White Balancing in FastStone or Irfan Viewers?

[xpatUSA]

I realize they are "only" viewers but they don't seem to have the "click on something gray or white" function to correct an image color shift. All I can find is color correction using sliders. Am I missing something in Irfan or FastStone? Especially FastStone which is quite good for quick and dirty editing.

I am a bit restricted as to to what viewers/editors I can use because my images start life as Sigma .X3F raw files, not the most supported file type on the planet.

My alternatives are Sigma's Photo Pro 5.1 (which is unable to crop!!) and ACR->PhotoShop which is, well . . . Adobe ;-)

Not really looking for suggestions to use anything other than what I have, thanks.

[stuck]

...Am I missing something in Irfan or FastStone? Especially FastStone which is quite good for quick and dirty editing....

I've never seen a white balance tool in Irfanview but a quick Google has turned up this:
http://www.westbrookjazz.de/filter/f0.html
Scroll to the penultimate filter close to the bottom of the page and read about 'Jazzman’s White Balance I', that might do what you want.

Ken
PS thanks for asking the question. I too have missed not having an AWB feature in Irfanview for quick & dirty editing but until now I've never bothered to search. I'm going to try this filter when I get a chance.

[stuck]

'Jazzman’s White Balance I', that might do what you want....I'm going to try this filter when I get a chance.

I'm back home and have just downloaded this and, well, it works!

Ken

[Shadowman]

Under settings in FastStone, RAW it has the option to select "Use camera white balance if possible", which doesn't help.

[xpatUSA]

I'm back home and have just downloaded this and, well, it works!

Ken

Well, it's allright for some people Oop North. Meanwhile, this Bladdy Suverner did this:

IrfanView (Version 3.85 and higher)
Make sure that an image is displayed in IrfanView. Then select Image > Effects > Adobe 8BF filters. In the appearing dialog press the "Add 8BF filters" button and choose the folder where you installed the plugin(s).They will now appear in the list on the left. To run a plugin please double click on the appropriate item or select it and press the "Start selected filter" button.

And was rewarded with this:



Not sure what Irfan means by that . . anybody?

[xpatUSA]

Under settings in FastStone, RAW it has the option to select "Use camera white balance if possible", which doesn't help.

Thanks John,

Because my camera only produces RAW files, I've got lazy and leave it set to "sunlight" - fixing the WB later in ACR or SPP. But I would like to get away from Adobe if possible - so I'm back to playing with the subject apps.

[xpatUSA]

I would never accuse IrfanView's user interface of being intuitive, but . .

After dowloading Irfan's plug-in stuff and installing something called JazzManWB, I can now manually white balance a file in IrfanView! Thanks for the tip.

Now to investigate all the intricacies of the Irfan adventure . . . I'll be baak . .

[xpatUSA]

. . . I'll be baak . . .

(10 minutes later) didn't expect to be back this soon!

Just now double-clicked on a .X3F file, Irfan now says "not a valid RAW format" or words to that effect.

Adobe wins again - goodbye, IrfanView :-(

[scriveyn]

According to the Irfanview homepage .X3F is supported:

FORMATS - (version 4.35): allows IrfanView to read some rare image formats.
(Formats: PSP, G3, RAS, IFF/LBM, BioRAD, Mosaic, XBM, XPM, GEM-IMG, SGI, RLE, WBMP, TTF, FITS, PIC, HDR, MAG, WAD, WAL, DNG, EEF, NEF, ORF, RAF, MRW, DCR, SRF/ARW, PEF, X3F, CAM, SFW, YUV, PVR, SIF)

As you mentioned above, you have dled and installed Irfanview & its plugins. - So I recommend this forum, which I've found very useful: irfanview-forum.de/forum.php

[stuck]

Well, it's allright for some people Oop North...

That goes without saying but moving on...

1) Download and install the latest version (4.35) of IrfanView:
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/299-irfanview.html
Watch out for the bundled 'additional' software, you can select NOT to install it.

2) Download and install the latest set (4..35) of IrfanView plugins
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/47...w-plugins.html

3) Download the Jazzman filter(s)
http://www.westbrookjazz.de/filter/f0.html
and extract the .8bf filter(s) from the zip file(s)

4) Copy and paste the .8bf filters to the IrfanView Adobe 8BF folder. In XP you'll find it here:
C:\Program Files\IrfanView\Plugins\Adobe 8BF
I can't remember the exact path for Win 7 but it's very similar. Note though that as you paste in Win 7 you will be asked to give Administrator permission, which is a simple OK to the dialog.

5) Open an image in IrfanView and select Image | Effects | Adobe 8BF filters and click on the Add Filters button.

6) Select a filter and click Start Selected Filter.

Sorry I didn't give these complete instructions before but the tone of your original post suggested you were familiar with IrfanView and its plugins.

Ken

[scriveyn]

...
4) Copy and paste the .8bf filters to the IrfanView Adobe 8BF folder. ...

It doesn't have to be this folder. You can keep your filters sorted in any number of folders and sub-folders. That makes it much easier to administrate them when you have a large number of filters; e.g. one folder for every provider of filters.
In the subsequent step 5) you can then navigate to the folder(s) of filters you want to add to Irfanview.

Later, when you have some experience with Irfanview & filters you can manually edit the filters.ini file to sort your filters into an order of your liking.

[xpatUSA]

Thank you all for for your good advice.

Just to make myself clear why I said "goodbye IrfanView":

I had been using IrfanView 4.33 occasionally for a year or so, successfully opening .X3F files. I got it originally to get away from dependence on Adobe for post-processing (after using Sigma PhotoPro as the RAW converter). These days I tend to use SPP as a converter to TIF, then PSE more than anything else. That may yet change.

My irritation with IrfanView stemmed only from the fact that , after downloading an .8bf file, putting it in an accessible folder, getting an error message, downloading more stuff from Irfan's site, etc. ad naus, I ended up being suddenly unable to open .X3F files whereas it had actually worked before. I may yet re-install it because it can display hex content and it can open dcraw's standard output format if necessary (although I usually use the -T option).

IrfanView seems quite powerful and fast too. I like especially the re-sampling options it offers. I've had problems in the past with metadata in it's JPEG output (was it color space tags or ICC profiles?: I forget). FastStone is poor in that respect, too. Windows XP quite often shows it's JPEG output file size as 0 bytes, which is also irritating. Sad to say that Adobe at least loads the metadata up with all the right stuff and is a pretty good editor for my needs.

OT, but current testing of ACR 5.4 vs. SPP 3.5 is showing that ACR's color rendition is slightly better than SPP's once it's default settings are properly tweaked. Still working on that . . .

[xpatUSA]

Sorry I didn't give these complete instructions before but the tone of your original post suggested you were familiar with IrfanView and its plugins.

Absolutely no need to apologize, Ken. I was OK-ish with IrfanView itself, but got defeated by the plug-in bit, a concept I've never been entirely comfortable with. I hate to mess with them to be honest :-(

[stuck]

..got defeated by the plug-in bit, a concept I've never been entirely comfortable with. I hate to mess with them to be honest :-(

If you've found IrfanView useful in the past I'd encourage you to try again and do a complete reinstall as I set out above.

The main IrfanView installer includes a few (important) plugins and they install silently and painlessly along with the rest of the software, you don't even know it's happening. The rest of the plugins come as a single .exe (my step 2 above). Installing them is similarly painless, you just double click the .exe file and it just happens, no configuration, no messing.

Ken

[xpatUSA]

If you've found IrfanView useful in the past I'd encourage you to try again and do a complete reinstall as I set out above.
Ken

Hi Ken,

Re-loaded all, including all plug-ins and the WB plugin. My reward . . . ;-)



The "good" news is that it won't find or open NEF files either, so now I'm looking to see how to fix that . . .

later,

[xpatUSA]

The "good" news is that it won't find or open NEF files either, so now I'm looking to see how to fix that . . .

Got it to find all "supported" raw files using "files of type" in the "open" dialog. Now it can open NEF files, but still get the error pictured above for X3F's. Frak.

[stuck]

Got it to find all "supported" raw files using "files of type" in the "open" dialog. Now it can open NEF files, but still get the error pictured above for X3F's. Frak.

Is there somewhere where you can upload a copy of one of your X3F files so that I can then download it and see how it behaves on my installation of IrfanView?

Meanwhile, in Options | Properties/Settings | Extensions underneath the scrollable list of supported extensions there is an 'Other' tick box and an associated field where you can enter an extension of your choice. OK, so it is qualified with (at your own risk) but it's got to be worth the risk, hasn't it?

Ken

[xpatUSA]

Thanks Ken,

Here ya go . . http://kronometric.org/phot/manor/sunFlower.X3F

This file was opened many times in IrfanView when I was chasing a gamut problem in ACR.

Added the extension per your suggestion and now all my X3F files show in Explorer with little red gatas apacharadas (feline road-kill) next to them - but IrfanView has not changed it's ways :-(

[stuck]

OK, downloaded that file to my XP box at work:
1) At that point it showed in Explorer with a generic Windows icon and when I right clicked there was no 'open with option'. On a double click it I got a 'Windows doesn't know what to do' but from that dialog I could browse and pick IrfanView from the list of suggested programs and it opened with no error.

2) In IrfanView I added .X3F to the list of extensions and immediately Explorer showed the file with IrfanView's 'splat cat' icon. A double click on the file opened it in IrfanView with no error.

So... it looks like there's something wrong with your IrfanView installation that a simple re-install is not correcting.
EDITED
Before you try what I suggest below, please look in your IrfanView Plugins folder. What is the datetime stamp on the file called Formats.dll? Is it 11/01/2011 12:19? Apparently this is the file that IrfanView uses to open X3F files so the fix to your system might just be to replace that one file. I have uploaded that file as an attachment by adding a dummy .pdf extension to the file name, i.e. the attachment is called Formats.dll.pdf so if you download if you must delete the extra .pdf extension so the the file once again is just called Formats.dll

Ken

Original post continues...
Have you ever heard of Revo Uninstaller? It is an application that oversees the uninstall routines of other apps by first running those apps own uninstaller and then scanning for left over registry settings, files and folders. NOTE it doesn't do anything without your permission so you can choose notto delete the leftover junk it finds. It comes in two versions, completely free or pay money. I've only ever used the free version and it's not let me down yet.

Since your IrfanView used to open your X3F files and I can open one of your X3F files it might be worth your while using Revo to clear out your IrfanView installation more thoroughly before re-installing it one more time.

Get the free version of Revo here:
http://www.revouninstaller.com/downl...e-portable.php
Install it, can't remember if it nags you to try the Pro version or not but if it does ignore/dismiss them.
Revo presents you with a list of all the installed apps on your system.
Find the entry for IrfanView and click on Revo's uninstall button
Revo will ask you what type of scan it should run. The default is moderate but I always choose the advanced option. It's never broken anything on my PC (yet).
Revo then will run IrfanView's own uninstaller so click through any dialog boxes that throws up.
Revo then invites you to see what's left over so click Next
If it finds anything you'll first get a list of registry entries. Those in BOLD are the ones to select/tick, take care.
Once you've done that and given Revo permission to delete them you can click Next again
Now Revo looks for leftover files & folders. If it finds anything it gives you a list and you can select the ones you want to delete.

Having cleaned out your old Irfanview installation reboot and then install it, it's plugins and then copy the Jazzman filters into the Adobe 8BF folder

Ken

[stuck]

This file was opened many times in IrfanView

Hmm, now I'm back home and trying to view this file on a Win 7 (Starter Ed) netbook I too find that IrfanView says, not a valid RAW file.
EDITED
Examining the Formats.dll file a bit further shows the version I uploaded from my work PC is v4.2.8.0, while the one on this netbbok is v4.3.5.0

If I replace the current version with the older one the X3F opens without error.

Looks like you found a genuine bug.

Ken
original text follows
In other words forget all my stuff about using Revo to remove IrfanView completely, the problem seems to a XP versus Win 7 thing.

All can suggest now is to repeat Frank's idea, to try IrfanView's own forum:
[https://irfanview-forum.de/forum.php[/url][/s]

Ken