RD vs SPP3.1 BW fight.. [img + raw]

I wanted to know how they compared doing black and white using monochrom WB for SPP31 and Monochrome profile for RD. (based on the same thing?)

full 14mp sample:
RD file: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rytterfalk/2249681023/sizes/o/
SPP file: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rytterfalk/2250561550/sizes/o/

RAW including Raw Developer setting file: http://www.rytterfalk.com/zip/sd14_bwtest.zip

RD:



SPP:



In Sigma Photo Pro I had to underexpose one full stop - crank up contrast to max value and same with shadow and sharpness. Having +2.0 in sharpness gives lots of unwanted halos - but in order to get as close as possible to my RD version I had to do this. Highlight is only up +0.5 the rest untouched. In PS it still looked pale compared to RD version so I leveled a bit. (it was more or less empty on both sides on the histogram - probably due to max contrast - but a bit strange)

In Raw Developer I made a nice S-curve, pushed highlights slightly up and mid tones down. Sharpness at level 1 of 10 and turned off all noise reduction. no change to exposure. Sharpness is quite harsh from level 1 but not so much artifacts (see face border and hair around head) - If I turn on noise reduction then shadows becomes brighter.

Lightroom is getting really interesting if you first select monochrome WB in SPP. Then when you open in LR it's the monochrome layer loaded and that's much better then what LR normally does. (you can't get back to color within LR this way) - I didn't work much with the LR version seen on below screen shot.



what do you guys think. which is better?
--
Carl @ Rytterfalk .com (Göteborg, Sweden)
http://www.rytterfalk.com
Proud SD14 User.

Carl,

For me---I like the SPP version slightly better. Less noise, slightly better control of halos.

I downloaded the raw file (thanks) and will give this a try with my SPP> > Lightzone workflow, and post the results...

Jim

--
Jim

There are a lot of ways to get B&W from color these days. I've not been that satisfied with and of the "pre-canned" conversions in the S/W out there.

What I do is to produce the "best" color image I can based on the fact I am going to convert it eventually to B&W. By that I might do things that I wouldn't. e.g., darken the blue sky some, to get the drama of a minus blue (12) filter on B&W film. I don't, however, sharpen or apply any noise reduction.

That is converted to 16 bit Tiff and another program is used to convert to black and white by manipulating the three channels. Picture Window Pro has a good capability for this as does Photoshop (Channel mixer) and I've started playing around with Lightzone a little but haven't used in enough to have a good feel. I will say that one one image (scanned 4x5) where I made a mistake in the development, Lightzone was able to save my bacon and make a nice image out of a very high contrast negative. The image is converted to 16 bit B&W Tiff. After the conversion to B&W curves can be used to add the final touches. Resizing and sharpening are the final steps.

I've tested the canned conversions in a couple raw converters and I can always produce images I much prefer by the approach above.

As for your images the top one is somewhat darker over all. It might be if you darkened the second one it would more closely match the first. The first is a better B&W rendition of the skin tone - it is too light in the second image.

--
Truman
http://www.pbase.com/tprevatt

Problem with that is that you loose too much detail. :/ You can try and it will be interesting to see results. But compare these RD / SPP and you'll notice that it's not all about sharpening - its' also about detail. especially find hair etc - stuff that is taken away as grain in SPP. (I like grain / noise)

JLK said:

Carl,

For me---I like the SPP version slightly better. Less noise, slightly
better control of halos.

I downloaded the raw file (thanks) and will give this a try with my
SPP> > Lightzone workflow, and post the results...

Jim

--
Jim

Click to expand...

--
Carl @ Rytterfalk .com (Göteborg, Sweden)
http://www.rytterfalk.com
Proud SD14 User.

Dear Mr. Rytterfalk and others on this subject,

I think from the point of B-W photography the RD version contains the most photographic er.. content. Nice grain in the background, much drawing in details in shadow and light. As I am happy with the new SSP 3.1, nevertheless the second image is smoother, like it had some noise-action. LR is too thin.
--
Lovis

Truman Prevatt said:

There are a lot of ways to get B&W from color these days. I've not
been that satisfied with and of the "pre-canned" conversions in the
S/W out there.

Click to expand...

Truman Prevatt said:

That is converted to 16 bit Tiff and another program is used to
convert to black and white by manipulating the three channels.

Click to expand...

Aperture has a really nice B&W channel mixer (Monochrome Mixer tool), the great thing is that you can specify what percentage of each color channel you would like included in the final result - but any channel can be specified as greater than 100% and less than 0% inclusion, which means you don't have to tweak the color as much beforehand to get a result you like with a different base color balance.

That may not be an option for you if you have a PC, but I thought I'd mention it anyway for those curious.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Ithink I prefer the RD conversion a little there... but I have to say, it's great to have the option in choosing between a noisier/sharper conversion and a smoother/less grainier one!

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Hi Carl (and interested others)

An option I've played with, with a modicum of success, is to open the image in SPP as a color image, move the saturation slider all the way to the left, and play with the extremes of the color wheel, even going off the chart in different directions.

Along with some "adjustments" of the other sliders, the results can be quite good.

Mike

I ran the RD one through Neat Image and got rid of the noise without noticably affecting the image quality.

I just want to second Mike.

IMHO it is probably the best way to do BW conversion with X3F images. It doesn't give you as many options as some other conversions, but it is fast and usually the result is stunning.
--
Lazlo
http://www.pictures-by-lazlo.com/
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/lazlo

Kendall,

My next computer with be the Mac Server - I have several reasons for that other than photography. It has native support for 64 bit processors without all the problems with drivers that both XP-64 and Vista-64 have. The GUI is much better than the Open Windows in Linux.

For B&W I like Picture Window Pro about the best. The interface to the "channel mixer" is identical to what one did in the film days with filters. In fact what you do is define a filter from a color wheel. Deep yellow has the same effect as a 12 filter - so it is quite intuitive. However, if one didn't come up doing a lot of B&W film it might not be that intuitive.

Truman

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

Aperture has a really nice B&W channel mixer (Monochrome Mixer tool),
the great thing is that you can specify what percentage of each color
channel you would like included in the final result - but any channel
can be specified as greater than 100% and less than 0% inclusion,
which means you don't have to tweak the color as much beforehand to
get a result you like with a different base color balance.

That may not be an option for you if you have a PC, but I thought I'd
mention it anyway for those curious.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Truman
http://www.pbase.com/tprevatt

True. It's one option that I played with a lot in the past. Would be fun to if details and feeling is preserved compared to monochrome wb. I always got the feeling that monochrome WB offered something more - that desaturation just couldn't. I will play some as well.

--
Carl @ Rytterfalk .com (Göteborg, Sweden)
http://www.rytterfalk.com
Proud SD14 User.

Carl,

Your study in B&W is an inspiration.

There I was casually browsing through the forum just to see what was happening and suddenly I have this urge to start messing about with B&W in SPP !

I was supposed to be prepping the walls for redecorating this weekend but I guess that will have to wait - this is much more fun!

--
http://www.pbase.com/hught

--
Carl @ Rytterfalk .com (Göteborg, Sweden)
http://www.rytterfalk.com
Proud SD14 User.

Sigmaficent said:

Carl,

Your study in B&W is an inspiration.

Click to expand...

thanks

Sigmaficent said:

There I was casually browsing through the forum just to see what was
happening and suddenly I have this urge to start messing about with
B&W in SPP !

Click to expand...

Success!

Sigmaficent said:

I was supposed to be prepping the walls for redecorating this weekend
but I guess that will have to wait - this is much more fun!

Click to expand...

oups, sorry.

Sigmaficent said:

--
http://www.pbase.com/hught

Click to expand...

--
Carl @ Rytterfalk .com (Göteborg, Sweden)
http://www.rytterfalk.com
Proud SD14 User.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

Ithink I prefer the RD conversion a little there... but I have to
say, it's great to have the option in choosing between a
noisier/sharper conversion and a smoother/less grainier one!

Click to expand...

I kind of agree, but I'd like SPP to have a slider saying - Noise reduction. That can go all the way to nothing.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Carl @ Rytterfalk .com (Göteborg, Sweden)
http://www.rytterfalk.com
Proud SD14 User.

lol

Presets do a very good job.
Do you prefer a dragan man or...



... an hamlet one?



By the way, if the raw file is outstanding, every raw coverter performs nicely. Thanks for sharing this picture Carl!

Enrico

Rytterfalk said:

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

Ithink I prefer the RD conversion a little there... but I have to
say, it's great to have the option in choosing between a
noisier/sharper conversion and a smoother/less grainier one!

Click to expand...

I kind of agree, but I'd like SPP to have a slider saying - Noise
reduction. That can go all the way to nothing.

Rytterfalk said:

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Carl @ Rytterfalk .com (Göteborg, Sweden)
http://www.rytterfalk.com
Proud SD14 User.

Click to expand...

I discussed this with Foveon back in the day when they were doing the software (last years PMA/DV trip). They said that one issue with a slider was that the noise reduction happens pretty early in the pipeline, and it's processor intensive---so a slider won't snap for a response (it would be more like when you change the WB).

Still, I agree with you, I'd like to have an option to dial it back some...

I will say that I want to like RD and hand over my money to Brian, but I haven't been convinced with what I've tried---I think it's more work for questionable benefit. But I do continue to revisit it---I think it's a huge benefit to the community that he's developing it for x3f files.

--
Jim

knowing what little I know about you, you've figured all this out......but I found this interesting. Halfway thru he takes an image into HSL and plays a little. Hopefully within the mext month or so I'll have a copy of lightroom.

Mike