Thanks imants - those do indeed look very different. I'm getting the feeling that the Epson Raw is a little too saturated in the reds, and I was having trouble trying to fix that with skintones in a quick experiment last night. But otherwise the colors seem well-rendered.
I have a feeling my detailed comparison is gonna have to wait for the weekend - but quick impressions last night were like this:
- color rendering overall is best so far on Lightroom - and the color controls are by far the quickest and easiest to use
- Epson Raw and Iridient preserve far, far more detail in the files than Lightroom appears able to do.
- LR seems to lay a second AA filter over the image when rendering it. Sharpening and zero-ing noise reduction does not bring back the lost detail in LR. The files are simply much softer overall. This won't affect printing small - but I imagine it must impact larger prints visibly(?)
- Iridient does the best job of retaining film-like grain in black&white - closely followed by the excellent Epson b&w (which appears better when one needs to fine-tune lens filter type effects). The basic monochrome settings in Lightroom fall short of the other two (but can maybe be tweaked with experience to approach the others). What can't be brought back is the nuanced film-grain detail.
It appears I've used a Capture One trial at some point in the past - I remember trying it once I think, and then deciding I preferred LR. I wish these trials allowed a limited number of uses instead of limited days - I guess I'll never know now whether it's for me, and therefore Phase One lose the chance of my $499. 😎
I haven't tried Aperture yet - anyone have any input?