Too many choices!

[Photogeezer]

Am I the only one who is thinking that there are too many choices for RAW conversions and image editing.  Recently ON1 RAW, Luminar, Affinity Photo, Iridient Developer, and Updated Capture One 10 are just a few of the applications to announce new products.  Each application can be used to arrive at similar final images... sort of.  Each application has advocates who proclaim that converted x-trans files look great and vice versa.  Each application requires a different workflow, with many passing through LR.  Each application has a series of sliders that may have different names, but can be used similarly from application to application eg Curves.  Since there are different "styles" of photographers, I am sure that there are many opinions on the best applications or combination of applications for every photographer.  I have currently been testing the ON1 RAW pre-release and Luminar as an amateur photographer.  Before I have more invested in software than hardware, what are the Fuji shooters using or changing toward and why?

[Chucktin]

No. There's a Darwinian process that winnows out the lesser entities sooner than we'd like. So the more there are the better the survivors _may_ be.

 

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[erwiurewurwehu]

I am using Capture One. The results are definitely much better than what I got with Lightroom. I don't have time to test out other software though. It's not like you can use one and get good results immediately. It takes some time to learn.

[johant]

Too many? When you found a converter that you like, what does it matter how many others there are?

[Photogeezer]

Too many? When you found a converter that you like, what does it matter how many others there are?

 

As a former Aperture user, I know the "pain" of discontinuation.....sort of like the time dad ran off with Miss Perkins, your 1st grade teacher!!LOL

[Chucktin]

Hey he can have Miss Perkins! Mine was more like Mr. Ed anyway

[Chucktin]

(Sober responce) - I make a living running a copy of Photoshop. Adobe does make some curious choices but it seems to me their desicions lately are driven by marketing forces in that if a change is desirable in PS how that change effects everything in the CC suite is considered.

If I were advising I'd say give us a better way to un-clutter the user interface and then make the tools/options smoother. Sitting in front of a monitor, knowing what I want to do, but not knowing how gets old.

 

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[MirrorMirror]

In camera produced JPGs work wonders for my stress levels; highly recommended. Take a picture, take another; and repeat.

[Tool Belt]

My PS CS 5 camera raw will not support my X-T2. I downloaded trials of and  have played with LR, PS CC, C1 10, Raw Therapee, Photo Ninja and SilkyPix Pro. In my hands, on my computer and through my eyes C1 10 Pro worked the best and I bought it. Invest the time yourself and see what works for you.  Also bought a Spyder5Express and calibrated my monitor with the DisplayCAL open source software.

[kyoleung]

I like Capture One for several reasons

 

1. at default settings, the image quality is already quite good.

 

2. lots of controls, allowing layers for local editing.

 

3. the program's resopnse is rather snappy. 

[Barbara K. Lofton]

Why are you surprised? Some companies do have products of high quality, the others are trying to copy them for the sake of profit. At first glance it can really seem we're spoiled by choice but in fact there are only several decent raw converters and dozens of low quality stuff for making money. I use the one mentioned by @Photogezeer - https://macphun.com/luminar/raw-converter. Reasons? 1. I'm not a professional photographer, and it's easy for me to use.2.  HSL filter. 3. White balance. 4. Possible to export to Photoshop or jpeg.

[Plaatje]

Why are you surprised? Some companies do have products of high quality, the others are trying to copy them for the sake of profit. At first glance it can really seem we're spoiled by choice but in fact there are only several decent raw converters and dozens of low quality stuff for making money. I use the one mentioned by @Photogezeer - https://macphun.com/luminar/raw-converter. Reasons? 1. I'm not a professional photographer, and it's easy for me to use.2.  HSL filter. 3. White balance. 4. Possible to export to Photoshop or jpeg.

Sorry, but I disagree. Macphun made nice filters but isn't that good in converting Fuji's RAW files. Try it with the 18mm and you will see that the lens corrections given by Fuji are not seen by Luminar. Macphun knows about this failure, and promised last year they will fix it. Still no changes. There is also no other possibility to change it.So for Fuji Raw converting there are, for sure, better choices.

[Torturro]

I stopped setching - its tireing to loook, compare - and a load of pictures still udeveloped is growing

So for now: Irident X developer - change RAF to DNG and open them in Adobe Camera Raw, with all profiles etc - working nice. 

The difference in quality - made me buy this software (approx 35usd) without hesitation.

[Adam Woodhouse]

I stopped setching - its tireing to loook, compare - and a load of pictures still udeveloped is growing

So for now: Irident X developer - change RAF to DNG and open them in Adobe Camera Raw, with all profiles etc - working nice. 

The difference in quality - made me buy this software (approx 35usd) without hesitation.

 

Is it possible to do that as a batch?  I'd be interested in this tool if I could point it to a folder of 2000 RAF files and let is batch convert to DNG, then import the folder of DNG into LR.

[Torturro]

Yes. very simple. I upload 500 raf files and get 500 DNG. Thou it takes time. so I do it when I dont need my computer. On my machine (macbook pro 2,16ghz, with 8g ram) it takes approx 1hour for 100 rafs to be converted.

[RadBadTad]

After doing much searching, comparing, and being frustrated, I've gotten my routine to be based around converting to DNG with X-Transformer, and then processing the resulting files in Lightroom. It's smooth, simple, and relatively painless, and gives the best fine detail I've seen, without the compromises of giving up natural looking colors or an obnoxious workflow (like I had with Photo Ninja). 

[Adam Woodhouse]

I downloaded the demo of X-Transformer and did a batch conversion with default settings to DNG then brought the DNG into Lightroom to test highlight and shadow and sharpening settings.  Glad to see it was just like the original Fuji raw RAF file, except starting with a sharper image.  I found I could then do a bit more sharpening in LR as desired, but less was needed than normal RAF processing since the image is imported already sharpened.  It was pretty slick.

 

I then tested same batch process with Fuji's endorsed (and free) Silkypix.  It has a batch process as well, but the problem was I could only export as TIFF.  So when I imported it to LR it was a baked-finished image, so I could not apply the colour profiles in LR.  That had to be done before converting to TIFF (as it is simple to do in Silkypix).  But I wanted raw capabilities to stay in LR since that is what I'm familiar with and fast at ... plus to jump around to the different Fuji colour profiles to see how the image looks.

 

For flexibility, the batch X-Transformer to DNG, then import DNG into LR is the winner.

 

In regards to sharpness and fine detail, I was hard pressed to see a difference between Silkypix and X-Transformer results.  Both were great at that.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Adam Woodhouse

[RadBadTad]

I downloaded the demo of X-Transformer and did a batch conversion with default settings to DNG then brought the DNG into Lightroom to test highlight and shadow and sharpening settings.  Glad to see it was just like the original Fuji raw RAF file, except starting with a sharper image.  I found I could then do a bit more sharpening in LR as desired, but less was needed than normal RAF processing since the image is imported already sharpened.  It was pretty slick.

 

I then tested same batch process with Fuji's endorsed (and free) Silkypix.  It has a batch process as well, but the problem was I could only export as TIFF.  So when I imported it to LR it was a baked-finished image, so I could not apply the colour profiles in LR.  That had to be done before converting to TIFF (as it is simple to do in Silkypix).  But I wanted raw capabilities to stay in LR since that is what I'm familiar with and fast at ... plus to jump around to the different Fuji colour profiles to see how the image looks.

 

For flexibility, the X-Transformer to DNG, then import DNG into LR is the winner.

 

In regards to sharpness and fine detail, I was hard pressed to see a difference between Silkypix and X-Transformer results.  Both were great at that.

To get the best results out of X-Transformer, turn off sharpening and noise reduction and export completely clean. That made a huge difference for me. When I used the default settings, I didn't get what the big deal was. Once I turned those off, things looked much much better at 100%. I got a tiny bit of color noise, but that goes away really easily with a small amount of NR in lightroom on the resulting DNG/TIFF. 

[Adam Woodhouse]

To get the best results out of X-Transformer, turn off sharpening and noise reduction and export completely clean. That made a huge difference for me. When I used the default settings, I didn't get what the big deal was. Once I turned those off, things looked much much better at 100%. I got a tiny bit of color noise, but that goes away really easily with a small amount of NR in lightroom on the resulting DNG/TIFF. 

 

Good tip.  Thanks!

[sebas1430]

To get the best results out of X-Transformer, turn off sharpening and noise reduction and export completely clean. That made a huge difference for me. When I used the default settings, I didn't get what the big deal was. Once I turned those off, things looked much much better at 100%. I got a tiny bit of color noise, but that goes away really easily with a small amount of NR in lightroom on the resulting DNG/TIFF. 

 

Do you mean to uncheck "Turn off Lightroom sharpening" and "Turn off Lightrooom Luminance NR"? Or choosing "None" in the dropdown as well?

 

Thanks

[RadBadTad]

Do you mean to uncheck "Turn off Lightroom sharpening" and "Turn off Lightrooom Luminance NR"? Or choosing "None" in the dropdown as well?

 

Thanks

Here's a screen shot of my settings for you

 

http://imgur.com/a/jdHe8

[jetstacker]

I have newly stated using Raw Therapee which I find very good for fuji files. It does look at little daunting at first, but once you learn which tools you need, it makes great adjustments. It is also free. Mostly I just use this program, and when I need more capabilites I send the photo to affinity photo, for doge and burn, healing and stuff like that.

http://rawtherapee.com/

 

Raw Therapee also have a nice wiki page:

http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Main_Page