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How do you think Capture One 4 is handling small sensor files?

A

asabet

Guest
I know there are separate threads on C1 4 in the image processing forum, but I think that the way a particular RAW processing app handles files often has specific implications for small sensor cameras. I happen to dislike the way Lightroom renders my Ricoh GX100 images and found C1 4 beta 2 results to be much more organic. In particular, the detail and noise were crisper. The chroma NR was unfortunately detail destroying (this has always been the case with heavy chroma NR in C1), but unlike every other RAW processing app I have tried, it was able to remove color blotchiness from small sensor high ISO files. I have not yet used the release version of C1 4 but would be interested in others' thoughts on it. Planning to give it a try this weekend.
 
C

Caer

Guest
I've had a quick go and while I feel it's an improvement over SilkyPix for medium ISOs (i.e. around 400), I still prefer Raw Therapee for its much more natual-looking grain. SilkyPix's details tend to look "digital", with some horizontal and vertical maze-like artifacts, whereas C1 seems to do noise reduction even with the sliders at 0, resulting in a blotchy look in areas that aren't perfectly sharp. Here's a sample image (with a slight warm tint, my default in Raw Therapee):


And here's some 100% crops, starting with Raw Therapee.


Capture One 4:


And finally SilkyPix:


I realise there's more to life than 100% crops, but I think these details are important for larger (A3 and upwards) print sizes. Overall it looks to me like Raw Therapee applies the least noise reduction and has the finer grain.

If anyone else wants a go at the image, the DNG is here:
http://www.caerphoto.com/GRD_026172.zip
 
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A

asabet

Guest
Unfortunately C1 4 is still unstable on my Mac. I can't use Raw Therapee (Windows and Linux only). Right now, I'm liking Raw Developer (Mac only). Here's a crop processed with that app:

 
M

mlpowell

Guest
a quick 100% crop from Lightroom, with my rudimentary skills

 
A

asabet

Guest
LR emphasizes the same diagonal pattern in the fine details that Silkypix does. Like Caer, I don't like this look when viewing at 100%, though I should add that it hasn't often been problematic in a print. As for C1, I don't think it adds significant NR at baseline. Here's a crop from C1 4 with luma NR at 0 and chroma NR at 60:

 
M

Mitch Alland

Guest
Looking at all these 100% crops, I must say that I can't tell a thing, except that Raw Therapee has substantially more contrast — to the point of blowing out the highlights; and Capture one has more contrast than Silkypix, which has more than Raw Developer, if I'm not mistaken; and Lightroom seems to have less contrast than Raw Developer. As for artifacts, diagonal patters and grain, I can't get a sense what is being shown here. Can you mark up some of these samples to point what you are talking about?

I would have thought that at the point of RAW development one would want the best rendition of detail and for contrast to be kept from being excessive, since one would want to make contrast adjustments and do selective burning and dodging in subsequent processing. In this sense, and from these samples alone, I would think that Lightroom, Raw Developer and Silkypix are better than Raw Threrapee and C1.

In my general experience, it seems to me that Raw Developer gives the best rendition and excellent sharpening, noise suppression, as well as beautiful B&W conversion. Silkypix is also very hood, and often gives good highlight detail and gradation. Silkypix has very good tools and controls. However, I have been using LightZone for RAW conversion because of its excellent post-processing tools, which compensate for it's less exquisite raw conversion, and allow me to work in only one piece of software, without having to save and archive an extra, intermediary, in addition to the original RAW file and the final TIFF file. Hence, if I used Raw Developer or Silkypix, I would have to keep the original RAW file, the converted TIFF file put out by Raw Developer or Silkypix, as well as the final TIFF file, containing the Lightzone adjustments.

In my case I run that final LightZone file through Photoshop for mild output sharpening with PK Sharpener and for coversion to grayscale, to which I then assign a gamma of 2.2 for printing with ImagePrint.

—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/
 
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