Droping CR2 files on cr2hdr.exe results in ... nothing.

[aworkofmarc]

Hello.

On my desktop when I drop my first test dual-iso image (named IMG_2506.CR2) onto the cr3hdr.exe icon (as mentioned in tutorial step #2 below) there's a brief flash of the ms-dos window.. and then nothing.  There's no way to contact him if one doesn't have a Twitter account so I am hoping I can find out here..

Tutorial:
http://www.digit.in/digital-cameras/guide-to-using-dual-iso-mode-on-your-canon-5d-mark-iii-17150.html


Processing Dual ISO RAW Photos
Here is a step-by-step guide to processing your CR2 files shot in Dual ISO mode.
1) Copy the RAW files into the Photo Works folder.
2) Select all your RAW files and drop them onto the CR2HDR.EXE file
3) The CR2HDR.exe will reprocess all the RAW files into Digital Negative files (DNG)
4) Delete the CR2 files as the DNG files are just as good for adjustment.
5) Open the DNG files in Photoshop. Lightroom seems to throw errors around when trying to read these DNG files.
6) Use Adobe Camera Raw to give the image the desired look.

[Walter Schulz]

Download https://bitbucket.org/kichetof/lr_cr2hdr/get/cr2hdr_unify.zip
Create a directory C:\Temp\cr2hdr and copy folder "bin" to it.
Copy a single dual ISO CR2 to C:\temp\cr2hdr\bin
Retry.
Report.

By the way: Deleting Dual ISO is not so good an idea. This is like a negative, your original. DNG is labeled "Digital Negative", too but in this case it is processed by cr2hdr. And cr2hdr has tons of parameters to play with and you can't start from scratch with it if there will be - for example - a new cr2hdr with newer/better algorithms.
And LR has no problems with those DNGs at all. There is even a LR export plugin (zip above).
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?board=56.0

The cr2hdr.exe coming with kitchetof's plug-in was called cr2hdr20.exe in the past. Old cr2hdr.exe is gone for good.

[aworkofmarc]

Great! -- thank you.

However took me a minute because the instruction Step #3 "Copy a single dual ISO CR2 to C:\temp\cr2hdr\bin" actually means that once the image is in the BIN folder to then drag and drop the CR2 file on top of the cr2hdr.exe icon. And of course --When I did that --it did it's thing: a ms-dos window opened.. did the conversion and popped out a very purple tinted DNG file. Now I'm off to try and find out how to de-purple it. I recall seeing that somewhere I think... anyways...

Now that I got this far... I'm assuming I can take a dual-iso video file and do the same thing?

And my last comment / musing is -- with dual-iso being out for some time now.. WHY oh WHY.. could I find NO WHERE perfectly simple and concise instructions like the ones you just wrote? 

Thanks Walter.

[Walter Schulz]

I'm assuming I can take a dual-iso video file and do the same thing?

You have to extract frames first.

And my last comment / musing is -- with dual-iso being out for some time now.. WHY oh WHY.. could I find NO WHERE perfectly simple and concise instructions like the ones you just wrote?

I think it's a combination of lacking skills using search functions/engines on your side and third party blogs/tutorials without peer review running out-of-date and ... well ... shame on developers for doing their best to keep 'em coming andandand.
Yes, there is no ML 101 or anything like it. Audionut is trying to get structure into it but help is needed for sure.
Take a look into his signature: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=469

[aworkofmarc]

"I think it's a combination of lacking skills using search functions/engines on your side" --  LOL. Perhaps. But I've been on the internet since it was a few palsy bulletin boards strung together... and I did not find instructions and clear as yours. (thank you again)  This guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7D7IxLk0WU came close at minute 11:30 he actually went thru the dual-iso conversion process HOWEVER -- it was not made crystal clear that I needed both the dcraw exiftool exe's in the same folder.  Even tho it was shown that way in his video he didn't state it -- I'm a retard I didn't get it.

Anyways.. long story short.. for comparison here's the two images (fore/aft) of my (sloppy) Silversmithing bench.  BTW The purple tint my previewer was showing did not appear when it was opened in PS --so either it was automatically corrected or it's an issue with Windows previewer showing it with a purple cast.  What was really nice is with just the default settings of PS Camera Raw utility it corrected a yellowish tint. 

Original ML dual-iso  image


Corrected  image


thank you very much for your help.

[aworkofmarc]

PS the Beta3 Lightroom plugin seems to work perfectly.  Love that.

[LU72]

I think I might have some corrupted .CR2s. 

Doing exactly everything above, what I get is an MS-DOS window that opens the file copied to BIN but only goes as far as displaying image dimensions before shutting down. I happened to be able to get a screen grab of the window before it closes, which displays the message "Doesn't look like interlaced ISO" for a split second before it shuts down:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ce8114rhq0z49pc/DualISOnope.jpg?dl=0

I've also tried the Beta3 LR plug-in and I get an error saying the file isn't Dual ISO.

I have 8 out of 50 shots with this issue from the same shooting session, are these just corrupted files then?

[Walter Schulz]

Guess:
Cr2hdr tries to find interlaced lines. If those pics have large areas blown out or just black for both ISO lines cr2hdr can't process them.

[LU72]

Thanks Walter. Two of the images were darker (Flash didn't fire) so it's possible your guess is correct for those, however the other six that couldn't be processed were "safety" shots with the same settings/scenes as the previous shots that were able to be processed with Cr2hdr -- and some of them were the better shot! 

[Walter Schulz]

Upload it somewhere and link it here or send link by PM.

[LU72]

Will do for the next shoot, I deleted the "bad" .CR2s out of frustration before checking this thread again.

[tron]

If the deleted shots are important try to recover them. There are various tools for this job.

[Levthon]

have the same problem. the cr2hdr just pops up and disapears. i did what suggested but still doesnt work. Anyone have solution for this?

[Walter Schulz]

Make sure to have dcraw.exe and exiftool.exe is same directory.

[Levthon]

its in the same directory

[Walter Schulz]

Taking a vid will show you console messages in replay.

[Licaon_Kter]

@Levton: copy CR2 in that folder, shift-right click on that folder -> Open Command Line here -> cr2hdr <yourfile>.CR2 and make a screenshot wih Snippingtool, post it here.