rosuna Posted November 27, 2006 Share #1 Posted November 27, 2006 Advertisement (gone after registration) Dear Friends, Capture One LE generates a folder called "Previews" with duplicates of the original DNG files (the name ends "xxx.DNG.preview". I found this inefficient. Capture One eats a lot of space in the hard disk. It reduces your available hard disk space by a half duplicating files. I can't accept this. The quality of the conversions is fine, but the options for correcting the RAW are too limited. I cannot select a diferent profile for each picture. Capture One Pro is more powerful, but it costs 500 euros. I find it unbelievable. I don't like the conversions made with Adobe Camera RAW, although LightRoom is a very interesting aplication, including a powerful clasification system. Aperture can't read DNG files from the M8. I would like to recommend RAW Developer. It is as powerful as Capture One Pro, but it costs like Capture One LE. It generates small "settings" files for each DNG, but it does not generate duplicates. The tools are more complete and sophisticated than those of Capture One Pro. For instance, the sharpening algorithms are the best I have never seen. They include the Richardson-Lucy interative procedure for sharpening (I think this is the only application that offers this). The B&W conversions can be made from several diferent procedures. The noise reduction also has several complementary procedures. You can select a different profile for each picture, and save a set of conversion parameters easily. The profile for the M8 is very good, and you can use the Capture One profile or Jamie Roberts' profile (although they darken the picture, I don't know why) or even create your own profiles. The RAW conversions are very, very good: more detail but also more noise than Capture One conversions. In terms of detail this is the best program I have tried. Another possibility is LightZone. It uses dcraw (like Raw Developer) as its main Raw engine. The conversions are good. The strong point of this application if a wonderful Zone System for contrast and tonal correction. Moreover, you can do selection directly on the RAW file!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted November 27, 2006 Posted November 27, 2006 Hi rosuna, Take a look here Capture One LE vs. RAW Developer. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
drjon Posted November 27, 2006 Share #2 Posted November 27, 2006 I agree completely with your assessment; I also tried Raw Developer after it was mentioned in another thread. However, I am experiencing the same issue with the darkening of the picture - maybe someone more knowledgeable can advise us on this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted November 27, 2006 Author Share #3 Posted November 27, 2006 Comments, experiences? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnastovall Posted November 27, 2006 Share #4 Posted November 27, 2006 Comments, experiences? I'm told (have not tried it) you can set a pref in Capture One to delete the preview folders each time you close it. I'm waiting on a SanDisk Extreme III to get their free offer on Capture One LE (which is upgradeable to Pro). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrogers Posted November 27, 2006 Share #5 Posted November 27, 2006 I agree completely with your assessment; I also tried Raw Developer after it was mentioned in another thread. However, I am experiencing the same issue with the darkening of the picture - maybe someone more knowledgeable can advise us on this. Raw Developer is an excellent program, and a great bargain. The darkening vs. Capture One is because they use a different default tone curve for their profiles. I've hacked up a curve that lets me use JFI black and white profiles (made for C1) with Raw Developer, but need to fine tune it. I haven't had a chance to try that tone curve with Jamie's profiles, but plan on messing with it (hopefully) later this week. I'll post what my results are, and if it is as simple as providing a new tone curve, I'll make it available. It may not be that simple, however... For the moment, you could try just lightening the existing tone curve and see if you get acceptable results. --clyde Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asher Kelman Posted November 27, 2006 Share #6 Posted November 27, 2006 Since LightZone was mentioned here, can one use the RAW shooter, C1 or other M8 profiles? Asher Kelman The Open Photography Forums Initiative Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nemeng Posted November 27, 2006 Share #7 Posted November 27, 2006 Advertisement (gone after registration) I keep saying there is more to RAW processing than only C1 :?) The thing to keep in mind with "RAW Developer" is that it insists on using colour management. So what looks good in RD will often look odd when you open it in Photoshop or save it as a plain JPEG etc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrism Posted November 27, 2006 Share #8 Posted November 27, 2006 I'm told (have not tried it) you can set a pref in Capture One to delete the preview folders each time you close it. I haven't found that setting anywhere; perhaps it is done by writing an AppleScript to delete the folder. Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Griffith Posted November 27, 2006 Share #9 Posted November 27, 2006 Raw Developer is an excellent program, and a great bargain. The darkening vs. Capture One is because they use a different default tone curve for their profiles. I've hacked up a curve that lets me use JFI black and white profiles (made for C1) with Raw Developer, but need to fine tune it. I haven't had a chance to try that tone curve with Jamie's profiles, but plan on messing with it (hopefully) later this week. I'll post what my results are, and if it is as simple as providing a new tone curve, I'll make it available. It may not be that simple, however... For the moment, you could try just lightening the existing tone curve and see if you get acceptable results. --clyde Clyde is correct in that the major reason for the dark output when using 3rd party profiles targeted at other RAW converters is due to differences between the default camera tone curves used for RAW Developer vs C1 or other converters. I have put together a set of 4 Lieca M8 camera tone curves that can be used with RAW Developer and will allow profiles that target C1 such as Jamie's, JFI, etc to be used with RAW Developer. The 4 curves should closely correspond to the 4 options (film standard, extra shadow, linear, etc) available in C1 for the M8. The curve files and instructions for their use are available here: http://www.iridientdigital.com/downloads/RAWDeveloper_LeicaM8_Curves.zip Brian Griffith Iridient Digital Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Griffith Posted November 27, 2006 Share #10 Posted November 27, 2006 I keep saying there is more to RAW processing than only C1 :?) The thing to keep in mind with "RAW Developer" is that it insists on using colour management. So what looks good in RD will often look odd when you open it in Photoshop or save it as a plain JPEG etc. As long a you are using image editing or viewing software, such as modern versions of Photoshop (Photoshop 5 or later), that are capable of using ICC based color management images in RAW Developer should look identical to images viewed in Photoshop. Just make sure that Photoshop is correctly setup to use embedded profiles from opened images and that color management is enabled. These options in Photoshop are highly recommended regardless of the source of your image files, in general color management is a very good thing particularly for photographic use where accurate color rendering is desired. The one major group of image viewing applications (at least on Mac and Windows based sytems) that unfortunately for the most part is not currently ICC color management aware are web browsers. If you images are intended to be viewed in web browsers the sRGB color space should always be used for image output. Brian Griffith Iridient Digital Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Griffith Posted November 27, 2006 Share #11 Posted November 27, 2006 It uses dcraw (like Raw Developer) as its main Raw engine. Just one note of clarification here, RAW Developer uses portions of dcraw for decoding many RAW image files and in some cases portions of dcraw for inital image data loading (actually in the case of the M8 and other DNG files basically all of the metadata parsing and image data loading is unique to RAW Developer), however the entire RAW image processing pipeline including the demosaic processing, color management, sharpening, noise reduction, etc. is all unique to RAW Developer. Not that I am saying there is anything at all wrong with dcraw, in fact I personally think you can get very good results out of it, it's just that there often seems to be some assumptions that applications based on dcraw will all give similar final image results. Brian Griffith Iridient Digital Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidada Posted November 27, 2006 Share #12 Posted November 27, 2006 Brian thanks for adding the curves I am now using your program exclusively over C1- in one word -control Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted November 27, 2006 Share #13 Posted November 27, 2006 I'm told (have not tried it) you can set a pref in Capture One to delete the preview folders each time you close it. That one's easy. alt-P brings up a "preferences" dialog box and you look at the Preview Cache tab. There are other settings controlled this way. Probably the most important is the Output settings tab, where you can check "disable sharpening," the only way to get no sharpening at all. Setting sharpening to zero in the normal output panel does not turn it off. scott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted November 27, 2006 Author Share #14 Posted November 27, 2006 That one's easy. alt-P brings up a "preferences" dialog box and you look at the Preview Cache tab. There are other settings controlled this way. Probably the most important is the Output settings tab, where you can check "disable sharpening," the only way to get no sharpening at all. Setting sharpening to zero in the normal output panel does not turn it off. scott I cannot see it in Capture One LE. When i do alt-P nothing happens. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gumshoecamus Posted November 27, 2006 Share #15 Posted November 27, 2006 my m8 has not yet arrived but I highly recommend raw developer I use it instead of flexcolor for my hassy CFV MF back and although flecolor usually produces better colour (not sure why -- brian, can you comment?) raw develop always delivers more tone, detail and microcontrast. dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted November 27, 2006 Share #16 Posted November 27, 2006 I cannot see it in Capture One LE. When i do alt-P nothing happens. I'm using C1Pro on Windows. (Can't speak for the Mac version.) The Preferences box is pretty fundamental. You can also get it from the "file" pulldown menu. Is it there for you, or are you using a Mac? scott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted November 27, 2006 Author Share #17 Posted November 27, 2006 I am using a Mac, version 3.7.6. The Preferences box does not includes a caché preview options. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmith Posted November 27, 2006 Share #18 Posted November 27, 2006 I tried Raw Developer today after reading the various post. The difference in tone, detail and microcontrast between C1 is astonishing! I thought there was a big improvement from Camera Raw to C1, but after re-extracting the same dng's, (at iso 320, 640, 1250 and 2500 ) what I liked before from C1 is now unacceptable after seeing the those same files from Raw Developer ! A combination of Raw developer and Noise Ninja makes iso 1250 look like 320. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted November 27, 2006 Author Share #19 Posted November 27, 2006 You can get similar files from Capture One by applying sharpening. However, Raw Developer brings the same level of detail with sharpening deactivated. The sharpening algorithms of Raw Developer are quite sophisticated, but they are unnecessary for the Leica M8's files in most cases. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Griffith Posted November 27, 2006 Share #20 Posted November 27, 2006 my m8 has not yet arrived but I highly recommend raw developerI use it instead of flexcolor for my hassy CFV MF back and although flecolor usually produces better colour (not sure why -- brian, can you comment?) raw develop always delivers more tone, detail and microcontrast. dave Color rendering differences for the CFV with RAW Developer vs Flexcolor are likely due to differences in the ICC camera profiles and probably some minor differences in camera tone curves as well. Unfortunately I don't have many good color target shots (ColorCheckerSG, ColorCheckerDC, HCT, IT8, ideally something with more patches than the basic Color Checker) from the recent Hasselblad backs the Leaf's and PhaseOne's seem to be much more common, just checked and I don't have any from the CFV at all. So this back is likely currently using a profile that probably could be improved quite a bit given some good reference files. Contact me by email if you are interested in providing some sample color chart image files from your back. If all you've got is a basic color checker chart in some cases that can still be helpful with fine tuning the color rendering. Brian Griffith Iridient Digital Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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