I should’ve used it sooner rather than last year when they announced AI integration to Windows. Every peripheral I tried is just worked without needing to install drivers, and it works better and faster than on Windows, just like today when I tried to use my brother’s 3D printer expecting disappointment, but no, it just connected and was ready to print right away (I use Ultimaker Cura), whereas on my brother’s Windows computer I have to wait like 20 seconds; sometimes I have to disconnect and reconnect it again for it to see and ready to use. Lastly, for those who are wondering, I use Vanilla Arch (btw), and sorry for bad English.
Welcome!
For a while now Linux has been better at most personal computing things except gaming. And for server uses an even longer time.
There are some specific hardware/software situations where you’ll need Windows but it’s unlikely to happen at home. Unless you have very peculiar hobbies.
Or you take your photography a bit too seriously! Good noise reduction software is next to impossible to do on Linux. It’s the only reason I have a windows box in my house
Just a thought… Don’t use AI noise reduction! I’ve seen the “magic” they produce and am not impressed. I take pride in capturing the image, not relying on software to recreate it the way I wish it had been shot (I recognize this is a bit hypocritical given that I do use noise reduction in Darktable).
Additionally, I stopped caring about (luminance) noise a long while ago, now, and am perfectly happy with the results I get out of Darktable. In fact, much like film grain, I find modern luminance noise quite pleasing, especially on smaller sensors, and it can add texture and feeling to your image. Still, my default style includes the fantastic, camera model specific, noise reduction profiles by default, which effectively removes color noise and brings luminance noise down to appropriate levels.
The rise in clinical photography and “AI” tools has only given me a stronger drive to be creative and embrace the flaws of my camera and my tools. Call me a romantic, but I want people to know my photos were taken and created by a human, not a machine.
Ok, getting off the soapbox, now xD
Unless you’re shooting flat JPGs with no photo modes enabled, and not doing any post processing, then you’re not getting that result. And even if you do that, two cameras shooting the same scene will produce different images, because the process of converting RAW sensor data to the reduced colour palette and bit depth of a JPG image, involves an algorithm deciding how best to recreate (not capture) what you saw with your eye, and no two cameras do it the same way, and neither produce a “true” capture of what you saw.
Ultimately, it’s a meaningless distinction. My camera does in body image compositing, using firmware to stack multiple frames in to a single exposure, giving you light trails, without overexposed static light sources. It uses AI subject recognition to drive its auto focus. It has a 120frame buffer than records records directly to the buffer whilst holding the shutter button half down, and then writes them all to the card when you press, effectively letting you capture moments that you would normally have missed, because human reflexes are imperfect. And the RAW software that comes with the camera literally uses AI noise reduction.
So for me to draw the line and say that AI driven noise reduction (non generative AI at that) is a problem would be a bit hypocritical of me.
As it is, the camera hardware itself does solid noise reduction on the JPGs it produces (using algorithms built in to the firmware) giving really nice results even at high ISOs. But the only way to replicate that with a RAW file, is using the camera supplied RAW software (which doesn’t work on linux), or by using a 3rd partyAI noise reduction app (which don’t work on linux). If I don’t use them, then I’m in the strange situation where my high ISO JPG preview photos look better than an end to end post processed RAW file.
If I was “embracing the flaws that my camera creates” I would be shooting in JPEG mode, using images mostly straight out of the camera, and they would be less noisy than what I can achieve with current linux tools.
I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and using m43 (or four thirds before it) for most of that time. I know what I want from my photography, and I know the tools that give it to me. What I want is for the image to look like the scene that I saw. I don’t care if it’s a pixel perfect match for it. I don’t care about embracing the flaws that a camera introduces, flaws that don’t exist when viewed through the human eye (reduced dynamic range, sensor noise etc), out of some sense of “purity”. Purity that was lost the moment I pressed the shutter on a digital camera that has to encode the image in software to make it visible.
Fair enough! Thanks for sharing that. I think there’s a beauty in photography that we can each create in our own way, and that the process is part of the photographer’s expression, despite the viewer knowing none of that.
What noice reduction software do you use on windows? Very interesting find, do you know what methods your software uses for noice reduction? I wonder if this is something you could open an issue for in the image manipulation softwares that do exist on linux, i.e darktable et.al. :)
Dedicated noise reduction software like Topaz and DxO rely on the GPU. And because of that, they don’t work on Wine or VMs (unless you have a dedicated GPU and can get GPU passthrough functioning).
I use darktable and digikam for every other step of my workflow, but that one step, I just can’t do with Linux
Thank you for making me understand :)
Never heard of DxO or topaz, but I am also no photographer, so it doesn’t really surprise me. I wonder if something like proton could be used to easily make give you gpu support.
I had high hopes that I could make them work that way, but no luck :\
About upscayl u maybe heard https://github.com/upscayl/upscayl
and denoise https://github.com/royerlab/aydin
Upscayl isn’t much use to me, because I don’t need upscaling, only noise reduction.
Aydin appears to only work on PNG files, not my RAW files
This means you can’t be a professional and use Linux lol which is a big bummer! I hate Adobe but nobody is even remotely trying to keep up with Photoshop at this point and it’s very disappointing
Not quite. I’m talking about high ISO images. Most of my photos are not high ISO, so most of my photos don’t need this.
For a professional, they generally don’t shoot in high ISO, because it degrades the image quality. They use external lighting, flashes, reflectors, fast lenses etc, anything and everything they can, to avoid shooting high ISO. So a pro, on a pro shoot, won’t need dedicated noise reduction software, and can use the profiles built in to apps like darktable
I am a cinematographer I know what ISO and flashes are lol the problem is not just noise removal tools.
Gaming is my struggle, right now. On x11, I get stable framerates, but even though my benchmarks show 60+ fps, it sure looks lower to my eye. On Wayland, gameplay is smooth, but I keep getting this weird thing where after 20-30 minutes of gameplay I’ll get this weird input lag, where my mouse movement stops and then “catches up” every second or so, resulting in choppy gameplay despite the smooth framerate.
If I can figure that out, I’d happily drop my Windows partition.
I had that issue with a wired G502 mouse. It was caused by an excessive polling rate, and setting it to 125 Hz fixed it.
Interesting! I’ll give that a try.
I’m curious, did it solve your problem?
Sadly, no, though I’m curious how the other lemming changed their polling rate. I used Piper, so maybe different methods have different effects? Idk. I’ll have to keep tinkering.
Yeah it’s quite nice and more fun to use than Windows, I admit it’s pretty hectic on my first week of switching, but after learning a few commonly used terminal commands and open source softwares, I can do pretty much almost anything some time without needing to use DE I can just use tty instead
There’s plenty of good reasons to keep a windows device updated and available for use.
Honestly, I prefer that to spinning up a windows VM, especially if your needs include Windows software that interfaces directly with external hardware.
I realize that’s not an option for everyone, but for those who have an extra device available, or can afford a used laptop to keep in a closet, it’s well worth it IMO.
At work the only issue I ever found is the requirement to use Power Point for presentations and Word for filing patents. LibreOffice just did not translate well enough. Have not tried OnlyOffice.
Edit: Complex Excel sheets especially with macros would be a problem too. These are not always cross version Excel compatible for that matter. One reason I shifted that stuff to Python long ago and voided that issue.
The sad thing is I’ve encountered funky compatibility issues just between current versions of word. Going from Office 2022 (I think. I honestly can’t remember their LTSC office releases off the top of my head at all) to M365 triggered some minor formatting changes, and going from local word document to one that’s shared on SharePoint completely fucked up all of the images in the document and required many hours of rearranging the images because word still sucks for desktop publishing
I remember working on a large doc around 1990. Pagination and figures, what a nightmare. Sounds like maybe similar issue. I’m not really sure Office impoved after say 2003. They could have called it done at that point.
Image handling has definitely gotten better in the last 10 years or so, but realistically you can get everything you want done with Word 2003 today