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Author Topic: what raw converter do you use?  (Read 6407 times)

Emilmedia

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what raw converter do you use?
« on: February 17, 2013, 03:59:22 pm »

When you shoot medium format, do you use lightroom, phocus or capture one? Weich one do you feel give you the best files.  Not just technically, but best feeling.

bcooter

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2013, 05:22:10 pm »

When you shoot medium format, do you use lightroom, phocus or capture one? Weich one do you feel give you the best files.  Not just technically, but best feeling.

For a "film" like look the very, very best is Raw Developer.

http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/rawdeveloper.html

It's not as easy to use as Lightroom, or batches as easily and well as C-1, but for specific image processing, it's very, very, very good, with excellent 16bit previews that look like those film like photoshop previews instead of those web/java look smooth previews in other convertors.



There are some semi hidden features in raw developer like setting colors per channel with points, but once you get it set, it's very pretty.

I don't use it for batch processing for web galleries and contact sheets, though you can, but I use either C-1 or lightroom for that, because I view image presentation and delivery in 4 segments.

1.  Capture, which on camera lcd or computer screen, never really matches the final finished out vision.  Non tethered I use the camera lcd, tethered the computer monitors.

2.  Web galleries contact sheets.  Usually use C-1 or Lightroom to batch out jpegs, usually C-1 and those are closer to the vision, but not exact.

3.  Processing selects out of a raw convertor, usually Raw Developer which are close but a little flat to work in photoshop.

4.  Finish out in photoshop, which can be as simple as just some slight clean up or as elaborate as effects, or masking in backgrounds.

Anyway, RD is worth the price even if you use it once a month for a few images, because when you get one of those weird digital hard to define images that just doesn't look right, RD with a few corrections always makes it much closer to the look I'm after.

Disclaimer.  I buy RD at retail price, have no agenda.

IMO

BC
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FredBGG

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2013, 06:11:12 pm »

What the final image looks like is very subjective.

Phocus, Lightroom and C1 all do a good job when you use the right settings.

Your best bet is to make your own custom camera profile for the most accurate starting point.

From there make the adjustments you like and save them as presets.

Being that you have a Hasselblad your best off starting with Phocus and Lightroom as Hasselblad now supports lightroom directly.

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bdp

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2013, 10:18:25 pm »

I used Lightroom for years and consider myself an expert user, but was always disappointed with the colour rendering. Now I have changed to Capture One for my Canon files and Phocus for my Hasselblad raws and the colours are perfect. If I try to match the colour from a Phocus tif in Lightroom sometimes it just can't do it, even with custom profiles and endless tweaking of HSL sliders. It has a strange tendency to 'mash' or group warm tones together. Almost all other raw developers can separate reds, yellows, oranges and browns MUCH better than Lightroom that sees them all as a variation of one colour, such as orange. I would love to keep using LR because it is so quick and easy to use and has a great interface, NR and creative controls, but it sucks at colour.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2013, 10:26:16 pm by bdp »
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2013, 11:17:33 pm »

For my D800 files, I really like the rendering I am getting out of C1 Pro 7. LR4 and DxO8 are very good too, but somehow I like the C1 Pro 7 look best. I am sure it would be possible to get close with both other top contenders, but it just seems to take more work.

For all my smaller cameras I use DxO 8.1 no question asked.

Cheers,
Bernard

Schewe

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2013, 11:47:34 pm »

If tethering I use C1 for capture...but for raw image processing I use Lightroom.

My experience? Lightroom can attain the best IQ of image detail (sharpening & noise reduction) while C1 has the best color by default for my IQ 180 camera back, but, there's nothing C1 can do with color that Lightroom can't other than be better at default color rendering. Once you understand how to tone and color correct in LR, you can match any tone and color correction any of the raw converters can achieve. Failure to achieve optimal color in LR is the result of the user, not the converter IMHO...your milage may vary! :~)
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theguywitha645d

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2013, 11:59:41 pm »

When using a Phase back, C1. When shooting a Pentax 645D or anything else, Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop.
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HarperPhotos

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2013, 12:22:19 am »

Hello,

For me its always been Adobe Camera Raw as its very fast and has great highlight and shadow control. Its what all my advertising clients Mac jockeys use as most of them want raw files so they have the control over manipulating the images. So I process the images in ACR and apply an xmp profile to show them where I am coming from. It gives them the control they need.

Cheers

Simon
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Simon Harper
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torger

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2013, 06:08:25 am »

I do mainly landscape photography, and I use RawTherapee (I occassionally use C1 and Lightroom too). It is nice if you intend to spend some time on your post-processing, but if you need to mass-produce images it is too slow and inefficient. It is far from being as fast and polished as the commercial programs, but image quality you can get when you are used to the program is great. It's LCC handling for my tech camera is also reasonably smooth to use, simpler than Lightroom I think but not as integrated as C1.

One of the reasons I use RT is that it has a very clear connection to the raw file, there's not lots of automatic conversions to make stuff more user-friendly and film-like (like Lightroom et al), instead you start with the plain dull raw file and you do the conversion from the ground and up (there are indeed automatic settings but they are far from as robust as the commercial programs, working fully manual is the way you extract the best from this software). The advantage is user control, to me it is valuable to be aware of the processes from raw to output, the disadvantage is that it is comparably harder to get a good result. The program does not give you a "film look", you need to create it for yourself.

The more automatic and user-friendly the commercial programs have become, the more program-specific "look" the images get. That makes me a bit nervous. Therefore I prefer a less automatic and more flexible although not-so-very-user-friendly software.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2013, 06:11:59 am by torger »
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Vladimirovich

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2013, 10:28:48 am »

One of the reasons I use RT is that it has a very clear connection to the raw file
try RPP
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Ed Foster, Jr.

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2013, 06:40:35 pm »

When you shoot medium format, do you use lightroom, phocus or capture one? Weich one do you feel give you the best files.  Not just technically, but best feeling.
Emil,
Phocus is to my liking with my Hasselblad files.

Ed
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Ed Foster, Jr.
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Emilmedia

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2013, 06:55:05 pm »

I tried Phocus today, but its not really showing my files in good resolution, seems to be doing some sort of low resolution rendering to work faster. But its still damn slow.

Anyways, the skin tones directly from Phocus are so much softer and colorful. To my liking. I had to change the files in lightroom to get them as good as they were without any work in Phocus. So i guess thats a plus.

Ed Foster, Jr.

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2013, 08:20:10 pm »

Emil,

I don't really use Lightroom, only Bridge and Photoshop with ACR. Early on when I tried ACR in PS CS5, I was not impressed with the rendering of the Hasselblad files. Perhaps I need to revisit the latest ACR in CS6. I believe that's the same RAW engine used in Lightroom. I do like like the skin tone renderings in Phocus and I've not had a problem with low resolution rendering.

Ed
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Ed Foster, Jr.
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TMARK

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2013, 08:37:46 pm »

If tethering I use C1 for capture...but for raw image processing I use Lightroom.

My experience? Lightroom can attain the best IQ of image detail (sharpening & noise reduction) while C1 has the best color by default for my IQ 180 camera back, but, there's nothing C1 can do with color that Lightroom can't other than be better at default color rendering. Once you understand how to tone and color correct in LR, you can match any tone and color correction any of the raw converters can achieve. Failure to achieve optimal color in LR is the result of the user, not the converter IMHO...your milage may vary! :~)

Yes.
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Hywel

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2013, 03:41:15 pm »

I use both Phocus and Aperture. My default starting point for Hasselblad files is Phocus, but sometimes I prefer the different colour science of Aperture and use that as a starting point instead. It depends on what look I'm going for or which one catches my eye as the more attractive.

I end up finishing everything in Aperture anyway as I like its collection of non-destructive brushes. So I export 16 bit TIFFs from Phocus for each batch, and import both those and the original RAW file into Aperture for retouching. Using an SSD as a working drive, this is acceptably quick and painless.

I wish Capture One supported Hasselblad files, because I'd like to have a third option available to me. I gather ACR/Lightroom now does the colour science the same as Phocus? Actually a shame in some ways!

  Cheers, Hywel.



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stevebri

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2013, 01:49:50 pm »

I'm with Schewe on this, I took the trouble to really learn LR and with custom profiles for my cameras I can get my phase files to look just like they do in C1 both fashion and fine art landscapes.

LR does make life so much simpler but like mist things, getting the absolute best from it means learning it thoroughly.

S
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jonathan.lipkin

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Re: what raw converter do you use?
« Reply #16 on: February 21, 2013, 08:40:09 pm »

I shoot with an H3d and an HTS (tilt shift) adapter. Phocus is the only program that will make lens corrections for the adapter. The interface is clunky, but the files look pretty good. I turn of sharpening and noise reduction and use PhotoKit Sharpener or Nik in Photoshop.
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