FYI looks like the ball is totally in apple and adobe court

[Brody LeBlanc]

Do people realize that lightroom and ACR actually do work just fine with fuji raw files? Because they do. I have 150 photos in my lightroom library right now, and they're good files.

The 'problems' are overblown. Capture One now works too, and it's a slightly better conversion. TBH this whole ordeal is extremely overblown. ACR has supported the x-trans file for like 6 months.

Couldn't disagree more. LR4.2 is horrible with high ISO files and detail heavy images. I very much prefer Lightroom's user interphase, but
I've used Lightroom since they released X-Trans support and C1 is unquestionably better at rendering detail and recovering shadows/highlights. RPP renders a nice level of detail, but has almost no freedom with altering exposure. You can maybe push the files up or down one stop.
I couldn't imagine any self-respecting photographer not doing whatever they can to get the best files from their cameras.
I dont want to know how much I've spent on different camera systems and lens combos throughout the years, but that would all be trivial if there wasn't a way to reveal all of the detail available.

 

[Godfrey]

The relatively poor quality I see from Fuji raw conversions with Camera Raw, Lightroom and Aperture are only one of the reasons I'm uninterested in the Fuji cameras. :-/

G

 

[Jamie Pillers]

The relatively poor quality I see from Fuji raw conversions with Camera Raw, Lightroom and Aperture are only one of the reasons I'm uninterested in the Fuji cameras. :-/

G

Actually, I think the Fuji cameras signal a possible paradigm shift. Their jpeg output is so good that RAW conversion isn't really necessary. The output is certainly as good as I ever got with film and the resulting prints are excellent. I expect that in a few years no one will be talking much about RAW file workflows anymore. 🙂

 

[GaryLH]

Actually, I think the Fuji cameras signal a possible paradigm shift. Their jpeg output is so good that RAW conversion isn't really necessary. The output is certainly as good as I ever got with film and the resulting prints are excellent. I expect that in a few years no one will be talking much about RAW file workflows anymore. 🙂

Fuji jpgs are amongst the best I have ever seen...

However, a raw file can pull more dynamic range info out as well as more details...

Btw the worst jpg engine I have ever encountered in the last 4-5 years in the sigma foveon one... The difference between raw file versus jpg from the dp2/1 Merrill's is no contest even at iso 200.. Night and day difference in amount of detail that can be resolved.

Gary

 

[jsrockit]

I couldn't imagine any self-respecting photographer not doing whatever they can to get the best files from their cameras.

Best? perhaps for some jpegs are better than their skills with RAW?

I would imagine some very successful photographers use jpeg routinely. I prefer RAW, but I can see the usefulness of modern jpegs in certain situations.

 

[aleksanderpolo]

One of the best thing that happened to me was that I started with a Panny with horrible jpeg, forced to learn to process RAW.

Now I can't imagine giving control of color temperature, mid-tone, black level, etc to some unseen engineer who has no idea what I want my pic to look like, no matter how "good" the jpeg engine is. 🙂

 

[back alley]

i pp the jpegs the same as the raw...

 

[semilog]

Fuji could always adopt the open DNG format... But nope.
Just trying to play devil's advocate here. 😛

Reading the Fuji RAW format is not the problem. That is technically straightforward and can be done by anyone familiar with the basics of image file formats.

Demosaicing the pseudorandom XTRANS sensor array is the problem. It requires some reasonably sophisticated algorithms. Fuji claim to have provided the necessary IP. Now we have to see if Apple and Adobe will do the work to make implementations (or, in Adobe's case, to improve their existing implementation).

 

[semilog]

Do people realize that lightroom and ACR actually do work just fine with fuji raw files? Because they do. I have 150 photos in my lightroom library right now, and they're good files.

The 'problems' are overblown. Capture One now works too, and it's a slightly better conversion. TBH this whole ordeal is extremely overblown. ACR has supported the x-trans file for like 6 months.

This is absolutely correct. I have in excess of 5000 XTRANS files in my Lightroom library. For almost all purposes except making really large prints the existing Adobe conversion is more than adequate. For really large prints, Capture One really pulls out the fine detail.

And I like the Capture One control paradigm. I'm seriously thinking of using it as my main RAW engine, and Photo Mechanic for digital asset management, and dumping all Adobe stuff save for an older version of PS.

 

[Godfrey]

Actually, I think the Fuji cameras signal a possible paradigm shift. Their jpeg output is so good that RAW conversion isn't really necessary. The output is certainly as good as I ever got with film and the resulting prints are excellent. I expect that in a few years no one will be talking much about RAW file workflows anymore. 🙂

The same could be said of my 2003 Olympus E-1. The best JPEG engine of any camera I've ever used.

But raw capture gives many more possibilities, and now .. A decade later ... raw conversion technology has advanced to tha point where I can take this old camera, that once I'd have kept restricted to ISO 400, and comfortably make excellent exposures at ISO 1600, even 3200 in a pinch.

Raw capture also allows you to work more simply when shooting, rather than having to think of rendering options at shooting time.