Processing Digital Images

Ranchu said:
For raw conversion I use only the camera maker's raw converter. Nobody else knows the sensor inside and out, and nobody else is as motivated to get it right. Less casts that way.
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I use 3 brands of digital camera and 2 scanners with b&W and color negative film and a variety of transparency films (the film is from the past, but it's important to me). It's a lot easier for me to use programs that really don't care what the source of my images are. For me, the cameras are just tools. Consequently, my camera bag is often a mixed bag. And the software has to handle that mixed bag.


True that it costs less to use the software furnished free by the camera manufacturer, but over the years I think the independent folks like Adobe, Capture One and DxO have come up with programs that do exceptionally well with raw files. Leitz has no processor of their own, relying first on Capture One and then Adobe. To be honest, I prefer the same independent software for my Canon files. I started with the Canon programs and have evaluated their software every time a new camera purchase has given me an upgraded copy of the software. I think the Canon software is very good. The independent software has more features, but long before we get to those bells and whistles I find the independent programs often produce results more to my taste. (For example, the preset sharpening for the small sensor Canon S90 and G10 in Capture One is more to my taste than the Canon program.) Notice I say "taste." I don't argue with someone who prefers another result or who doesn't want to use the added features or the universality of the independent programs. But in no way has my experience led me to believe that the major independent processing programs are in anyway inferior to those provided by the manufacturer.

My experience, obviously limited, has led me to a conclusion that defies logic. The independent programs produce superior results to the manufacturer's software.
 
LR primary. PS secondary. Mixed cameras too. 3 different Raw formats. LR converts them all, well enough.
 
In my initial post I indicated I used Photoshop for things that Lightroom didn’t have like the patch tool. That sort of undersells the reasons that one goes to Photoshop. Not only does it have different tools, but it has layers. The ability to use many tools on a duplicate layer but then add only a percentage of their total effect in that layer to the original image probably does more to keep me from exhibiting bad taste and computer manipulation overkill than any other program feature.
 
Photoshop - Still the simplest tool for a lot of things.

Lightroom - I found it to process color corrections better than Aperture. I suspect that it processes internally with 32bit floating point accuracy.

Nuke (by the Foundry) - Heavy duty image processor used in Film/TV post production. Makes Photoshop look like an Etch-a-sketch. But I do need to get someone to write me an .icc profile viewer for it.
 
Bill Pierce said:
True that it costs less to use the software furnished free by the camera manufacturer, but over the years I think the independent folks like Adobe, Capture One and DxO have come up with programs that do exceptionally well with raw files. Leitz has no processor of their own, relying first on Capture One and then Adobe. To be honest, I prefer the same independent software for my Canon files. I started with the Canon programs and have evaluated their software every time a new camera purchase has given me an upgraded copy of the software. I think the Canon software is very good. The independent software has more features, but long before we get to those bells and whistles I find the independent programs often produce results more to my taste. (For example, the preset sharpening for the small sensor Canon S90 and G10 in Capture One is more to my taste than the Canon program.) Notice I say "taste." I don't argue with someone who prefers another result or who doesn't want to use the added features or the universality of the independent programs. But in no way has my experience led me to believe that the major independent processing programs are in anyway inferior to those provided by the manufacturer.

My experience, obviously limited, has led me to a conclusion that defies logic. The independent programs produce superior results to the manufacturer's software.
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Missed this before. I'm certainly not going to say you shouldn't use what gets you the results you like, that's the most important thing. I don't get what I like from what digital I use for the most part, but I do get more of it from the manufacturer's convertors. So I buy film. Cost is not my primary criteria.

🙂

For more than a decade Adobe shills have insisted that a raw file was composed of grayscale mud, made into color by a raw convertor. That is certainly true if their convertor is used.

That ended here, if anyone's bored some evening.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=22471

Phase builds proper profiles, though, good for them.
 
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Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Photoshop. Is there anything else?

I do have Lightroom 2 but it runs real slow on my ancient Mac G4 so I just use Photoshop CS.
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Agree...

It's the most powerful photo editor ever. You can do anything and everything - and do it quickly. With the scads of brilliant plug-ins, I see no reason for Lightroom to exist other than for Adobe shareholders. Make a brilliant mature product that's damned near perfect? Folks falling off the upgrade wagon? What to do? Introduce your own competition!!! And that's all Lightroom is. A program - which happens to be a lesser product, that competes with Photoshop, that's owned by the company that makes Photoshop.

Because I see the fraud program - Lightroom, for what it is... Sorry, Adobe and your shareholders, no sale. Sorry, if you don't see Lightroom for what it is...

Photographers - something new comes out? Gotta have it!!!! - Even if you already have something that does the same stinkin' thing, and even if it's better. This applies to lenses, cameras bodies, software - whatever. It's hilarious. I'm glad I'm cured of this. Photographers get gas too often. - They're - metaphorically, a lactaid intolerant lot. Now a really great and useful product would be if the makers of this:
beano1.jpg

...would come out with "Beano for Photographers". Slogan: "Cures Photographic Gas". (Bad thing about this kind of gas is you can't blame it on the dog...)
Lightroom - the biggest fraud program... evah!

- Oh - and by the way, wonking around with RAW files is a waste of time. Been there, done that too. I couldn't even imagine. Let the camera do that. If you want to spend hours wanking around with RAW files, sell your digital cameras and buy a large format camera and get darkroom equipment where you can spend the rest of your life "perfecting" a single print. Digital is about speed - actually optimizing speed and accuracy. The whole RAW thing defeats this. This is another "unexpected" revenue stream the photographic software market gleefully laughs itself all the way to the bank with... as they shake their heads saying, "Silly photographers..." What "marks"...

Quit zooming in to 1000% in "Lightroom" or Capture One or any other RAW processor. Your pictures look fine. You can't see these changes - physiologically impossible, if you view your prints from a few feet away like normal people (ie - not photographers). If you do this you don't need DxO or Lightroom. You need a visit to the psychiatrist and something for your OCD.
 
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NickTrop : "Lightroom - the biggest fraud program... evah! - Oh - and by the way, wonking around with RAW files is a waste of time."

Can't say that I agree. One advantage of programs like Lightroom - they are non-destructive. Do what you will, you can always revert to the unadjusted, full-information original.
 
The do different things and do them differently. LR is easier to do non-destructive edits and also does a superb job of archiving and retrieval...somewhat important for photographers, no?

PS can be a hundred things for a hundred different types of image-crafters...and that's great. LR seems to me to be done from the ground up for photographers.
 
i was using photoshop cs4, but recently got lightroom 3. lightroom really does everything i need, including its various obvious advantages over photoshop. indeed, photoshop has myriad functions that lightroom does not have (e.g., patterns and layers and all sorts of odd things)--but i do not miss those functions at all.
 
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