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R1 RAW Converter Challenge Results!

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OK... here are a few of my thoughts about these images, hopefully this may kick off a discussion about the relative merits of each.
Brian Mosley said:
In order of quality...

1. Silkypix
Click to expand...
This is an excellent rendition of the scene, with good saturation, excellent sharp detail and clean high contrast edges.


Brian Mosley said:
2. Bibble Pro
Click to expand...
While the saturation is excellent, the Bibble rendition is quite soft in comparison with Silkypix. The shadow detail in the reflections on the door is very good. The high contrast edges are well defined.


Brian Mosley said:
3. ACR Calibrated & CS2 sharpened.
Click to expand...
This rendition, while sharp and reveals lots of detail in the branches... has lower colour contrast than the top 2, and not as much shadow detail in the door reflections.


Brian Mosley said:
4. Capture One
Click to expand...
Just a little less sharp, than the ACR version... and even less colour contrast (where are the warm tones here?). Also, the red line on the high contrast tree to the right of the shot.


Brian Mosley said:
5. Lightroom
Click to expand...
The whole scene is soft, desaturated and there are artifacts in the high contrast edges to the right.



These are my personal observations, I hope they make sense, otherwise please pitch in with your own comments?

Kind Regards

Brian
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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
Would anyone skilled in Silkypix please contact me (through my profile e-mail) for the RAW file... it would be great to have an improved rendition for our comparison table.

I've downloaded the trial, but I just can't seem to get the best out of it...

Kind Regards

Brian

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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
I've just been playing with Lightzone 2.0 beta, and with some starting help from the author... can see that it has great potential - it's the only converter so far able to correctly register the yellow stars above the GB sticker.

Lightzone 2.0 beta :



Hope that helps, I've just bought Lightzone at the pre-release cost to save myself $100 and intend to use it as a backup to my main converter of choice Bibble Pro.
Click on the "Save $100 on LightZone 2.0!" to get the discount.
http://www.lightcrafts.com/index.php

Hope that helps...

Kind Regards

Brian
Brian Mosley said:
In order of quality...

1. Bibble Pro



2. Capture One



3. Silkypix



4. ACR Calibrated & CS2 sharpened.



5. Lightroom



Kind Regards

Brian
Click to expand...
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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
It would be interesting to have seen the Rover and see which converter was the most accurate in color replication. The Lightzone is more on the black/blue side. The bumper almost looks purple. Capture is closer to Lightzone but not as intense. I have noticed Bibble really pushes to yellow side. It really pops. I was not sure if the bumper has yellow in it. The more I look at the bumper I think it is close to black. It’s deceiving. I have been in the printing industry for 29 years. You think I would be able to tell. Sometimes when you look at something too long the eyes play tricks in you. Lightroom is closer to Bibble than the rest. If you look at the buttons on either side of the license plate you will see that they look crisper on Bibble than they do on Lightzone. I am going to stick with Bibble and watch the tutorials tonight. I downloaded Lightzone out of curiosity. I can't find the exposure and contrast adjustments. Do they call it something different?
 
Hello Zee,

this is only a very quick, initial attempt with LightZone - and you are correct to point out the poor colour balance... I have spent a great deal of time with Bibble Pro, so you should expect to see the best results - here's a full scale rendition with Bibble Pro... with the sharpest results using Sharpie Pro.

http://bmosley.zoto.com/img/original/7aac2849fa67a13dcc7841859327d606-.jpg

I'm very happy with the quality of the above conversion, and Bibble Pro is just so darned FAST!!!! you will be very happy if you take the time to learn this package.

There are times though, when I want to do some local enhancements which I would have to do after the conversion... probably using masks and layers in CS2. This is where LightZone becomes invaluable to me, but if I had to choose either/or, it would be Bibble Pro - just because of the quality of support, rapid ongoing development, and speed of workflow.

Hope that makes sense, LightZone is exciting because it's designed for what I want to do, rather than CS2 - which is a dinosaur imho...

Kind Regards

Brian
Zee Char said:
It would be interesting to have seen the Rover and see which
converter was the most accurate in color replication. The Lightzone
is more on the black/blue side. The bumper almost looks purple.
Capture is closer to Lightzone but not as intense. I have noticed
Bibble really pushes to yellow side. It really pops. I was not sure
if the bumper has yellow in it. The more I look at the bumper I
think it is close to black. It’s deceiving. I have been in the
printing industry for 29 years. You think I would be able to tell.
Sometimes when you look at something too long the eyes play tricks
in you. Lightroom is closer to Bibble than the rest. If you look
at the buttons on either side of the license plate you will see
that they look crisper on Bibble than they do on Lightzone. I am
going to stick with Bibble and watch the tutorials tonight. I
downloaded Lightzone out of curiosity. I can't find the exposure
and contrast adjustments. Do they call it something different?
Click to expand...
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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
I did the silkypix conversation, and mosley, you did the bibble pro one, and I think you favour that in the results :)

I think the overall winner would be the calibrated acr (what does calibrated mean now?). It has the most detail and it has very definite edges with no oversharpening or stairstepping, but the sharpest that could be archieved imo
 
Hi SteMa,
SteMa said:
I did the silkypix conversation, and mosley, you did the bibble pro
one, and I think you favour that in the results :)
Click to expand...
Actually, I favoured your Silkypix rendition here :
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=20690377
SteMa said:
I think the overall winner would be the calibrated acr (what does
calibrated mean now?). It has the most detail and it has very
definite edges with no oversharpening or stairstepping, but the
sharpest that could be archieved imo
Click to expand...
I have found that the Sharpie Pro plugin for Bibble Pro has allowed me to create an even more detailed rendition here :



But the most important thing is that, these comparisons are showing the technical limits of what each converter can acheive in the most experienced hands. There are several people honing their skills with this exercise with their converter of choice (infact I have just bought LightZone 2.0 because it shows good promise, and I want to see if I can match or exceed the quality I can achieve with Bibble Pro)

The ACR conversion was further enhanced with CS2 (not strictly within the spirit of the comparison, but there were strong arguments in favour of considering ACR to be a part of CS2, so I think it was an interesting entry) - the calibration of ACR was via a free script from http://www.rags-int-inc.com (freeware)

Hope that helps!

Kind Regards

Brian

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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
Thanks for the reply. I had my good friend come off the printing press and we were trying to decide which had what type of color cast. Like you said it's a matter of working with the one you have. All in all I think all the top rated ones are good. It’s a matter of personal preference. I have been checking the Bibble website and yes there is a lot of support and it has a lot to offer. I’m convinced I made the right choice. No more testing. I'm going to take the time learn it properly. I noticed your name in I believe in the testimonials. One last question about the lens correction feature. It picked my lens at the bottom of the screen so I imagine this is automatic. With DXO I had to specify each lens and it downloaded the specific lens correction software. At this point I imagine I am set to go. There is nothing do or download unless it does not have my lens info yet. Correct? I would have figured this out eventually. Just trying to get everything is order so I can concentrate in the tutorials.
 
Zee Char said:
Thanks for the reply. I had my good friend come off the printing
press and we were trying to decide which had what type of color
cast. Like you said it's a matter of working with the one you have.
Click to expand...
You're welcome!
Zeee said:
All in all I think all the top rated ones are good. It’s a matter
of personal preference. I have been checking the Bibble website and
yes there is a lot of support and it has a lot to offer. I’m
convinced I made the right choice. No more testing. I'm going to
take the time learn it properly. I noticed your name in I believe
in the testimonials.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's my shot... with the Panasonic LX1, which is a surprisingly good compact camera for landscape work - very early in my learning curve with Bibble Light!
Zeee said:
One last question about the lens correction
feature. It picked my lens at the bottom of the screen so I imagine
this is automatic. With DXO I had to specify each lens and it
downloaded the specific lens correction software. At this point I
imagine I am set to go. There is nothing do or download unless it
does not have my lens info yet. Correct?
Click to expand...
Yes, sounds like you're ready to go!
Zeee said:
I would have figured this
out eventually. Just trying to get everything is order so I can
concentrate in the tutorials.
Click to expand...
They are very good, unfortunately these weren't available when I got started... but would have saved me lots of time! I hope you enjoy them, but as you're learning, remember you can Ctrl-Shift-S to save all of the settings you have into a revision file... so all you have to do, to get back to a previous state is Ctrl-Shift-L to load them back. This is a great way to learn in an incremental fashion.

Good Luck!

Kind Regards

Brian

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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
I must say I'm impressed by that Lightzone example. I can get some rendering of those stars (at least as a faint circle) with Silkypix (better than some of the examples here), which I'm still playing with, but I certainly can't get that detail.

But what's weird to me is that the stars are sharp, but the edges of the black characters on the numberplate are among the fuzziest of the examples.

They compare quite poorly with Bibble and Silkypix.

It's looking more and more as if this is a case of what you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts.

--
Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/garyp
 
Hi Gary,
GaryJP said:
I must say I'm impressed by that Lightzone example. I can get some
rendering of those stars (at least as a faint circle) with Silkypix
(better than some of the examples here), which I'm still playing
with, but I certainly can't get that detail.

But what's weird to me is that the stars are sharp, but the edges
of the black characters on the numberplate are among the fuzziest
of the examples.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what I wanted... I was unhappy with the serious halos around the black lettering - so I was able to selectively sharpen areas, adjust contrast on other areas... LightZone is outstanding at the moment, as a RAW converter which allows localised adjustments (Capture NX is another, but it doesn't support RAW for anything other than Nikon)
GaryJP said:
They compare quite poorly with Bibble and Silkypix.
Click to expand...
Bibble had those unpleasant (to my eyes) halos around the number plate lettering, but did an excellent job on the rest!
GaryJP said:
It's looking more and more as if this is a case of what you gain on
the swings you lose on the roundabouts.
Click to expand...
I think we're exposing the hard bits and the easy bits for each RAW converter... and with practice and skill seeing where the limits are.

Kind Regards

Brian
GaryJP said:
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Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/garyp
Click to expand...
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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
Brian Mosley said:
LightZone is outstanding
at the moment, as a RAW converter which allows localised
adjustments (Capture NX is another, but it doesn't support RAW for
anything other than Nikon)
Click to expand...
With many of my photos I find the dynamic range is so great I need to do two RAW conversions and merge them in Photoshop. The HDR programmes I've tried don't do a a good job on that, so instead I use layer masks.

It's sounding as if LightZone could almost make the need for multiple conversions a thing of the past. I need to do a comprehensive test before the $100 off offer wears off.

I don't find it very intuitive so far though. I thought I'd fixed the white balance and then it kept changing back. But in other areas it impresses
 
I've been sent a pretty good conversion using Silkypix 3, and have updated my own attempt with LightZone 2.0 here... I'm extremely impressed by the quality I can get with LightZone - but it is very slow compared with my usual Bibble Pro... I'd only use it for those shots I was obsessive about ;)

Silkypix 3.0 rendition by Trond...
http://bmosley.zoto.com/img/original/58fd877ea2f180d1476a648843d7083f-.jpg

LightZone 2.0 rendition by me...
http://bmosley.zoto.com/img/original/f98ad4a188e4ce92ba5a6631265141cb-.jpg

Kind Regards

Brian

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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
Yes, here are some comparison crops...

LightZone 2.0



Silkypix 3.0



LightZone 2.0



Silkypix 3.0



LightZone 2.0



Silkypix 3.0



Considering I'm no expert with LightZone, I think this converter could be a top contender, provided you have a powerful machine...

Kind Regards

Brian

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http://www.gopetition.com/online/9523.html
 
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