RawDigger v1.0 Now Available in Three Editions (Recommended)
I’ve been using the RawDigger image analysis tool for some months now. It comes in three editions, all of which are priced modestly. I recommend it for all shooters looking to get the best from their camera.
RawDigger is not a workflow tool so much as a feedback loop on your own technical success with exposure. For anyone doing ETTR, RawDigger provides a clear-cut answer as to whether the file is perfectly exposed, overexposed, or underexposed. But it has many other useful features, including a detailed EXIF info view that I prefer to just about anything else.
For me, the true raw histogram alone is immensely useful; I use it to check the actual exposure behavior of new cameras and to fine-tune my sense of what the camera histogram means*, and as well as to check for the amount of blow-out highlights far more clearly than the “blinkies” in some programs.
* Camera histograms are an abject design failure (Leica M Monochrom excepted); they force through white balance and a truncated color space, undocumented as to what is actually done, and are thus highly pessimistic on exposure, if not flat-out misleading. It is not uncommon for me to see a blown out exposure on a camera histogram that could have accepted another full stop of exposure, yet with zero loss of highlights. And auto exposure often leaves two stops of dynamic range unused. A very serious failure in design thinking, and by all vendors. See ETTR topics and A CALL TO ACTION: Build Intelligent ETTR Into Digital Cameras and Why Don’t Digital Cameras Offer a Perfect ETTR exposure?.
