The basic idea is rather simple. The information in a raw file is not
organized in a way that it can be directly put on your display screen.
Any raw file needs to be converted from its native form (which depends
on the particular camera) to the display form in order for you to see
it. How that conversion is done can be fairly complicated and ORF data
structures are more complicated than some others due to the four color
sub-pixel arrangement of the sensor.
But regardless of the degree of complication all raw files need to go
through a conversion process in order to be viewable.
Just to make it a little more confusing, JPEGs need to be "converted"
too in order to be viewable. In their file storage incarnation the data
is compressed. When they're loaded they need to be decompressed;
essentially blowing it back up to full image size. But that
decompression sort of conversion is very standardized and much faster
than raw file conversion and you just don't notice it. A fast computer
might be able to decompress the JPEG as fast as or faster than the data
can be read off the disk. If so there is no apparent performance delay
from the decompression since it takes place during time intervals that
would otherwise be wasted.
Chuck Norcutt
On 1/27/2012 1:53 PM, Candace wrote:
> So basically, the program is performing beyond my education or ability
> to understand, all just so I can see a version of the ORF, Hee hee. I
> will take your word on it, you are much more knowledgeable than I about
> how these things work.
> Thank you.
> Candace
>
> On 1/27/12 11:46 AM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>> If there is no embedded JPEG and no matching JPEG from the camera
>> already present then there is no alternative but for the software to
>> convert the raw file in memory so it can be displayed.
>>
>> FastStone has no magic either. Either the JPEGs already exist as an
>> embedded file or are already there directly from the camera. If neither
>> of those is true the software must convert.
>>
>> BreezeBrowser has an option to extract the embedded JPEGs. I don't see
>> that in FastStone so it's not as much of a clone as I thought. So, with
>> FastStone, unless the matching JPEG already exists in the same directory
>> it would have to convert.
>>
>> Chuck Norcutt
>
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