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Author Topic: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?  (Read 15268 times)

Bob Rockefeller

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Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« on: November 24, 2016, 08:56:22 am »

With the pre-release of ON1 Photo RAW available, and that fact that it may have the first new RAW converter developed in years, has anyone with the necessary skills examined the quality of those conversions?

Adobe has been in the imaging business since forever and ACR is often the Pro's choice. Phase One is well respected for the quality of its RAW conversions. Is there something new under the sun? Could ON1 compete on its quality of RAW conversion?
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Bob Rockefeller
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Cem

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2016, 09:12:03 am »

Take a look at this post Bob.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2016, 09:18:14 am by Cem »
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Bob Rockefeller

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2016, 09:14:59 am »

Take a look at this post Bob.

The link isn't working. Can you post the URL?
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Bob Rockefeller
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Cem

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2016, 09:18:31 am »

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Bob Rockefeller

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2016, 09:21:25 am »

Yes, Thanks!

I wonder why that didn't show up in my search - maybe I searched the wrong forum area.
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Bob Rockefeller
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2016, 09:43:37 am »

Yes, Thanks!

I wonder why that didn't show up in my search - maybe I searched the wrong forum area.

Hi Bob,

I'll be posting some of my findings (image crops) in this thread here when I get a bit more time. I'll re-convert with other software, in order to have the most up-to-date comparison (although the other software has not changed its algorithms, that I'm made aware of).

This will make it easier to track the progress if any, and after an official release on December 19th a new thread can be started to track the announced (sofar missing) features.

Cheers,
Bart
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Bob Rockefeller

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #6 on: November 24, 2016, 10:05:54 am »

I'll be posting some of my findings (image crops) in this thread here when I get a bit more time.

Excellent! I'll be looking forward to that.

Sadly, the initial results don't support my high expectations of a new, from the ground-up, RAW converter. Or reinforces the idea that such a thing is not a trivial endeavor.
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Bob Rockefeller
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2016, 02:48:53 pm »

I'm busy with a technical analysis of the On1 Photo Raw conversion process but run into puzzling effects. The Raw conversion seems to have noise reduction and (over-)sharpening applied that cannot be influenced with user controls. The (over-)sharpening may be intentional for compensation of a relatively low-resolution conversion. It almost looks like there is a sharpening going on with different radii at different brightness levels.

It's a puzzling effect, but it does not produce artifact-free results, on the contrary.

To be continued, when I better understand what happens, and what to do about it.

Cheers,
Bart
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Cem

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2016, 02:55:36 pm »

This sounds serious Bart. Keep us updated please. :)

I'm busy with a technical analysis of the On1 Photo Raw conversion process but run into puzzling effects. The Raw conversion seems to have noise reduction and (over-)sharpening applied that cannot be influenced with user controls. The (over-)sharpening may be intentional for compensation of a relatively low-resolution conversion. It almost looks like there is a sharpening going on with different radii at different brightness levels.

It's a puzzling effect, but it does not produce artifact-free results, on the contrary.

To be continued, when I better understand what happens, and what to do about it.

Cheers,
Bart
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #9 on: November 27, 2016, 07:37:25 am »

It's a puzzling effect, but it does not produce artifact-free results, on the contrary.

To be continued, when I better understand what happens, and what to do about it.

I've made an animation of the cropped center of a single Raw file of my resolution target. The center crop has been zoomed in to 400% to make it easier to see what happens, so at 100% zoom or smaller the artifacts are less visible, but they do make postprocessing (e.g. sharpening) more error prone.

Some of the False color artifacts can be mitigated a bit by some of the conversters, but I used non-adjusted Raw conversions, with all sharpening and noise reduction disabled.

My personal favorite still is Capture One, which produces images with very high resolution with a minimum of artifacts that can cause issues in subsequent processing. I've shown a Version 8 conversion, but version 9 produces identical results. RawTherapee (not shown here) produces results that are very close to Capture One's.

Lightroom (version 5.7 produces indentical results to the current versions) is a bit behind in both resolution and false color artifacting. As said, the false color artifacts can be mitigated a bit, but there are other converters that have more effective tools for that. On occasion Lightroom will produce edge artifacts that are more prominent than those shown here.

OnOne Photo RAW is very aggressive in extracting detail, and that results in mazing artifacts that even limit resolution before it reaches the file limits. The artifacts and lower resolution produce a gritty look the closer one gets to the file's limiting resolution. In addition, the default conversion (without sharpening or noise reduction) already seems to apply significant sharpening that cannot be disabled or controlled, and that leads to halos on sharp edges. The shown region of the resolution target only has smooth sinusoidal features, so the halos are not that obvious although it tends to exaggerate the contrast of small detail.

As a bonus, I've added a crop from the Affinity Photo Beta version 1.5.0.39 for Windows. I'm not sure if the Mac version produces the same results. The Windows version is clearly a Beta version with some issues that need to be ironed out, but they are working hard to solve them before official release. The recent update, to my eyes, also improved/changed the Raw conversion quality a bit, so I'll reserve a final judgement for the final version. However, the current version is quite aggressive in extracting maximum detail, which results in some false color artifacting, and some mazing artifacts at the very limit of resolution. One could paint in some (Chroma) noise reduction to mitigate the most visible issues.

The image I used was shot on a Canon 1Ds Mark III, with the EF-135mm f/2.0 L lens at its optimal resolution aperture, on a heavy tripod. I made sure to get the best possible focus with that combination by bracketing the focus position with a focus rail, and picking the measured highest resolution frame. Raw conversions were all done without sharpening or noise reduction.

That also means that cameras without an anti-aliasing filter will cause even more prominent artifacts, and that also explains why Capture One does so well (given its legacy with having to deal with MF sensor images with large sensor elements without low-pass filter or microlenses).

The artifacts will probably not be as prominent with lower quality lenses or with slight defocus (even as it approaches the boundaries of the DOF zone). A bit of defocus blur, camera shake, diffraction, subject motion, will reduce resolution and thus make for a less critial Demosaicing and Raw conversion.

So my test will bring out the issues one can expect if everything else is optimal. With lesser technique the issues will be less obvious, but then the whole image will be of lower technical quality.

Cheers,
Bart

P.S. The green circle represents the Nyquist limit, so anything inside that circle is aliasing which one can only hope is not too obtrusive. As detail approach and exceed the Nyquist limit, the micro-contrast would ideally fade to uniform gray if we want to avoid all aliasing artifacts.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2016, 11:05:59 am by BartvanderWolf »
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Jack Hogan

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #10 on: November 28, 2016, 04:15:58 am »

Nice work, Bart.
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Cem

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #11 on: November 28, 2016, 06:24:05 am »

Thanks a lot for the hard work Bart, really appreciated. It confirms my "non-scientific" observations that the resolution is somewhat lower in the conversions done by the ON1 RAW compared to Capture One and LR. I think that ON1 will need to improve the raw conversion aspect of their software significantly if they want to attract users who want to extract the best possible results from their raw files.
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kirkt

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2016, 10:04:56 am »

Here's a short review from someone who has pointed out some of the things I, too, have noted in using the pre-release2 version of PhotoRaw.

https://youtu.be/Nlpb7hS-hCM

kirk
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Alan Smallbone

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2016, 11:12:08 am »

Kirk,

Thanks for posting that, interesting video. I too have some of the same concerns, but I think they will eventually get them worked out. Like anything new there are always growing pains. This is certainly and ambitious project that is quite complex, so I am willing to give them some time and will continue to try and play with it.

Alan
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Alan Smallbone
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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2016, 04:25:53 am »

Thanks Bart for a very useful (and telling) animated comparison with a high quality "target".
I have enjoyed ON1 for its filters and presets, and pre-ordered their RAW but will stay with LR or CO for raw and PS to call Topaz and other plugins for most images and ON1 10.5 for filter/presets avoiding their RAW for now at least.
Regards Brandon
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Bob Rockefeller

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #15 on: December 20, 2016, 06:54:32 am »

With the release version available yesterday, it will be interesting to see what the consensus opinion is on the raw conversion quality. I'm not a sophisticated tester, but my results suggest no difference between the pre-release and the release versions. ONONE doesn't produce the same level of detail as does Lightroom or Capture One - it's noticeably soft.
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Bob Rockefeller
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Cem

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #16 on: December 20, 2016, 06:57:58 am »

The final release runs faster and more stable on my PC so far. That is definitely an improvement. The conversion quality isn't there yet. And it doesn't have a control for removing chromatic aberrations yet. Which should be an essential part of the raw converter imo.
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Alan Smallbone

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #17 on: December 20, 2016, 04:21:01 pm »

The final release runs faster and more stable on my PC so far. That is definitely an improvement. The conversion quality isn't there yet. And it doesn't have a control for removing chromatic aberrations yet. Which should be an essential part of the raw converter imo.

They have a list of planned additions and I am pretty sure it is on the list, there is a post on their site that lists the schedule, something like every 4-6 weeks there will be an update.

Alan
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Alan Smallbone
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Cem

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #18 on: December 20, 2016, 04:34:31 pm »

They have a list of planned additions and I am pretty sure it is on the list, there is a post on their site that lists the schedule, something like every 4-6 weeks there will be an update.

Alan
Yes, they mention it under Automatic Lens Corrections, which will be update #2 in 2017. I am going to keep on using the ON1 Photo Raw 2017 for the effects (filters) part, since it is many times faster than the previous (non RAW) version. I'll continue doing the raw conversion itself in either Capture One or LR. Just the speed improvement and the ability to switch individual filter layers on/off is enough improvement for me to justify the upgrade.
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Shiever

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Re: Early ON1 Photo RAW testing?
« Reply #19 on: December 20, 2016, 07:23:55 pm »

I see that Bart has also included an early version of Affinity Photo.  Now that AP 1.5 is out and Luminar is out, how do they fit into the raw conversion "race".  I would like to get away from both LR and C1 with software that is "good enough" for x-trans RAW and appears to have a long term improvement program. 
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