New RAW converter Photo Ninja boost Olympus OMD quality.

I hope that people will not object to my joining the discussion, even though I shoot with a Pentax K-5, not an OM-D. I have been using Photo Ninja steadily for the past 6 weeks, and I find it to be far superior to Capture One (my prior standby), ACR and DxO. The only other raw convertor that even comes close is RPP, but Photo Ninja's highlight recovery is vastly superior. Moreover, images processed in RPP always need considerable further adjustments in a secondary editor, such as Photoshop. In contrast, PN gets them looking nearly perfect and requires relatively little effort to do so. Local adjustments and fine tuning may still be necessary in Photoshop, but the basic adjustments, including Noise Ninja, within PN are truly outstanding.

What is currently lacking in PN are all of the features that users of all-in-one programs have come to rely on. Suffice it to say that features will be added in future upgrades. For the time being, one can still use LR, C1 or PS alongside PN to get the best of both worlds. BTW, a Photoshop plugin version of Photo Ninja is in the works.

Those who think that they can match Photo Ninja's results with ACR or any other raw convertor should download the program and run head to head tests. I think they will find that it is not so easily done, if it can be done at all. It took me about one week to fully understand how PN operates, but now that I have, there is no going back.

Rob