New Silkypix Developer Studio Pro 8

[brianrybolt]

Has anyone used:
Silkypix Developer Studio Pro 8 and how does it compare to LR when shooting with Fuji X trans cameras.  I use LR and Iridient X-Transformer and they work a treat.  Silkypix Developer Studio Pro 8 is at a Very reduced price at the moment.

[kirkt]

I have used v8 and now v9, which came out about 2 or 3 months ago.  It is a full featured race converter and works particularly well with Fujifilm cameras.  It is a bit quirky and does not have the more polished user interface and experience of Capture One, for example.  It does a lot of behind the scenes automatic analysis of each image to apply various levels of demosaic sharpening and noise reduction, etc.  There is a series of YouTube videos made by a guy named Mark Rouleau that goes over most of the basic controls and there is a small Facebook group that is very responsive to questions, bug discussions, etc.

I find that it does struggle with Fujifilm files that are underexposed by more than a couple of stops, primarily in that the color desaturated significantly as a result of pushing the exposure in post (or, as it is often called - pushing the ISO in post, for isoless sensors). 

v9 adds some tools but start with v8 and see how you like it.

Kirk

[m_rouleau]

There is a series of YouTube videos made by a guy named Mark Rouleau that goes over most of the basic controls and there is a small Facebook group that is very responsive to questions, bug discussions, etc.

:wave 

[kirkt]

Hi Mark!

kirk

[brianrybolt]

His voice sounds synthesized and is not very pleasant.  So much so, I couldn't stand watching the whole video.
Web address for the video is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDk13E2zsI

[m_rouleau]

His voice sounds synthesized and is not very pleasant.  So much so, I couldn't stand watching the whole video.
Web address for the video is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDk13E2zsI

That’s not me. I’m the boring old guy who rambles.

[JaapD]

Is this Sillypix still slooooow? Or have they made improvements over latest releases?

Regards,
Jaap.

[m_rouleau]

Is this Sillypix still slooooow? Or have they made improvements over latest releases?

Regards,
Jaap.

No.  In version 8 they took out an "o" so it was only sloooow, and they took out another one in v9 so now it is only slooow.  They hope by version 12 to have it "slw". 

[kirkt]

No.  In version 8 they took out an "o" so it was only sloooow, and they took out another one in v9 so now it is only slooow.  They hope by version 12 to have it "slw".

LOL.

I did post on the SilkyPix Facebook page that I would like to see a "render" command integrated into the software - that is, do not autoupdate the preview drawn on screen until I hit the Render keyboard hotkey.  This way, I can make a bunch of adjustments before the image updates and renders.  This is how Raw Photo Processor works, and once you get used to working this way in applications that do a full render of the raw data, it is a huge timesaver.

kirk

[DP]

Is this Sillypix still slooooow? Or have they made improvements over latest releases?

it seems SilkyPix code does not use GPU, hence you really need a top end CPU if you want a smooth experience... very subjective $0.02

[JaapD]

Having no GPU support should only be part of the explanation with Sillypix (pun intended). Photoshop has only GPU support for very few specific things, nearly everything is done by the CPU.

Regards,
Jaap.

[kirkt]

There is a preference to choose between a coarse preview render and a coarse>final render that will progressively refine the render in tiles as you work. While I find the final render more accurate it is distracting to work this way, where each touch of an input reverts the display to the coarse render and starts the progression to final. That’s why I suggested a “render” command that would permit the user to make adjustments without the render update and then tell the application to go ahead and render those changes on command.

Kirk

[DP]

Having no GPU support should only be part of the explanation with Sillypix (pun intended). Photoshop has only GPU support for very few specific things, nearly everything is done by the CPU.

Regards,
Jaap.

by PS you mean ACR - we are talking about raw converters (SilyPix is a raw converter)... and ACR does use GPU a lot, specifically for redrawing what you see on a screen + ACR does demosaick first and the absolute majority of what you do in UI does not lead to redemosaick... SilkyPix might have a different operations path... consider Rawtherapee which does redemosaick or RPP which does demosaick a lot later in the pipeline and also does not use GPU... hence RPP for example has manual operation to apply the parameters of conversion that you changed in UI

[bwana]

silkypix as well as fuji's own raw converter (which uses the silkypix engine) are superior to all other converters. In particular, the gradients are the smoothest and the noise is the least.

[HarveyM43]

I got Panasonic's (limited) version with my cameras & I understand it has fans but i'm hesitant to climb it's learning curve. Am I correct it can only save in Adobe 1998 RGB & sRGB colour spaces and not in prophoto? As I get more interested in printing I'm hoping (someday) to use the modest portions of my Pro-10's gamut that's outside of Adobe RGB's colourspace.   

Edit:  After playing some more with  SilkyPix SE (bundled with Panasonic cameras)  I think I found the ProPhoto option in it’s menu under 'Development' or ‘Option’; ‘setting for developed image’;’output colorspace’ set pulldown menu to ‘Convert to designated color space’ then in the second lower pulldown menu ‘ProPhoto RGB’
(note that I've downloaded the ProPhoto profile from Adobe & put it in the proper system folder on my mac; not sure if it would be available otherwise)