Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Other Raw Converters => Topic started by: sjprg on December 27, 2015, 11:51:36 am
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I have spent a couple of days testing the "PICCURE" raw converter on both my Imac and my Asus PC and have the following short review.
This converter is SLOW, I mean SLOW, but the landscape results are superb. I tried it on images taken back to 2004 with a 10D all the way up to 2015 taken with a 5DS R and found impressive conversions to TIFF files. It could use more refinement as it does not yet do any light adjustments so you have to take it to another editor for light corrections and for JPG conversions but the focus and detail is well worth the extra time involved.
The link is on TLL or on Google or Bing search.
Try it, You might like it!
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http://piccureplus.com/?utm_source=lula&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=lula
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Thanks for pointing the product out, looks interesting.
One item I'm not finding is if it supports DNG's.
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It only outputs TIFFs from RAWs, Maybe they may expand it later. Who knows.
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It only outputs TIFFs from RAWs, Maybe they may expand it later. Who knows.
Can it read a DNG?
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It only outputs TIFFs from RAWs, Maybe they may expand it later. Who knows.
TIFFs from raw certainly seems like a potentially unnecessary bloating of file size in these days of parametric editing. They would need to be significantly improved to make the use of Piccure truly value-added.
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From what I'm reading from online reviews (couldn't access Piccure website-WAY to slow) PiccurePlus as a LR plugin can only do its thing directly on the Raw image excluding any embedded xmp or parametric edits which means the image in its unedited state has to already look right both in color and dynamic range.
Or does this app apply its sharpening/clarity enhancements on top of the LR xmp edited preview before converting to tiff?
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I use it as a stand alone converter, than play with the TIFFs in either DXO or PS. Its an extra processing step but for me the results make it worth the effort.
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You can use it as a plug-in or it can be used standalone (relying on DCRaw).
It seems to do superior optical aberration removal, if that's what you need. Makes a Canon 50mm lens look better than a Zeiss Otus, if you believe the demos.
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That's what I observed. My 10D images looked like my 1DS3 images. I ran some of my 2002 Minolta 7I JPG images through it but the results weren't quite as good, but keeping the images to about 4X8 they were more than acceptable.
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You can use it as a plug-in or it can be used standalone (relying on DCRaw).
It seems to do superior optical aberration removal, if that's what you need. Makes a Canon 50mm lens look better than a Zeiss Otus, if you believe the demos.
Not sure what demos you're referring to but I'ld like to see side by side 100% crops posted here in this thread to counter what I found in this review... http://www.thephotovideoguy.ca/blog/1865 ...the feather detail is not a desirable result.
And since you guys are actually using this app could you tell me if it allows tonal edits or is it just a straight Raw to tiff converter with the optical fixes applied?
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Here is an image shot with a Canon 5DII and a Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar T* ZE at f/4, 1/1600s at ISO 100. The first image is a 2400px wide resized image for context. The next two images are 100% crops with the "before" version representing the raw conversion in Raw Photo Processor (no sharpening) and the "after" with Piccure+, "Quality+", "micro" aberrations and no sharpening.
kirk
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Here is an image shot with a Canon 5DIII and a Zeiss Distagon T* 15mm f/2.8 ZE at f/5.6, 1/125s at ISO 100. Same deal as previously, converted in RPP.
kirk
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Here is an image shot with a Canon 5DIII and a Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II at f/8, 1/500s at ISO 200. It is an image composite made with LumaRiver HDR and converted in ACR from the LumaRiver DNG. In this version I also applied some additional sharpening in Piccure+.
kirk
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If you convert your raws directly from within Piccure+, it does not permit any tonal edits. All of my comparisons were on 16bit TIFF conversions, using Piccure+ as a plug-in from within Photoshop.
kirk
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Well it does seem to produce better micro contrast -- a hyperrealistic rendering.
I can see that there would are types of picture where this sort of crispness contributes to the final impact of the image, but in a lot of circumstances, particularly if you are producing output on a screen, rather than print, the effect will be rather lost, it seems to me, although I am willing to be persuaded otherwise.
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Thanks, kirk, for providing a meaningful and helpful comparison study and answering my question about having to convert to tiff to do further tonal adjustments.
That's also some very realistic and natural looking HDR rendering on both the LumaRiver shot and RPP. I take it RPP has a very good highlight recovering adjustment to retain the open barn door landscape detail.
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Thanks, kirk, for providing a meaningful and helpful comparison study and answering my question about having to convert to tiff to do further tonal adjustments.
That's also some very realistic and natural looking HDR rendering on both the LumaRiver shot and RPP. I take it RPP has a very good highlight recovering adjustment to retain the open barn door landscape detail.
You're welcome. RPP has basic highlight reconstruction, but I did not use it. It has very specific control over compression of the highlights when adjusting exposure, which is how I converted that image. That is, the highlight detail was all there and I was able to compress it naturally when adjusting exposure for the midtowns and quarter tones. RPP's highlight recovery is similar to dcraw's.
Happy New Year!
kirk
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Thanks for the Piccure+ link! Tried it on RAWs from 2 different cameras (classic Bayer array sensor and Fuji X-Trans II) and I'm not convinced. :-\
With the 25% sharpness set the results were quite blurry and with the 50% one they were sharp but IMO pretty unnatural (see the attachments).
I played with it for just about 15 minutes so I might have missed something but couldn't get better results. There aren't many controls to play with.
I think that RAW Threrapee or Darktable are giving better results...??? Sorry.
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Thanks for the Piccure+ link! Tried it on RAWs from 2 different cameras (classic Bayer array sensor and Fuji X-Trans II) and I'm not convinced. :-\
With the 25% sharpness set the results were quite blurry and with the 50% one they were sharp but IMO pretty unnatural (see the attachments).
I played with it for just about 15 minutes so I might have missed something but couldn't get better results. There aren't many controls to play with.
I think that RAW Threrapee or Darktable are giving better results... ??? Sorry.
I use Piccure with sharpening set at zero, and do the edge sharpening afterwards in Lightroom. This is a common approach. Piccure is good for something that could be described as microcontrast, although I am not sure if it works in the same way as microcontrast in other apps. It is worth reading the blurb (http://relaunch.piccureplus.com/) to gain an understanding of how it is supposed to work. The Facebook user g (https://www.facebook.com/groups/317623278436317/)roup is also useful. I also use it most with shots taken with less than stellar lenses. I certainly don't use it as a general purpose raw converter and I think that to do so is to misunderstand its purpose.
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A really good test I apply to any sharpening routine is to take the final results and upsample the tiff or Raw 4X the original size preferably in LR 4 and above and view at 100% to check for reasonable sharpness, not micro-fine edge sharpness but enough to look natural.
I've been able to do that on my 6MP Raws and Raws converted to tiffs by sharpening and upsampling in LR4. No needed third party sharpening software.
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I am still running tests. The latest is 163 5DSR raw images (60-90MB each). It is slow setup for Strong. Several hours, its still running
One of the things to be careful of when using Windows 10 is that the installer does not add the X64 version to the apps list so if you wish to use the X64 version you must manually use file explorer to open c:\program files\piccure and select Piccure.exe to add to the start menu or taskbar otherwise it loads the X86 version. So far it seems to be working fine processing my stormy seascapes. At 100% they look good, at 200% the water vapor in the air is starting to look like film grain on a 4K display with a K409 graphic card. Haven't seen any artifacts yet. So far I am really happy with the raw to tiff conversion. I've corrected the levels in photoshop on a couple of the images and considering the grayish day the look pretty good.
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Can it read a DNG?
Andrew, yes it does process DNG files (at least in the standalone does).