Godfrey, Thanks for the test but I think your process is a little flawed when it came to Silkypix. You had a pre-disposition towards SP and your final conclusion remained the same. I do not expect you to take a week to learn the program to make a valid comparison. However, you could pass these RAW files to someone who actually knows how to use the program and have them ship back to you PSD files or another format that you can print to make a correct comparison.
I am not a SP user. I have an eval. copy and I have tried it for about 30 mins before it was too late and I needed to go to bed. You have a point when you say the interface is less than intuitive. However, this does not really show whether SP can produce a better conversion or not. As someone who has not settled in on a processing scheme I would like to know if it is worth the effort to try to learn SP, or any other tool that might make my images better. I have been using Raw Shooter Essential but we all know that product is dead with the Adobe acquisition. I would put some effort into SP if there was some tangible reason to do so. Right now we only have conflicting opinions and no true comparisons. Please do not take this an attack to your character or scientific methods. Tests and comparisons like this make the group valuable. Again, thanks for the report. Perry. On 12/14/06, Godfrey DiGiorgi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've been engaged in a couple of discussions on the DPReview.com > forum and privately with a couple of friends regards RAW processing > for K10D files. My RAW conversion workflow for the past year and more > has been based entirely around Photoshop CS2+Bridge+Camera Raw. Some > contend that Silkypix does a better job with the K10D captures on > detailing and noise ... it is compatible with the K10 PEF files. RAW > Developer is too, and many seem to find it quite a good RAW > converter. And there's Lightroom, which I've been casually working > with/learning for a while now. Lightroom and Camera Raw can only > process the K10D DNG files ... but have no defaults set up for the > K10D yet, and there is contention that they do not do as good a job > on noise and detailing. So I decided to do some direct experimentation. > > The light this afternoon was dark and flat. I went out and made some > test exposures with camera and tripod, specifically targeting > subjects that would exercise the RAW conversion routines ability to > work with high detail, noise, and difficult color balance. I made > both PEF and DNG exposures of each scene, at ISO 100, 400 and 800. I > downloaded and installed the latest Silkypix and RAW Developer > applications (evaluation copies) for Mac OS X. > > My testing would end up with a print to evaluate. I am not > particularly concerned with how 1:1 pixel rendering on the computer > screen looks, what's important to me is how an A3 print looks out of > the R2400. So I won't be showing the Photoshop files that were > produced ... you'll have to forgive me for this, but I'm testing for > my work which is producing prints. Web display quality is secondary, > and since I only ever post down-sampled, smallish renderings to the > web, it isn't difficult to take a just acceptable print file and > produce a perfectly good web rendering with respect to noise and > detailing. > > Silkypix: > > I spent two hours trying to work an image with Silkypix and gave up. > To me, the control interface and logic is completely impenetrable. I > read all the documentation, tried to give it the maximum benefit of > the doubt, and nothing I did looked even presentable. PEF default > color balances were awful, way way way off base, and I could not find > a way to correct them to get in the ballpark. DNG default color > balances did a lot better but were still off. The best I could do > with it produced an oddly colored, noisy looking, poor rendering. Not > even worth producing a print to compare against. > > RAW Developer: > > I then turned to RAW Developer. Read the documentation, took the very > same DNG file and started adjusting. I'm not entirely comfortable > with the "curves style" primary adjustment adjustment mechanism but > it got a decent rendering done for me. Took about 20 minutes. Noise > and detailing are good (this particular image is an ISO 800 shot of > leaf and grass). I intentionally turned off all noise reduction and > sharpening, made a PSD file. > > Camera RAW: > > Next I went to ACR. I know ACR very very well. It took me five > minutes to produce a rendering from the DNG file that I liked and > output to a .PSD file, again, sans all sharpening, noise removal, > etc. Used nothing but my standard techniques ... all on the "basic" > adjustment panel. Everything came into where I wanted it to be in > moments. I am not sure why some folks seem to have so much trouble > with it. > > Lightroom: > > Then I took the file to Lightroom beta 4.1. I have spent some time > working with Lightroom so I knew somewhat more about the controls > than with RAW developer and Silkypix. To my amazement, I was able to > dial in the rendering I wanted, even better than ACR, in about two > minutes. I didn't expect that. Again, I turned off noise reduction > and sharpening as best I could and output a .PSD file. > > Next I opened all three renderings in Photoshop CS2 and printed them > to an A3 size. The renderings are slightly different ... the ACR > version is the most neutral/flat, the RAW Developer version is a > little richer, the Lightroom rendering is deep and rich. I could tune > all of them to be as close as possible in Photoshop but that wasn't > the point of this exercise: I want to see what I can achieve with the > RAW converters. Photoshop is just a printing vehicle in this test. > > Comparing the three prints in detailing and noise using a magnifying > glass, the Lightroom produced rendering is the best. It is slightly > smoother and slightly less detailed than the other two, but it looks > the best. The ACR and RAW Developer prints show more roughness from > noise and slightly more detail, about on par in that respect. I know > I could do more with the noise and detailing using techniques in > Photoshop, but again that wasn't the point. > > This convinces me that I'm going to spend more time working with and > learning Lightroom. I'll remain dependent upon Photoshop/Camera Raw > as my production system until Lightroom goes final. And I will not > spend any more time with Silkypix ... I just can't work effectively > in that environment. RAW Developer has lots of promise, it would be > better with some more time and practice. But it has some other > issues, not concerned with either its user interface or rendering > qualities, that cause me to turn away from it. > > You may wonder why I didn't include Pentax Lab in this effort. > Simple: not enough time. I might install it and try it tomorrow. But > I don't expect much from it, so it's not a big priority. > > In the end, whatever works for your needs is best. > > Godfrey > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- <----------------------------------------------------> Perry Pellechia Primary email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alternate email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://homer.chem.sc.edu/perry <----------------------------------------------------> -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
