I owned a Minolta A1 a while back. Some coverters were so far off on the color it was hard to believe the product would have been offered to the public. Adam T has done tons of work with converters with the Minolta A1, and he seems to gripe about the white balance on RSE. There were complaints on the Nikon SLR forum about RSE and general complaints about color.
Most of us will download something, but if it isn't successful in a few minutes, we might give up. RSE has interesting settings to bring out detail that some people like. I've seen a lot of feedback even on the RSE site about certain profiles, changed profiles, but I gave up.
How far do people want to go? When people start using 4 different converters, it gets a little ridiculous. The jpg you get from the camera is a good starting place. When you use the basic Nikon converter, you get more or less THE NIKON jpg, but with more detail and better color. When you go to RSE, and convert, you don't. Most people want the raw conversion to look like the jpg, or be better than the jpg. But a lot of people find the raw conversion has worse color than the jpg, or they are conditioned to the jpg.
Most people who start using raw expect it to look like the jpg, but with more detail and more exact color, smoother color transitions.
If you use a converter and adjust midtones, you are definitely changing the curve. How much of a curve does the camera put on the jpg? A Nikon raw converter may put that curve on the raw output, but others may not be able to get it exactly right. Raw introduces a ton of variables. It doesn't seem very exact if you have to do a midtone adjustment, but if you do it everytime, it might be easy enough.
What you are saying about smooth transitions of tones is interesting. JPG has limited tones, limited color, so transistions will be less smooth, right? So if someone says a jpg has better color than a raw pic, does it go against your theory? How many ways can a raw converter screw up the color? What assumptions are they making? Copy? Improve? Make a bold statement?
Assume you take a perfectly exposed picture with easy white balance, balanced so you get a nice even histogram, edge to edge. Assume the jpg is flawless, with perfect color, a perfect histogram for every color, great whites, whatever. Now, if I open that with a raw converter, and use whatever the program says is default, should everything still be perfect? What should be different between the jpg, from the camera, and say a TIFF from the raw converter?
George Sears
