Software

The DMC-L1 is supplied with a CD's containing:

• Lumix Simple Viewer 1.1 - As the name implies, a simple JPEG viewer which also includes a 'trayicon mode' tool for automatically importing images from the camera as soon as it is attached to the computer.
   
• PHOTOfun Studio Viewer 1.1 - A more advanced photo browser / editor, although with that said it does not support the DMC-L1's RAW files.
   
• SilkyPix Developer Studio 2.0 SE - SilkyPix is a RAW conversion application developed by Ichikawa Soft Laboratory which is probably better known in Japan. SilkyPix provides a wide range of advanced RAW conversion options including adjustable noise reduction, lens aberration correction and rotation / perspective correction. At the time of writing this review version 3.0 had been released but was not available as an upgrade to 2.0 SE.

RAW conversion

As is normal in our digital SLR reviews I like to compare the supplied RAW conversion software, any optional manufacturer RAW conversion software and some third party RAW converter. In the case of the DMC-L1 we had the supplied SilkyPix Developer Studio and Adobe Camera RAW 3.6.

• JPEG - Large/Fine, Default settings
• SP - SilkyPix Developer Studio 2.0 SE (processing quality 99)
• ACR - Adobe Camera RAW 3.6

Color reproduction

Place your mouse over the label below the image to see the color from a GretagMacbeth ColorChecker chart produced using each RAW converter. Typically we are used to seeing almost no difference between in-camera JPEG and the supplied RAW converter as it is normally intended to exactly duplicate the color response of the camera. However in the case of the DMC-L1 the SilkyPix software was not developed by Panasonic and clearly has a completely different color map, this means that RAW images converted through SilkyPix will immediately have a different 'look' to them than the camera. Out of the three I personally preferred the Adobe Camera RAW conversion as it delivered richer blues and greens.

JPEG Standard

RAW SilkyPix

RAW Adobe Camera RAW

Sharpness and Detail

As you can see there is an improvement in sharpness and definition between JPEG and SilkyPix, the overall best image however was from Adobe Camera RAW with very good sharpness and definition of texture.

J P E G
S P
A C R

Resolution

Using our resolution chart shots you can see the subtle difference between in-camera JPEG and converted RAW, it's mostly after 'absolute resolution' but the converted RAW does maintain more detail from around 1800 LPH onwards. There was no discernable difference between Picture Project and Nikon Capture NX (which hints that they use the same actual engine).

JPEG from camera	SilkyPix Developer Studio (RAW)
Adobe Camera RAW (RAW)

SilkyPix artifacts

We did notice some strange 'dot' artifacts in the SilkyPix conversion of our resolution chart, these appeared both vertically and horizontally around the image and were spaced exactly 32 pixels apart.