I guess that the results we get from LR vs. C1 very much depends on processing skills, but I would also think that our experience with tools also dictates expectations. I am a very long time LR user, I started using it with the arrival of public beta 3, the first one that did run on the Windows platform I was using at that time.
I have played around with several raw converters aside from C1 and LR, like RawTherapee, Iridient's Raw Developer and AccuRaw. From the viewpoint of workflow I think LR is the one that suits me best. RawTherapee has a lot of advanced options and is designed by a lot of really smart people. RawTherapee has tons of options, like it is possible to select different demosaic algorithms. Amaze would be very good at reducing "zipper artefacts", while "LMSE" would be effective on moiré. All these programs support DNG and DNG Colour Profiles.
Hi Erik - I absolutely agree that from a workflow point of view LR suits me much better than the other raw converters I've tried. I find RT almost unusable because it's so sluggish and complicated. I do like C1 and would put up with the workflow inconvenience if I found that the increase in quality was significant ... but then I develop few pictures so a very fast workflow isn't important to me. But I would still use LR for everything else, including image selection.
At this point though, I can see that C1 does some things better than LR and vice-versa: there's no clear winner for me. So I can't see myself using C1 except for images that I am struggling with in LR (and then I would give the image a go in C1 to see if
it can do a better job for me). As I always go to Photoshop for FM, Topaz etc (and of course for Photoshop itself), there's little that C1 can offer (me) unless it's superior demosaicing (both for detail and color).
I think you've demonstrated that C1 is better at reducing artifacts and Bart has shown that it renders fine details better (and I think the tests that I did with Imatest also show this). So for large prints or for images with moire problems (and stair-step problems) it would probably be worth initial development in C1.
As for color ... I'm not sure. For the images I've tried it's been the same: some images I preferred developed in C1 and others in LR. But in general I've found that it isn't so hard to adjust the images to give an equivalent look. But then I'm not
in general looking for color reproduction (although I do photograph my paintings and paintings of friends and I have found that LR does a very good job, using the dng profiles).
Well, the good thing is that one learns by doing these tests
All the best,
Robert