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5D/5-way RAW Skin Tone Test

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sorry joe didn't mean you in this reply, but the general concensus on this converter being below par, while in fact it has the best image quality among all converters (IMO) but of course lacks many useful controls. only the second part was addressed to you.

thanks for taking the time to give us an actually useful thread, quite rare to find these days around here.

thanks
Joe Marques said:
Joe
Edward Karaa said:
Joe,

Could you please give us a link to the raw file? I'm sure some
others are interested in converting it with C1 as well.
Jack_DC said:
I'd 2nd the RIT sample request, using some different picture styles
would be interesting.

Also, is it possible to post the RAW image?

While out of the box performance is interesting, I've found RAW's
advantage is being able fine tune on a per picture basis?
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Have you tried capture one? I find that it gives me very accurate and pleasing results even without the Magne profiles. I use the LE version ($99).

Yup I'm with you on RSE/RSP. I haven't been able to get decent skin tones out of it, no matter what I do. I used the eval version of color engine and the results were only marginally better. Skin tones were still ruddy or had a magenta cast. It's ok for outdoors / nature shots though.
 
From original post:
Joe Marques said:
Silkypix - I think it wins because it offers the most pleasing skin
tones to my eye. It might be a hair warm but I prefer it and it
looks great in print. I think it's fair to say that the top three
are almost too close to call a "winner". Comes down to personal
taste.



Canon DPP - almost a toss-up with Silkypix. I think DPP is
slightly more magenta. If speed is the goal DPP is probably the
most efficient workflow:



Bibble 4.6 - tough call here since it's again VERY close to the
other two. I think it's 3rd best because it looks a tiny bit
yellow to me. Bibble has the fastest conversion speed BUT the
slowest workflow. It's quite a memory hog and took too long to
created thumbs IMO. DPP and SP win hands down in speed of use:



ACR - this is where I think the converters drop off with the 1st
three being superior and then 4 and 5 significantly behind. ACR is
too bright - blowing the red channel slightly. Why does ACR
convert a well exposed image so "hot"? ACR also suffers do the the
painfully slow Bridge - which is neck and neck with Bibble for the
slowest image browser of the bunch (I have a dual core AMD system
so it's not my system).



RSP 2006 with latest lo sat Magne CE profile - very disappointed
with RSP's default conversion - it is far behind the top 3 and even
quite a distance behind ACR. Far too much contrast. Too back
because RSP is so fast and efficient.

Something always bothered me about RSP and now I see it clearly.
It appears biased toward "punchy" outdoor shots. It fails when
looking for soft and gentle tones under portrait light. Why should
I spend time tweaking an image that looks great out of the box?

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Capture One - very nice results. Might be my new favorite in terms of not adding any artifacts/color issue in a "pure conversion".



Canon RIT - not great as a "straight" process but dropping exposure a hair looks very good (this is a straight process to keep with the theme of the original thread):

 
Thanks Mike. I don't care much for picture styles. I use faithful and find that in DPP or RIT I must use Faithful or Neutral to get decent results. As for bridge - it's not too slow. It just takes a while to load the thumbs - once loaded it works fine.

Joe
Morihei said:
Joe
Thanks so much for this test. I am learning RAW conversion and this
was very helpful. First of all thats a great shot. Perfect exposure
and beautiful color and contrast. What do you think about the
Picture Styles in the 5D. I only like Standard for jpegs. I don't
have PS2 yet and I'm going insane without it but I'm using DPP and
I like it. But I want to try ACR and get into that. You say Bridge
is slow, is it too slow or just slower than the others?

Thanks again
Mike
--

When you are down and out, something always turns up -- and it is
usually the noses of your friends.

Orson Welles
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Dan, Have you checked out 4.6? There were some changes along the lines you are asking for, and will be more in the future.

Eric
 
From the color and overall contrast and look of the different conversions, my personal favourites are RIT, DPP and SP in this order.
 
I'm quite confident based on my personal experience that RIT would produce the cleanest files in terms of demosaicing artifacts. It is a pain to work with however.
 
Whilst I agree with you that some RAW converters out there are not that great, the really professional ones I find to be different to each other. Some mostly work better with one camera model versus another, and yet there is always an image I can find that breaks the generality. This is also true with NR and sharpening s/w. You can find a few really proferssional products out there that will work differently on different images depending upon the type of noise and how you want to sharpen the image. And there are some pretty sleazy products out there that are basically just wrapping some variant of selection mask around a sharpening algorithm that you've already purchased.
And some users rave about them.

--len
 
The lack of real time corrections is a deal breaker for me. It's just not worth the trial and error when moving the slider. It does create a smooth yet sharp image.

Joe
Edward Karaa said:
I'm quite confident based on my personal experience that RIT would
produce the cleanest files in terms of demosaicing artifacts. It is
a pain to work with however.
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