Open Source (Raw Therapee) vs Lightroom - sunset winner is Raw Therapee.

[dreed]

Last night I was working on a sunset image in Lightroom and LR was giving me really strange colours (camera is 5D Mark IV). No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to give me proper colours (mainly red.)

I had a look at other tools I had installed and at some point in the past, I'd given RawDigger a try.

The difference was amazing however RawDigger's trial had expired and I could not export. I did some browsing and found Raw Therapee (it uses the same converter - libraw/dcraw) that RawDigger uses.

The results are exactly what I wanted and actually look real. The lightroom image... who knows ... The only problem is I now feel obligated to research many prior images to see if better colour is there waiting.

I've attached 3 images. All three have NO post processing applied by me. I have done no calibration.

Image #1 - Adobe Lightroom (Class CC "8.1").
Image #2 - Raw Therapee
Image #3 - Raw Therapee (Adobe RGB)

[kers]

Maybe the out of the box colours are in this case better with product A, but sunsets are something extraordinary...
I see differences between Raw converters but i have not found one that is better in all respects...
Raw therapy is usualy very instable on my computer ( mac)
PS I usually start in lightroom with the camera neutral profile...

[kimballistic]

I'd be curious to see screenshots of your edit settings.

ESPECIALLY your RawDigger edits.

[smahn]

Raw Therapee is a fine product, and no reason to doubt it might be the winner for your preferences at default settings for any given image. However, even if just for kicks, you might want to try different camera profiles in Lightroom and seeing what you can do with customized settings.

[dreed]

I'd be curious to see screenshots of your edit settings.

ESPECIALLY your RawDigger edits.

I made no edits with RawDigger/RawTherapee. These are all default image renderings.

[chez]

I made no edits with RawDigger/RawTherapee. These are all default image renderings.

What do you mean by default? What profile did you use in Lightroom...that could make a huge difference.

[Chris Kern]

Last night I was working on a sunset image in Lightroom and LR was giving me really strange colours (camera is 5D Mark IV). No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to give me proper colours (mainly red.)
. . .
I've attached 3 images. All three have NO post processing applied by me. I have done no calibration.

Did I understand you correctly?  You haven't done any post-processing, you don't have a color-managed workflow, and you aren't happy with the colors in one of your sample output files.  No surprise there.

These are all default image renderings.

I have difficulty understanding why you are shooting raw and then failing to use the editing tools offered by the post-processing products at your disposal.  The manufacturers' defaults simply represent what some software development team considered an appropriate starting point for further processing.  If you don't like the ones offered by a particular product, create your own presets.  Or just edit each file to your liking.

[digitaldog]

Making such comparisons, with defaults only tells you about the defaults. And as other’s have stated, a camera profile can make a huge difference. As of course would be other settings that are not out of the box defaults. So this is akin to showing three cameras JPEGs processing and stating you prefer camera A’s JPEG which has some meaning but not a lot for the raw shooter who doesn’t care about what a camera  processes from raw. You’ve made a valid point, about your subjective opinion of a default in three raw converters on one image. But much more than that, it doesn’t tell us much more.

[GrahamBy]

Both darktable and RawTherapee implement some of the best demosaic algorithms. The differences are so small that you need to resort to extreme pixel peeking on pathological examples to see where AMAZE might be marginally better than VNG etc etc.

The rest comes down to highlight reconstruction where you possibly clipped the exposure (good chance it's this with a sunset: RT is very good, dt a bit less) and how you edit (which may be more or less difficult depending on the tools, but basically the same capabilities). The great advantage is that all the details are publically available, you can discuss them with the developers... and they're free.

[danvsjr]

At the risk of missing the point, have you tried Canon's DPP etc.? I have found that the various "raw converters" all do something well. DPP does a pretty nice job with some raw files that LR just does not seem to get right. I use LR 95% of the time, but then try DxO Photolab, DPP, Luminar, etc on the difficult files.

[xpatUSA]

I'd be curious to see screenshots of your edit settings.

ESPECIALLY your RawDigger edits.

LOL