Rawnalyze

I first heard of this software when I was running some tests on the ISO noise performance of my Canon DSLR cameras. I went searching for it, and found out that the author (Gabor, aka "Panopeeper") passed away in 2010, greatly regretted by many. I grabbed and stashed the following files, knowing how things tend to vanish from the web. I don't know why you would want anything but the latest version, but here is everything I have managed to find. Each zip file contains a windows EXE as well as the md5 checksum file. The md5 checksum file inside of the zip file contains only the checksum for the "exe" file. I also have placed the "exe" files here in case (as it often is these days with high bandwidth connections) it is easier to just download that instead of the zip file. The "exe" files are the program itself, not a self extracting or self installing zip file or something like that.

Note that the program itself is said to be heavily keyboard driven, so using it without the documentation would be quite difficult.

Sadly the author of the program was unwilling to make the source public (perhaps a lesson to us all) and although there was discussion of contacting his family to obtain the source, it would seem that this effort has not born fruit.

Running the program

The program works with Canon raw files from the two DSLR cameras I have (the 5D2 and the 1D3). When I try to use it to open up a DNG file it gives me the message "Invalid Image File Directory format", but then does show the image, histogram, and correct camera and lens information. Concern has been expressed that this program will become useless as more new cameras come out and it cannot be modified to support their raw file formats. Using the DNG capability would of course make this program useful for the forseeable future (if DNG is all Adobe wants us to believe it is, and if Rawnalyze is general enough in its DNG handling).

Installing the program

I am an absolute Windows novice, so I wanted to write all this down for the next time I did this. My browser puts the exe file into C:\Users\Tom\Downloads, which is less than handy. I create a folder C:\ProgramFiles\Toms Junk and then move the rawanalyze.exe file into there. Now I always screw this up and use the left mouse button to drag and drop, which moves the file. What you want to do is to drag and drop with the right mouse button to copy.

Then to create a shortcut, I right click on the exe file, select "create shortcut", and then when windows gets into this idiotic business of warning me I probably don't want the shortcut here, but on the desktop (where else would anyone want a shortcut??), I follow along with its inane scolding and it puts a shorcut nicely on my desktop.

Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org