Serious software advice needed

[TheRubySusan]

Okay, I finally caved in, and I'm starting to shoot raw.

I have Silky Pix (came with the Panasonic). I'm not so thrilled with how it works or its power.

I have Digital Photo Professional (came with the Canon); it doesn't recognize the raw files from the FZ200. I like its power and interface.

I looked at PHotoShop Elements at a big box store and decided that it seems to be all focused tricks and gimmicks.

What would you recommend for basic photo processing -- saturation, contrast, sharpening, cropping, etc?

Cheers, Jock

Download the free trial of Photoshop Elements before you dismiss it. It doesn't do everything the "real" Photoshop does, but it's a lot more than tricks and gimmicks once you dig a little. Having said that, I'm using version 8 and will probably switch to Lightroom when Windows stops supporting it. I bought the download for 11 and hated the organizer so I "returned" it for a refund.

Check out Irfanview - with a plugin it might work for you. It isn't a good organizer, but it's free. organizer.IrfanView Formats

Aren't there RAW plugins for theGimp? Phone's ringing, gotta go.

 

[pictor]

Raw Therapee is bringing up files, but I've never seen them before with little imperfections - vignetting and CA - that the camera converter filters out. They're so ... naked.

Both converters are excellent, although one has to get used to how to work with them. You are right, that the files are very naked, since RawTherapee does less to the files than other converters. However, it supports several demosaicing algorithms, some work better with low ISO files and some with high ISO files. RawTherapee can handle rather critical files extremely well and when I tried it, I got results which are at least equally good than in Lightroom, although I don't really know RawTherapee well. It is a rather impressive converter.

darktable is a little bit easier to work with and offers a different set of manipulations than RawTherapee. Just look at how one can convert a picture to black and white, it's just beautiful! Both converters can deliver excellent results, as soon as the user knows how to work with it.

By the way, I forgot to mention LightZone, which is open source now. It is available for Windows, Linux and OS X and seems to be fine and as far as I know it is the only open source raw converter being able to read files from the X-Trans sensor.

To be honest, I have been working with Lightroom for a long time, I organize all my photographs in Lightroom, and I know Lightroom quite well. These are my reasons for using Lightroom. However, if I had to choose a raw converter today, I might decide differently, since there are free alternatives which deliver convincing results. I don't mind buying good software as long as I get what I pay for. Unfortunately, Lightroom has become a little bit too buggy. I don't want to say that Lightroom has become bad, but I won't ever be an early bird again. The first updates of version 4 and 5 corrected all problems which annoyed me, so I am still fine with it. However, as soon as Lightroom's licence model is the same as that of Photoshop, I change the converter.

 

[pictor]

I've tried a lot of them (though not all), and unless you are a Fuji X owner, I think LR rocks.

I have tried some raw files in Lightroom 5.2 and I have not found any problems I have seen in earlier versions of Lightroom. Could you please tell me more about the problems Lightroom still has with X-Trans sensors? I might eventually buy a Fuji, therefore I am rather interested in that. I would not buy a Fuji, if my workflow got too complicated.

 

[porchard]

One bit of freeware worth a look at is FastStone Image Viewer which recognizes some RAW formats

+1... it's a very good piece of software - as a piece of freeware, it's even better!

 

[porchard]

However, you may want to try the free programs RawTherapee and darktable, which are very fine programs indeed.

RawTherapee is very good (I've no experience of darktable), and you might want to try Photivo (also freeware). It's not the easiest of user interfaces, but is very powerful. I use it a lot, and I prefer the conversions to anything else that I've tried. One caveat: it does require a lot of experimentation to get the best out of it.

Edit: Photivo also handles virtually every Raw format (the only exception that I have found is the output from the Sigma Foveon sensor).

 

[KillRamsey]

I've just hustled out the door, shot a series of about a dozen shots in Fine + Raw, and will now convert the raws as best I can, then compare to the in-cam conversions from the X100. This should be interesting.

 

[KillRamsey]

Ok, this is nice. Really nice. I hope to learn a helluva lot more about all the possibilities, but... this is nice.

Here's the SOOC jog:

And my Raw conversion in Raw Therapee:

 

[kyteflyer]

I've had Photoshop CS5 for ages and havent updated... it works for me on my Mac with ACR, and in spite of SO many efforts to switch to Lightroom or Aperture, I still use iPhoto for general photo management, with Photoshop set up as the external editor.

On Windows I'm not sure what I would use, I abandoned Windows when Photoshop was at version 4 (I think CS5 is version 12). However The Gimp is a worthy choice and I do believe that there are RAW plugins available for it (http://registry.gimp.org/search/node/RAW). You might want to consider Picasa as your organiser. If money is no object, go with the Adobe stuff.

 

[wt21]

I have tried some raw files in Lightroom 5.2 and I have not found any problems I have seen in earlier versions of Lightroom. Could you please tell me more about the problems Lightroom still has with X-Trans sensors? I might eventually buy a Fuji, therefore I am rather interested in that. I would not buy a Fuji, if my workflow got too complicated.

I'm passing on second hand info, based on the analysis I've seen on the internet. It's not that Adobe won't handle X-Trans, but it seems there are 2-3 others that handle it better.

Workflow, likeliness to still be around and supported, and plug-ins: edge to LR, IMO. But it seems Iridient and some others get better results out of the X-Trans, but that's just based on what I've read in the on-line reviews.

 

[kyteflyer]

Just as an FYI to anyone looking for an alt to any program... the following site, whilst obviously not complete, is pretty good
AlternativeTo - Crowdsourced software recommendations

 

[MiguelATF]

I'll just chime in and echo what others have said - Lightroom is extremely capable and powerful.
Additionally, the fact that so many add-ons and plug-ins are available which can be used to modify your digital images - from the excellent Nik software suite (Silver Efex is great for B & W conversions) - to the VSCO film (emulation) packs that I haven't used but everyone raves about - to my own personal new favorite, a series of quite inexpensive and wonderful film (negative & slide) presets from X-Equals/Xel - all of these combine to allow you to branch out, far beyond the original and very good Lightroom controls.

Just a few caveats. If you use a Mac, newer/newest Lightroom versions may not be compatible with older (but still good) System Software. I'm not certain about PC's but suspect that there may be similar compatibility issues with certain versions, unless you are using the latest/newest hardware & software.

And finally - if you happen to have or use Macs - the Apple program, Aperture, gets very very high marks from many users - and seems to have many similar or overlapping capabilities which put it in a Lightroom class.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[DHart]

What would you recommend for basic photo processing -- saturation, contrast, sharpening, cropping, etc?

Cheers, Jock

Jock... without hesitation, I can most definitely recommend Lightroom! Superb photo editing and management software for all but higher level pixel editing. I lived in Photoshop on a daily basis, for 16 years or so and now, with Lightroom, I don't need Photoshop very often at all. I LOVE Lightroom!