Olympus Viewer 3 retired, now use Olympus Workspace

Olympus just made Olympus Workspace available in 32 bit, 64 bit and MacOS versions. There is a file named OV4.ini in the folder with the executable so maybe it was going to be called Olympus Viewer 4 but they decided to make the name change so that we would take notice. Also, 4 isn't a greatly favoured number in Japan and China.

You'll want some manual or documentation. When you first install Workspace, the documentation is not supplied. You need to run Workspace, choose Help > Update Software to display the following dialog

to get the Adobe Acrobat format file in

C:\Program Files (x86)\OLYMPUS\Olympus Workspace 

Is Art Filter metadata stored in Olympus raw image files?

A visitor to my youtube show and tell of Olympus Viewer 3

asked how he could find out which Art Filter was nominated in the camera in a raw file and whether it could be applied in bulk to other raw files. I was puzzled by this and had to make a fresh raw file from my E-PM2 (it was handy) to verify my response. Indeed,

1. Olympus Viewer 3 does not display which Art filter was applied to the raw file.

Note that the Art Filter is not pre-selected by Olympus Viewer 3 even though the EXIF Makernotes metadata stores the info

2. The Art Filter *is* stored in EXIF metadata in the MakerNotes category in the tag ArtFilterEffect (shown using EXIFGUI / EXIFTOOL third party software)

The name of the Art Filter is stored as text but the but the parameters of the secondary adjustments is not labelled in text, just numeric codes.

1. You can find out which Art Filter was selected in the camera when you look at the EXIF of the raw file.
2. You have to manually choose this Art Filter in Olympus Viewer 3 yourself.
3. You have to manually choose the secondary variations yourself.
4. There are two alternative workflows if you want to apply your Art Filter to other raw files, 

Workflow A

1. Select the Raw Development Module by clicking on the RAW icon in the toolbar.
2. Choose the Art Filter manually and the secondary settings manually.
3. Save the raw develop settings as an .ORS file
4. Select raw file one by one and nominate that Raw Develop Setting to apply

Raw Develop Settings in the Raw Edit Module of Olympus Viewer 3

Workflow B

1. Instead of the clicking on the Raw icon in the toolbar, click on the Edit icon in the toolbar
2. Choose the Art Filter manually and the secondary settings manually.
3. Choose the menu Edit > Copy Edit Settings (Ctrl+Shift+C)
4. Choose other raw files in the thumnail strip in the toolbar - choose the first one you want then Shift Click the last one or Ctrl+Click each subsequent one
5. Choose from the menu Edit > Paste Edit Settings (Ctrl+Shift+V)

Olympus PEN-F - part 6 of my personal narrative, The Finale

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 precede this article.

Summarising and Tidying Up: What I liked.

I started by saying that the Olympus PEN-F is a controversial camera. Do I still think so after some days looking at my images, interacting online? Yes, I do. Briefly

It's a nicely responsive camera, with strong retro design hints.

"The camera part just gets out of the way and lets you concentrate on shooting." (Ming Thein).

It has milestone enhancements in "studio in the field" JPEG customisation so that you can pre-visualise the "look" of the photo instantaneously and intimately whether you want to save the JPEG as a keeper or use the raw for processing in Olympus Viewer or your third party workflow. Olympus innovated with the the S curve Shadow+Highlight adjustment and then subsequently the Color Creator a few models ago. Now the S curve has Midtone adjustment in addition to S & H. And the Color Wheel in the Color Profiles has a rainbow of individual colour adjustments. There is Vignette and Film Grain emulation in the Monochrome Profiles. And..... On Olympus Viewer, you can combine an Art Filter with Color Profile (can't check that on the body because I don't have one).

Phew! The noon day tropical sun so hot and glaring

Regardless I will be there.

We still run the old skool way.

The EVF is offset unlike a faux DSLR - it allowed me to keep both eyes open for a few lenses (mind needs some control) so I would observe more of the scene with one eye and ensure AF got the focus right with the other eye. It gave me confidence in the street with the camera raised to the face, something I feel nervous about with a faux DSLR in street photos of people.

You taking a photo of me?

What I would have preferred

A less obvious and more easily surreptitious simple hinged flip LCD screen (rather than the flip & twist screen that would be very useful on a faux SLR like the OM-D series. (By the way, the flip and twist is fitted on the old E-620, the E-3, E-5 DSLRs). I just figured out why they chose this flip and twist design though. For a little camera like this, with a target audience of travellers, genteel tourists, it needs to do selfie duty.

The Selfie with the Fishie

I would guess as with most middle income enthusiasts, I'm on a 2 to 3 year gear refresh - the need to save for family and extended family expenses and so on. My OM-D E-M1 purchase was recent in relative terms, so I'll have to wait. The price for the PEN-F is not low at retail and pre-order launch - there's a lot of nice stuff in it and there are return of investment costs that Olympus has to recover. There are cheaper cameras. There are surely more expensive cameras. And there are cameras whose bling value is higher than their utility value. The PEN-F has a lot of "I like it value"

I don't think I could buy one even if I sold the shirt off my back

Or sold my snaps on the sidewalk

Starting up an Institute might do it

Prayers wouldn't go astray for sure

Reasons people make up for not buying the PEN-F

From the range of feedback and comments, I thought I would summarise the vibe

The PEN-F is not weather sealed

For whatever reason if you must have weather sealing, this isn't the camera for you. Some people must have a Toyota Kluger 4WD instead of European luxury car. Different strokes for different folks. For your weather sealed body though, these products are designed to a test condition. Weather sealing is not an absolute. FYI.

• Mike Hedren's notes on weathersealing
• Extreme conditions for a Canon 7D

The PEN-F breaks the mold of cheaper PEN prices

The PEN E-P5 was not "cheap". In contrast to the OM-D E-M10, it did not have the slant of features to distinguish it from the lowered prices of the OM-D E-M5 old stock and the E-M10. It didn't sell well at recommended retail price but towards the end, the prices were so discounted that people managed to get their hands on the E-P5 and love it for the shape in street shooting and travelling.

The PEN-F to me, is a much stronger product with stronger slants towards its intended audiences. I hope it does well. It's not a Sony with a wood grip. Or machined out of solid metal. 

On a features matrix on a web page, the PEN-F has nothing really different from the OM-D E-M5 Mark II

Probably. Have you got the right features in the matrix? Or is the left column a list of faux DSLR design features? Like a big grip to balance the 300mm f/4 M.Zuiko lens. Or Phase Detect so that the body can focus a Bigma. The PEN-F isn't a faux DSLR.

You don't have a skirt. Or wear tight pants, a lumberjacket and have a beard.

So sorry for you. But you don't have to wear a skirt. Or tight pants, lumberjacket and a beard. Look, I held a PEN-F for some hours. Nuts still feel ok. Voice hasn't changed an octave higher.

Will you tell the CEO or shall I?

Be Happy. Enjoy Your Day

The Olympus PEN-F - Part 3 of the personal narrative

Part 1 and Part 2 precede this article. 

Colouring your perceptions

When Robin Wong let me have the PEN-F to try out, he warned me that the raw would not be supported by third party software yet and even Olympus Viewer 2 might not be ready to read it. When I got home, I tried the Adobe duo (Photoshop and Lightroom CC) and Corel Aftershot Pro - no, they would not read the file. Picasa desktop client did. Lightzone did. Sagelight Editor did. I ran Olympus Viewer and there was an update prompt. Olympus Viewer 3, Version 2.0 came down and yay! it supports the PEN-F.

Now Olympus Viewer gets a fair bit of disdain and abuse from users and never-want-to-be-users. It's slow, the original versions were flaky. Over time, on Windows, it's functional enough for me. In one FB group posting, one unkind user said "Only Robin Wong uses it, and I guess that's because he's an Olympus employee". Some people can just be so unkind. Well, I use it, from time to time. This is an obvious instance - if the third party programs are not ready yet, Olympus Viewer works. I don't need a stage managed workflow, I'm not in a deliver-or-die business / production role. All I need right now is to produce some nice photos.

I was interested in seeing how Olympus would graft those cool looking JPEG processing tunings from the PEN-F onto Olympus Viewer - remember, this is a program that works with all the Olympus camera models. Here's what I experienced.

The new Colour Profile is listed in the same section as the existing list of colours - Natural, Vivid etc... When I choose Colour Profile, I am presented  with a colour wheel reminiscent of the Color Creator that was pioneered in the earlier Olympus models. Except that this Color Wheel allows you to select from the rainbow of colours, and set all of them, not just one colour. You can choose the colour and set the degree of vividness (negative as well as positive).

The Highlight & Shadow curve control gadget has also been previously introduced in earlier models. This time, it has Midtone control. Don't forget, you can nominate Auto Gradation in another section - this could be used to lighten shadows for the old aged film feel. Or change the Contrast.

Shown above is the dialog to apply a personalised Color Profile Setting. Instead of saving template settings for Color Profiles, the process works like thusly:

1. Save a JPEG from the camera or by using Olympus Viewer, adjusted to taste.
2. Click on that drop down arrow above and right of the Color Wheel and the dialog will display (as in the screenshot above.)
3. The dialog in Windows opens at your ..\users\yourusername\pictures folder - if you placed the jpeg somewhere else (I do), navigate to that folder
4. Choose that JPEG as the donor and apply that personalised colour profile to the selected image(s) in Olympus Viewer

The Color Wheel after some adjustment

I'm not an experienced colorist, my useage has been with some Topaz products like Adjust and Restyle, so I'm looking to those who have color grading skills to provide some leadership with this tool.

Here's a Before

and After

Note that after a few iterations to discover the look that you're centred upon, the "After" could be saved as a preset in the camera so that you have an in-your-face intuitive visual.

On to Part 4