RAW editors

sonny_c

To my digital Canon Raw shooters out there....What RAW editing programs do y'all like and do not like? And Why?

A friend of mine FINALLY got me to start shooting in RAW and using Adobe Brdige + Adobe camera Raw to edit my photos. What a difference! Can't believe I was in the dark for so long. Although it does eat up a ton of CF card space, but I rectified that problem buy purchasing 2 RiData 4GB 150x CF cards for NewEggg.com for $67 each.

I've heard other Canon shooters talk about using:

• C1 RAW Workflow Software C1 Pro
• Digital Photo Professional
• Bibble Pro

wxwax

I use either Photoshop or Canon's Digital Photo Pro.

I'd prefer to use just Photoshop, but they won't allow the 5D raw converter to work on CS, they want you to buy CS2, and I'm not gonna. Waiting for Universal binary to come out before giving them more of my money.

In the meantime, I convert 5D files using DPP.

What strikes me is how different a file looks in DPP versus Photoshop. Not just a little different, but vastly different. Disconcerting, to say the least.

Futhermore, I can get effects in DPP that I can't get using Photoshop's RAW converter. For example, I got these pink skies in DPP by severely twisting the curve. I simply couldn't make it happen in PS, tho.

claudermilk

I looked at everything I could get a trial of at the time I was researching. At the time I was jumping between ACR and an early version of RSE. To me it seemed C1 and Bibble had it all over the competition & Bibble gave me 90% of the results for 30% of the price. It became a no-brainer.

I prefer Bibble Pro. It's so flexible I don't have to do a whole lot in PS & many shots never even see PS. I originally bought my license on v4.3 and it's almost a differnet program now on v4.9 so much has been added. v5 is on the horizon & while nothing specific has been released, it seems like it's going to be a very extensie update with a lot of usability improvements.

On the Bibble board someone just did a quick comparo of Bibble, C1, and Silkypix & the Bibble image has the best detail & truest color.

schmoo

I use Adobe Lightroom and I love it. I used to use Photoshops CS but for one reason or another I get MUCH better photos and (seemingly?) more options during RAW processing. It's a free download because it's still beta, but it works so well for me I am sold on getting it when it finally comes out.

DavidTO

DxO, with a review of v 3.5 here. v4 is available for PC, soon for Mac. It's slower than ACR, but the results are almost always better, IMO.

Anthony

schmooo wrote:

I use Adobe Lightroom and I love it. I used to use Photoshops CS but for one reason or another I get MUCH better photos and (seemingly?) more options during RAW processing. It's a free download because it's still beta, but it works so well for me I am sold on getting it when it finally comes out.

OT:

Is your icon picture a clip from a Tamara Lempicka portrait? Saw the exhibition of her work in London a couple of years ago and really like her work.

Anthony.

dancorder

I use Bibble Pro too.

I realised that most of what I was doing in my photo editing was messing around with curves and other colour changes. Bibble lets me do that and by using its queues (Pro only I think) I can quickly go through a lot of pictures set the colours etc how I want then get it to crank out the jpegs while I do something else. In most cases it's now faster for me to edit RAW files than to shoot JPEG, open each file in the GIMP and edit it there.

Obviously how good this is for you depends heavily on how much post processing you do.

Another advantage for me is that Bibble comes in a linux version as well as PC and Mac and has a sensible license too (basically, you can install the different versions on different PCs as long as you only use one at a time)

thebigsky

I use Lighroom, the process seems very logical and well structured and good results can be obtained very quickly. The only trouble is I still need PS for sensor dust splotch removal, I wish they'd add this to Lightroom and dual monitor support.

Charlie

marlinspike

I use Pixmantec's RawShooter Premium (now defunct as Adobe bought them) and I love it. It's fast, which is key when each time you shoot you end up with ~500 shots and you shoot several times each week. I also really like Adobe's Lightroom (which is basically why they bought RSP), only it's slow on my computer. That's because it's in beta and also my computer is slow. Also, my laptop is 1024x768 and Lightroom's release notes add that the beta version isn't totally good on 1024x768 (though it is useable). Once my new laptop gets here, I think I'll be saying I use Lightroom and I love it.

I don't like DPP because I find the workflow slow and it's noisy at high ISOs. I don't like CS2 because the workflow is slow.

cmason

I use RSE, which is still available for download. I prefer it over ACR by a long shot. However, it really only provides the RAW conversion, I usually have to go into PS to do crop and other edits.

This is why Lightroom is so appealing. it has all of the quick edit features, such as crop and straighten, along with whitebalance, levels and other items. I find I only need to go into PS now for real issues, like dodge and burn or cloning. So I have gotten to like Lightroom alot.

Bibble is a close second. I don't own it, but really liked the trial. Best of all it does a great job with noise as well as lens correction. Lightroom is very poor in this regard. Bibble rivals DxO in this respect, and is a whole lot easier to use than DxO.

So for me, it will come down to Bibble vs Lightroom. Once the price of Lightroom is announced, I will make my call.

richtersl

PS/PSE RAW Editor Question
Can anyone please tell me how I can change its default settings so that it will no longer try to adjust my photos on its own? I'd rather see the photos as I shot them as opposed to what Adobe thinks they should look like.

marlinspike

cmason wrote:

I use RSE, which is still available for download. I prefer it over ACR by a long shot. However, it really only provides the RAW conversion, I usually have to go into PS to do crop and other edits.

This is why Lightroom is so appealing. it has all of the quick edit features, such as crop and straighten, along with whitebalance, levels and other items. I find I only need to go into PS now for real issues, like dodge and burn or cloning. So I have gotten to like Lightroom alot.

RSP has those things.

Ric Grupe

DavidTO wrote:

DxO, with a review of v 3.5 here. v4 is available for PC, soon for Mac. It's slower than ACR, but the results are almost always better, IMO.

with David.

It seems like people think of DxO for lens distortion correction...but it's a good RAW convertor too. One thing nice about DxO is...if you have a batch of photos that you don't need to message, like a family get to gether, just load 'em and let DxO decide what to do...very easy and the output is ALWAYS better than the input.

DavidTO

Ric Grupe wrote:

with David.

It seems like people think of DxO for lens distortion correction...but it's a good RAW convertor too. One thing nice about DxO is...if you have a batch of photos that you don't need to message, like a family get to gether, just load 'em and let DxO decide what to do...very easy and the output is ALWAYS better than the input.

To be fair, I love the results fro DxO, but the interface on v3.5 is clunky and stupid. V4 looks to be much better, but us Mac folks don't get it until late November. :cry

jfriend

Turning off auto-adjustments

richtersl wrote:

Can anyone please tell me how I can change its default settings so that it will no longer try to adjust my photos on its own? I'd rather see the photos as I shot them as opposed to what Adobe thinks they should look like.

See this article http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/cr-auto.shtml for a way to turn off the auto adjustments.

mrcoons

dancorder wrote:

I use Bibble Pro too.

I realised that most of what I was doing in my photo editing was messing around with curves and other colour changes. Bibble lets me do that and by using its queues (Pro only I think) I can quickly go through a lot of pictures set the colours etc how I want then get it to crank out the jpegs while I do something else. In most cases it's now faster for me to edit RAW files than to shoot JPEG, open each file in the GIMP and edit it there.

Obviously how good this is for you depends heavily on how much post processing you do.

Another advantage for me is that Bibble comes in a linux version as well as PC and Mac and has a sensible license too (basically, you can install the different versions on different PCs as long as you only use one at a time)

Bibble Lite (which I use) also allows you to apply changes to multiple photos.

I've tried them all including Lightroom. I used RawShooter Premium before I found Bibble. Bibble (for me) is so much easier and faster to use. I liked Lightroom but like most Adobe products the learning curve is just too high for me. I don't have the time or the patience I guess.

Update: I have not tried DxO but will download the demo soon and give it a whirl.

TylerW

Am I the only Capture One believer in here?

DavidTO

TylerW wrote:

Am I the only Capture One believer in here?

I used to be. I liked it a lot. I moved away as ACR got better, and then I saw the results that were possible with DxO.

But Capture One is a mighty fine program, and should be tops on anyone's list.

wxwax

TylerW wrote:

Am I the only Capture One believer in here?

I can't see spending hundreds of $$$ for Photoshop, then hundreds more for a RAW convertor, when I already have one.

richtersl

jfriend wrote:

See this article http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/cr-auto.shtml for a way to turn off the auto adjustments.

Thanks!:D

pat.kane

TylerW wrote:

Am I the only Capture One believer in here?

I have C1 LE and regret the purchase.

Though I could probably get better images out of C1 than ACR, I've not spent the time to learn how to use it. I did not find its use very intuitive and I quickly became frustrated by the lack of features, e.g., IPTC editing and arbitrary rotation.

Though these features are available in the Pro version, there is just no way I can rationalize spending $500 for that version.

I found ACR to be much more intuitive to use and because it offers arbitrary rotation, IPTC editing, etc., it also lends itself to a more efficient workflow for how I acquire and edit images.

I also tried Bibble, but I stopped using it after finding some issues with how it handled (and corrupted) IPTC data. Hopefully those problems are fixed by now.

Light and Shadow

After trying virtually all the RAW converters on the market over a two year period, I decided to make DxO V.4 my prime RAW converter.

It may be slower than most but the end product is second to none. The slowness of creating the final output I rationalize by taking a long coffee or lunch break.

Now I find that with very few exceptions I no longer have to go to Photoshop to make final adjustments. Moreover, I can get 18 bit Tiff ouput as well as selected size jpegs for web resolution and posting all at one go.

Ric Grupe

DavidTO wrote:

To be fair, I love the results fro DxO, but the interface on v3.5 is clunky and stupid. V4 looks to be much better, but us Mac folks don't get it until late November. :cry

It's still a little odd, but far superior to v3.5.

To me the new color correction tools are overly complicated.....but, I'm used to the ease of use of the iCorrect EditLab plugin from PictoColor.

CatOne

Aperture user here.

www.apple.com/aperture

David_S85

I'm using DPP 2.1, and importing the resulting .TIF into Paint Shop Pro for further tweaks.

mkress65

David_S85 wrote:

I'm using DPP 2.1, and importing the resulting .TIF into Paint Shop Pro for further tweaks.

There are a couple that I've seen garner high praise but not mentioned here:

There is SilkyPix, which is currently undergoing Beta for its 3rd version -- the biggest rave I've heard about it is the colors that it produces and the biggest rant that I've heard is a possible "plastic" look to the photo. The software is here: http://www.isl.co.jp/SILKYPIX/english/

There is discussion about it at Digital Outback Photo and Open Photography Forums.
DOP: http://www.outbackphoto.com/tforum/viewboard.php?BoardID=16
OPF: http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/

Also, there is LightZone (not to be confused w/ LightRoom). LightZone is based on Ansel Adams' zone system. I've used it and I think it has promise, I just haven't had a chance to get familiar w/ its workflow. LightZone is currently in Beta for its 2nd version. LightZone can be found here: http://www.lightcrafts.com/index.php

Also, there is UpShot. I've used it and its "auto fix" (or whatever its called) feature is nice when I'm in a hurry, but man is it slow to index the photos on your computer (much, much slower than Picasa -- which, by the way, does RAWs too.) UpShot can be found here: http://www.upshotphoto.com

And, one other, is Corel Paint Shop Pro -- I've got version X and I can't get the color management to work.

David_S85

mkress65 wrote:

And, one other, is Corel Paint Shop Pro -- I've got version X and I can't get the color management to work.

PSP should not be thought of as a RAW Editor by any stretch of the imagination. ... and it really doesn't have proper color management either (other than basic adjustments), no matter what Corel Software marketing may try to sell you. PSP is strictly an editor.

cmason

David_S85 wrote:

PSP should not be thought of as a RAW Editor by any stretch of the imagination. ... and it really doesn't have proper color management either (other than basic adjustments), no matter what Corel Software marketing may try to sell you. PSP is strictly an editor.

My copy of PSP X came with RSE packaged as the RAW editor.

Carbon Based

I use to use DPP (and like the results) but I'm hooked on Lightroom for RAW editing. Export to TIFF for further PP or as more likely than not just print out of Lightroom.

Curse you Adobe for making another great (and pricey?) product!

thirdlife

sonny_c wrote:

To my digital Canon Raw shooters out there....What RAW editing programs do y'all like and do not like? And Why?

A friend of mine FINALLY got me to start shooting in RAW and using Adobe Brdige + Adobe camera Raw to edit my photos. What a difference! Can't believe I was in the dark for so long. Although it does eat up a ton of CF card space, but I rectified that problem buy purchasing 2 RiData 4GB 150x CF cards for NewEggg.com for $67 each.

I've heard other Canon shooters talk about using:

• C1 RAW Workflow Software C1 Pro
• Digital Photo Professional
• Bibble Pro

Check out this free program:
http://www.rawtherapee.com/

Its is beta and unfortunately a bit slow, but the output is just superb.