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Promising new Mac RAW app for Fuji X Trans

Braeside

New member
I'm sure a lot of you know of Sandy McGuffog (sandymc on GetDPI), the author of CornerFix and PhotoRAW for iOS. Sandy has also blogged in detail about the problems in demosaicing the Fuji X Trans sensor.

Sandy has been teasing us on his ChromaSoft blog about a new software product he is busy writing for the Macintosh, so I was anxious to find out what it was all about, as he had indicated that it was capable of processing the Fuji X-Pro 1 raw files, and I was already impressed by PhotoRAW's processing of those raw files.

I PM'd Sandy and he kindly sent me a link to a beta version of his new app.

So far I am very impressed with the results. It doesn't suffer from water colour effect like LR 4 and it has good controls for artefact reduction, allowing the user to reach a good balance between resolution and lack of colour artefacts. It is still beta software with the usual cautions, but never-the-less it is most promising.

This is a file processed with the new App, chosen not for it's artistic qualities, but because it is one that does easily show up water colour effects on the distant foliage, or colour artefacts on edges on buildings.

Download fullsize JPG (in ProPhoto RGB)


Please contact sandymc by PM if you would like to try the beta. Note it is Macintosh OS X only (Intel Mac with OS X 10.7 and newer). It does process other camera raw files besides the X trans, but I have not tried any other types yet myself.
 
Thank you David.
I have just downloaded AccuRaw and at the first look it is really very promising.
It seems that Sandy, as usual, has done a very good job.
 

emr

Member
Thanks, interesting. Just out of curiosity, I wonder if it would be possible to see the same image processed with LR4 too?
 

Braeside

New member
Woody I have replaced the original file with another, so try and download that now. Also note the last one I posted was without any curves applied. LR I used the default processing, nothing else.
 

woodyspedden

New member
I decided to play with Sandy's file adding contrast and sharpening to bring it to roughly the same general look as the lR file.

I think the Sandy file clearly shows the absence of chroma smearing seen in the lightroom file.

I look forward to Sandy's converter becoming available

Woody
 

Braeside

New member
Graham, the nice thing with Sandy's App is that you have 3 sliders for controlling detail v artefacts - Chroma Artefact Suppression, Luma Artefact Suppression and post-demosaic filtering. So, depending on the type of image content you have, you can adjust to taste.
 

Puma Cat

Member
Hi Guys,
Just joined and this is my first post, though I plan on being an active member and contributing to the community.

I've shot with Canon pro gear for many years as a pro motorsports photographers for two major racetracks in California, Laguna Seca and Sonoma (nee Infineon nee Sears Point) Raceway.

Just recently discovered the wonderful Fujifilm X-cameras, and presently have an X10 and an X-Pro1; love 'em both.

I've seen Sandy's blog and read about his commendable efforts previously. So, it's great to hear of the advent of a new X-trans RAW processor on the horizon.

Just a heads up that I've also been working with a beta of Capture One 7.02 that supports Fuji X-Trans conversion, and it have it say, it's killer! Very, very pleased with the results so far. The Beta tester NDA prevents me from posting images until 7.02 is officially released, but just wanted to let you guys know that another superb X-trans RAW conversion app is due to appear in the near term.

Cheers,
Stephen Scharf aka Puma Cat.
 

Braeside

New member
Hi Stephen and welcome to the forum, good to hear you are on the beta trial of C1. We have some other members on it as well, and there is a thread about it in this part of the forum.

Pity that Apple's Aperture Engineers appear to have ignored the Fuji X-trans so far and that Adobe have made such a poor attempt at it, that the camera JPGs are actually much better than Adobe's raw conversions!

So it is good to hear that much progress has been made by some of the other software players with the X-trans raw processing.
 

archiM44

Member
David,
Would you please compare the red color of the door to the life preserver to rendering in LR4/ACR or other processors available to you?
I find significant differences in the the rendering of red in the various processors
 

Braeside

New member
The reds (and all colours) are different between all raw processors I have tried. The JPG OOC of course depend on which 'film type' has been selected. LR seems to oversaturate the colours at default settings. I have also played with custom camera profiles, and even using the same camera profile, the colours are different between processors.

I just noticed that Adobe crop the raw file size by 56 pixels in width and 24 pixels in height. This way they get around the difficult to interpolate edge pixels that other processors are showing on the frame edges in some images.
 
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woodyspedden

New member
Could you please show where that could be seen? I'm just trying to learn something here, not contradicting what you say.
Sure

The difference is in the grasses. The XRaw file doesn't have the smearing like the Lightroom (or Photoshop files) Frankly it was even more obvious before I started messing with the contrast etc to make the XRaw file more like the Lightroom version.

I have since gotten the Beta version of XRaw myself and find I can now make very realistic appearing files.

These are simply my impressions. I have done no scientific comparisons to date.

I am also very interested in how Capture One Pro processes these files once the beta is released. It would be nice not to have to go to different processors depending on the camera one uses
 

Sapphie

Member
AccuRaw is very promising indeed. This is one of my 'test' pics and it is rendered very well:



A larger version:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8501/8329606615_d352e701c8_k.jpg

This was exported from AccuRaw as JPEG and then imported into LR, where it was sharpened slightly in LR and a few minor tone adjustments only.

I also have C1 beta. I have been spending many of the rainy UK days over the holidays comparing and my eyes are starting to boggle :)

Happy New Year to all X-trans lovers ...

Lee

P.S. AccuRaw renders X100 files very well too :)
 
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ustein

Contributing Editor
A raw converter that would not have Highlight Recovery is not for me.

Even if LR is my main tool the integration with C1 is very easy for me.


Also to watch for with 3rd party tools is how the preserve metadata.
 

ustein

Contributing Editor
Sandy, get me right I really admire the work you do. But making a good RC is a tall order these days.
 
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