Excellent information. Thanks for all your hard work. I've been tempted to try Lightroom when I have time. But I'm still up to my elbows in wedding pictures. Paul On Dec 14, 2006, at 1:21 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi 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 > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
