Sigma Photo Pro contd.
Adjustment examples
Photo Pro 2.0 features the the same set of image parameters as 1.0 apart
from the addition of the new X3 Fill Light parameter. Thus for a detailed
examination of Exposure, Contrast, Shadow, Highlight, Saturation, Sharpness
and Color Adjustment see
this page of our Sigma SD9 review.
 X3
Fill Light
Probably the most significant new feature of any RAW converter is Foveon's
excellent new X3 Fill Light implemented in Photo Pro 2.0. It essentially
operates as an automatic dodge and burn (or in more technical words 'locally
varying tone correction'). X3 Fill Light is controlled using a slider
(just like other parameters) and has an adjustment of -2 to +2 in 0.1
steps. Increasing X3 Fill Light raises the brightness of shadow areas
of the image and retrieves highlight detail, it appears to balance the
tone between highlight and shadow to extract maximum dynamic range. The
results are extremely impressive and would be typically very difficult
to reproduce from a JPEG in a standard photo application.
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| No adjustment |
+2.0 EV Exposure Compensation |
+0.4 EV Exposure Compensation
+0.5 X3 Fill Light |
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| No adjustment |
+0.8 X3 Fill Light |
Sigma Photo Pro: Performance
Timings below taken on a Windows XP workstation with a Pentium 4 3.06
Ghz HT and 1 GB of RAM. As you can see from the figures below Photo Pro
caches a certain amount of its processing, this means that if you have
opened (saved from browser or reviewed) an image in that session then
any further review / save of that image will be extremely fast. Photo
Pro is clearly designed with performance in mind and never really leaves
you waiting. Kudos.
| Action |
Notes |
Time taken |
| Browser: Save As 8-bit TIFF |
Not opened this session |
6.7 sec |
| Browser: Save As 8-bit TIFF |
Previously opened this session |
1.4 sec |
| Review |
Not opened this session |
6.9 sec |
| Review |
Previously opened this session |
1.0 sec |
| Review: Save As 8-bit TIFF |
|
2.6 sec |
Sigma Photo Pro: What's fixed, missing, issues
Good news! Foveon has clearly spent time addressing the issues we raised
about Photo Pro 1.0 in our SD9 review. Indeed, two of the major image
quality issues have been completely resolved. Firstly JPEG output is now
using 4:4:4 subsampling for much improved JPEG quality (introduced in
Photo Pro 1.1), secondly the way that Photo Pro handles color drop-off
at the edge of overexposure has been cleaned up, the gray halos which
were a trademark of some SD9 images are now gone. Kudos.
Issues which have been resolved (since our SD9 review)
- Ability to change white balance in batch (from the browser) - DONE
- Ability to assign / remember adjustments on a per image basis - DONE
- JPEG output quality (2x2 subsampling) lets down high quality source
images - DONE
- Gray halos around overexposed areas of color (see below) - DONE
- Noise reduction for higher ISO images - DONE
What's missing
- Folder creation / deletion
- Workflow management (grouping images / 'film rolls' / jobs)
- Printing directly from Photo Pro
- Chromatic aberration reduction / Vignetting reduction
- Studio remote capture, the ability to capture / convert on the fly
via Firewire / USB
- Adjustments aren't reflected in thumbnails (thumbnails are not updated)
Current issues
- Occasional slow response in browser (when loading a folder with a
large number of images)
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