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Re-Discovering Raw Therapee with the M262


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I played around with this program long, long ago during my brief use of the Canon system, but soon shifted to the Olympus Four-Thirds, then Micro Four-Thirds and never got back there due to software playing such a large role in the Olympus optical performance within those systems and have been an Adobe Photoshop/Camera raw use ever since.

 

Earlier this week I decided to give Raw Therapee another spin since I'm now using a Leica M9/M262 system pretty much exclusively and I have to say, the program has become quite a powerhouse and is pretty darn awesome for the cost (nothing)....

 

It took me a few minutes on the download page picking the "right" version. I first tried downloading a couple of the most recent (4.2) versions only to have it crash every time I tried opening it...and those were the supposedly fast, stable versions, on my Windows 10 machine. I wound up downloading the just prior 4.0.11.1, 64 bit program and it runs very smoothly with no issues.

 

After having used Photoshop and ACR, the slider system, naming conventions and myriad of options, of which there are still many I am wading through to understand, take a period of study and practice, but wow are the results worth taking the time to learn. The RL Deconvolution method of sharpening, used with the Edges and Microcontrast sliders is amazing, the highlight recovery slider is superior to the one in Adobe Camera raw and the shadows/darks adjustments are equally impressive.

 

As I said, still in the process of figuring out a lot about this system, but once you understand the basic controls for shadows/highlights, exposure, sharpening and noise control, it's pretty impressive what's possible.

 

I'm going back and re-processing a few files and loading them, as of this morning 12 so far, but will continue to add more, varying the subject matter, lens used and lighting conditions. If you feel like playing around with something different or are looking for a good raw processing program at the right price, this one's hard to not at least try.

 

https://gmchappell.smugmug.com/Other/Leica-M-and-Raw-Therapee/

 

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Edited by Gregm61
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That, and the end-users ability to utilize all the features, which I am still working out. Prior to this, I was strictly an Adobe Camera raw user, and still use it most of the time

 

Since posting this, I've tried, again, to load newer versions (4.2 and newer) of RT to me Windows 10 machine. Every time I try opening after download the silly program crashes, and that's loaded the "fast", supposedly stable version. 4.0.11.1 is the most recent version I can get to run somewhat reliably, and even it has crashed 3-4 times on me in the middle of processing files, so it's definitely not something I'd want to rely on as my only option.....I'll keep paying that monthly Adobe fee to keep CC current, LOL...

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