Same image in 8 different raw converters

[Six]

I thought I would do a little experiment, just to see varying results between different raw converters, basically to see what I liked the best. This test is in no means scientific, in fact it's quite subjective. All I did, was load the same raw file in to each of the programs, and play around for a while to see if I could get a nice result (and how difficult that was to do).

First up, Rawshooter Premium 2006:



I thought this gave a pretty decent result, and was very easy to use and fast. Interface was good, well laid out, with all the essential controls including exposure compensation, levels, curves, contrast etc. Works pretty well as a stand alone program, but there are a few things you may have to put the image through another program such as photoshop for, namely cloning and playing with colours.

Secondly, Photoshop CS2:



Rather complicated for the first time user, but since I have been using it for a few years now, I was able to pretty quickly get a very good result. There is nothing you can't do in photoshop.

Next, Nikon Capture 4:



Like rawshooter, this was very easy and straight forward to use, had all the essential controls well laid out, and gave me a very good result. Only bad thing I can say is that you can't preview your images at a reasonable size before opening them, something you can do in rawshooter. However, colour controls in this are much better than rawshooter.

Nikon Capture NX:



Similar to Capture 4, this was quite easy to get a good result with, however, I much prefered the layout and interface of Capture 4 and would use it over NX. I didn't at all like the odd way NX does "steps" where any action you do you add as a step, it made work tedious.

Adobe Lightroom 4.1 beta:



First impressions: slow and cumbersome, but once you get over that it's really quite good. Not as straight forward as some of the others, but it's quite easy to do some cool effects. It's all just a big collection of sliders though, even the curves adjustment is just 4 sliders and there is no levels adjustment, so it doesn't give the amount of control of some of the others. Alot of the process seems automatic however, so there isn't much that you need to do. Another annoyance was that the image preview didn't seem to change for some of the adjustments I made, however the final output did. Lightroom has some serious potential, and I can't wait to get my hands on version 1.0.

DxO optics V3.5:



I didn't like this at all, the interface was rubbish, and I couldn't manage to get a result I liked with it. It did have all the essential controls, plus some, but they were difficult to use and slow to respond.

Bibble v4.9:



Didn't like this at all either, seemed overly complicated and I just couldn't seem to get a result I wanted, keep in mind though, this was the first time I had used the program.

ACDSee Pro:



Dead easy and very fast to perform the corrections, has all the essential controls, and a few more. Although the final result could have been better.


After doing all this I decided to stick with photoshop, as I know how to use it and it does everything I need, plus much more. However I use rawshooter as my first stop for the raw files, where I decide if they are keepers and how much PP needs to be done.
Hopefully someone finds this interesting  BTW Firefox 2 is brilliant, it just saved my life, I had this whole post typed up and my pc crashed, I rebooted and hit restore session in firefox and my post was still there

[Steffen]

Very nice, Six! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

If you don't mind giving me the RAW file I'll contribute an Aperture rendering.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Six]

Sure, give me an email address and I'll send away.

Also, if anyone is experienced with either Bibble or DxO I'll send the raw so you can have a crack, it would be good to see what these programs can do if you actually know what you are doing. I just couldn't get a decent result from them.

[zafra52]

Photoshop is also for me! Better the devil you know...

[Six]

Here we are, an Aperture rendering thanks to Steffen (cheers!)

[Onyx]

What would really make an interesting comparison would be the out of camera jpeg simultaneously captured with the NEF....

[Steffen]

I must say, while doing this I found that the final look is largely a matter of taste. I could have made the Aperture version look like any of the others, give or take. The same must be true in reverse.

It is hard to make an objective RAW converter comparison. Even comparing unadjusted conversions isn't really helpful, because RAW converters choose different levels of aggressiveness (in contrast, saturation, sharpening, etc) and everybody makes adjustments anyway.

I think areas where RAW converters really differ is the choice they make regarding detail vs artifact reduction, and detail vs chroma blur (for noise reduction). They all use their own strategies and none of them can get it right all the time. RAW conversion is a black art

It looks like in the end it boils down to usability, workflow, user preference, coolness.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Steffen]

What would really make an interesting comparison would be the out of camera jpeg simultaneously captured with the NEF....

I'd expect any decent out-of-camera conversion to be better than in-camera conversions. That's the whole point of shooting RAW, isn't it?

Cheers
Steffen.

[Oscar]

Thanks Six. I also have found this to be a very interesting exercise that you have undertaken. Well done.

I think it would be interesting to get opinions on the results as well. IMHO and on my work monitor the best result appears to be from NX - others will disagree I am sure. I also was quite impressed by the difference in the ACDSee result - lots of contrast and intensity.

Perhaps a good way to compare these programs would be to share a common file and have 8 different people go for what they feel is a good result, post these shots anonymously and we could poll the forum and finally reveal a "winner".

It would also be good to know how much time is spent on each image and the users comments on how difficult the procees was to achieve their desired result.

As a post processing absolute novice I think it would be interesting to see and compare results. Also (as Steffen has said) "the final look is largely a matter of taste".

Cheers, Mick

[Onyx]

What would really make an interesting comparison would be the out of camera jpeg simultaneously captured with the NEF....

I'd expect any decent out-of-camera conversion to be better than in-camera conversions. That's the whole point of shooting RAW, isn't it?

Cheers
Steffen.

Yes, one would certainly hope so. The question being how much better - and whether the difference is worth the cost in time.

While it's true that any converter should have the same amout of range in altering image parameters and the end result being any particular look could potentially be achieved by any program, I find my choice of converter dictated by its default values - as I'd rather not spend too much time per image to achieve the desired look, if an open unadjusted file comes closer to what I perceive to be favourable, I'd pick it over the others.

Old habits die hard I guess, which explains why I've increasingly given up my previously favourite RSE Essentials for NC4.x these days. Although the former is much faster in use and I had become familiar with its interface, Capture is just about the only program to retain 'as shot' parameters from the camera, and I find this infinitely useful as I'd often intentionally alter a setting on the camera with an expectation for the images.

[Steffen]

Old habits die hard I guess, which explains why I've increasingly given up my previously favourite RSE Essentials for NC4.x these days. Although the former is much faster in use and I had become familiar with its interface, Capture is just about the only program to retain 'as shot' parameters from the camera,

Interesting. Which settings does RSE not retain? I mean, apart from WB, exposure, camera curve, what else is there? Those at least are left untouched by the two RAW converters I've used (BibblePro and Aperture), until I start playing with them.

Cheers
Steffen.

[michael_]

very interesting experiment and quite a bit of difference between all of the conversions.

[MattC]

Interesting. Which settings does RSE not retain? I mean, apart from WB, exposure, camera curve, what else is there? Those at least are left untouched by the two RAW converters I've used (BibblePro and Aperture), until I start playing with them.

Colour Profiles.

Cheers

EDIT: Not talking about sRGB, aRGB or colour modes...

[Steffen]

What are colour profiles? I mean, if you don't mean ICC profiles.

Cheers
Steffen.

[MattC]

The edit was a bit ambiguous.

What I was talking about was... Profiles (ICC) that are used in the conversion of raw sensor data from source to working space.

This is something that is not found embedded (or tagged) in an NEF.

NC and NX have their own internal profiles that are used when converting raw data to the output space that you choose. Some third party software uses Nikon profiles.... Other software uses their own profiles or methods.

Cheers