in ANSI C. Due to the proprietary nature of raw images, dcraw is frequently updated to support new digital cameras. It has been used (and continues to be used) as the basis for numerous raw applications (such as viewers and converters), both free and commercial.

The source code of dcraw is for many proprietary raw image formats the only public documentation that is guaranteed to be accessible in the future, and thereby makes stored raw files more reliable for future decoding.

Dcraw is built around the Unix philosophy. The program itself can only be used on the command line, making it suitable for shell scripting.

GUI frontends

Several GUI frontends have been made using dcraw for the actual processing of raw images,

• UFRaw, GIMP plugin.
• dcraw-assist is a KDE (Kommander based) GUI for dcraw and ImageMagick. ICC enabled high-quality, web-ready batched RAW conversion.
• dcRAW-X for Mac OS X
• RAWDrop, Windows frontend
• Helicon Filter, can use dcraw for its raw processing.

External links

• Manpage of dcraw
• dcraw by example
• DCRAW, the Excellent raw conversion software
• schnebeck.de, an Interview with Dave Coffin
• dpreview.com Raw storm in a teacup? Dave Coffin interviewed
• Tutorial DCRAW DCRAW tutorial by Guillermo Luijk (Spanish)