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Olympus Studio: Benefits?

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David G O Smith

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I have an E-3 and an SP-570UZ. I don't want to spend about $100 on the Olympus Studio program if it doesn't offer anything beyond what other RAW converters offer. I have Silkypix which works fine with both cameras and Bibble Lite which works with the E-3 only. I cannot use Adobe Camera Raw because my computer is not powerful enough to run the recent versions of Adobe Elements that are needed for the ACR version that can read SP570UZ and E-3 files.

Does Olympus Studio offer anything beyond what 3rd party tools already offer?
 
I found colour rendition of Olympus raw files produced by Studio to be much more pleasing compared to ACR. I only use ACR and Studio, so I cannot say about the other converters' colour renditions.

The free Olympus Master probably produces the same colour as Studio, but I am not 100% sure as I have never tried OM. The obvious difference between the $100 Olympus Studio and the free Olympus Master is the ability to batch process raw files in Studio.
 
.. download the free 30 day trial and decide for yourself? That's what I did, and it's just as slow and clumsy as master, if you are not fixated on the colors that you get out of master, I would stick with what you currently use. I personally use lightroom and love it.
 
While I like using Studio as a RAW processor, because of the results, the best use that I've found is the ability to take the settings that I've found work in Studio, then programme them back into the camera so that I get the preferred results straight in JPG.
--
D620L -> D540 -> C750UZ -> E-500 -> E-510 -> E-3
 
Hi David:

Have a look here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=28591731

If you're tight on budget and have other (non-Olympus) cameras, try the trial and decide then. If not (i.e. just Olympus and 100$ don't mean that much), buy it. It's slow, etc... but produces good images and has some nice (and unique) features for the Olympus raws.

Cheers,

Claus.

--

... when the photograph annihilates itself as medium to be no longer a sign but the thing itself...

 
I own Studio and don't use it anymore. Ok, rarely.

Lightroom 2 is awesome.
 
but with studio you can control the camera from the pc, no?
--
-Anthony
 
David G O Smith said:
I have an E-3 and an SP-570UZ. I don't want to spend about $100 on
the Olympus Studio program if it doesn't offer anything beyond what
other RAW converters offer. I have Silkypix which works fine with
both cameras and Bibble Lite which works with the E-3 only. I cannot
use Adobe Camera Raw because my computer is not powerful enough to
run the recent versions of Adobe Elements that are needed for the ACR
version that can read SP570UZ and E-3 files.

Does Olympus Studio offer anything beyond what 3rd party tools
already offer?
Click to expand...
It does provide an auto fix of any distortion Zuiko lenses produce and works well correcting images I shoot with the 12-60.

I like the output from Studio when used with E510 RAW files, but prefer using Adobe Camera RAW and sharpening in Photoshop with the Smart Sharpening filter with my E1 files.

Studio is slow, but no slower on my (also) older, slow machine than Silkypix.
 
The only thing I have Olympus Studio 2 for is to update firmware on Olympus bodies and lenses, and to do tethered control of my E-1 (and someday E-3).

I use Lightroom 2 for my image processing.
 
Actually the question could be: why Studio over Master (which is for free)?

The main difference for me is better raw conversion control in Studio. I use the curves tool a lot in Studio. I find Studio to be worth its price.

Lightroom and ACR have very nifty raw conversion tools (including more sophisticated highlight / shadow control), but Adobe's default color output is ghastly compared to Master or Studio.

Klaus
 
I use the free converter to convert ORFs to DNGs and then process in LR, keeping the ORFs on DVD for archival purposes.

This gets round the notional problems LR has in maintaining Olympus colours when processing ORFs directly.

Fraser
 
I see little point to using a RAW converter at the "default" settings. You might as well use the in-camera JPEG engine and save yourself the trouble of capturing in RAW format.

I've created my own presets and calibrations that give me the color or monochrome rendering that I want with Lightroom. I can import and process several hundred exposures to the point of sorting and grading with it in less than ten minutes. I can then finish edit the picks to a finish rendering I want in a very efficient and responsive manner.

So the question for me isn't "why master over studio" or vice versa; it's "why bother?" unless I need tethered camera control.

Godfrey
 
Godfrey said:
I see little point to using a RAW converter at the "default"
settings. You might as well use the in-camera JPEG engine and save
yourself the trouble of capturing in RAW format.
Click to expand...
Not that I have to tell you probably, but think of instances when you want to adjust white balance. If I do that in Studio (or Master) I get beautiful natural looking balanced colors in an adjusted color temperature. When I tried out Lightroom and CS3 I could just never get this natural color balance. I sure got great lively colors and tones and some of my best pictures I did process in Lightroom. But these were processed looking pictures and did not have natural color balance.

Klaus
Godfrey said:
I've created my own presets and calibrations that give me the color
or monochrome rendering that I want with Lightroom. I can import and
process several hundred exposures to the point of sorting and grading
with it in less than ten minutes. I can then finish edit the picks to
a finish rendering I want in a very efficient and responsive manner.

So the question for me isn't "why master over studio" or vice versa;
it's "why bother?" unless I need tethered camera control.

Godfrey
Click to expand...
 
David G O Smith said:
I have an E-3 and an SP-570UZ. I don't want to spend about $100 on
the Olympus Studio program if it doesn't offer anything beyond what
other RAW converters offer.

Does Olympus Studio offer anything beyond what 3rd party tools
already offer?
Click to expand...
Yes, remote control/tethered capability.

Otherwise Olympus Master can be used for RAW processing.
 
As I understand, the developer of software for raw conversion must choose a color temperature curve based on black body radiation and that their choice may differ from the one chosen by Olympus and imposed by Master or the camera presets. I've found white balance a good reason to use Master at times and a TIFF can be exported with full resolution and bit depth to open in LightZone or Photoshop.

--
Steve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/knoblock/
http://picasaweb.google.com/steve.knoblock

Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. -- Jean Cocteau
 
I don't know what all that gobbledygook is about. All I need to do to obtain whatever white balance I need in Lightroom is click on what I want the application to consider white with the white balance eye dropper. Done.

Most of the time, I don't even need to do that: Lightroom reads the white balance metadata and sets it according to the camera calibration curve in use. It's pretty darn accurate for most normal situations.

Godfrey
knoblock said:
As I understand, the developer of software for raw conversion must
choose a color temperature curve based on black body radiation and
that their choice may differ from the one chosen by Olympus and
imposed by Master or the camera presets. I've found white balance a
good reason to use Master at times and a TIFF can be exported with
full resolution and bit depth to open in LightZone or Photoshop.
Click to expand...
 
Godfrey,

sure, a WB in PS (or Lightroom) is adequate, sometimes better, for a lot of photographs. But not always.

A couple of years ago I did some shots and the customer just said: no, that's not the color of this shirt, that blouse etc.

So I now use WB calibration 'in the field' with critical takes and, else, try to keep the (quite accurate) WB of the camera. Good when you have a camera that does a decent WB.

I always shoot raw, btw. When you have the right WB in the camera for the particular shot, the raw processing is much easier.

That's why I prefer Studio - it gives the same colors that the camera recorded.

Cheers,

Claus.

--

... when the photograph annihilates itself as medium to be no longer a sign but the thing itself...

 
Godfrey,

Just speaking of raw conversion Lightroom does many things in a very intuitive and straight forward way. No doubt about that. I have not seen a better interface yet.

But if I want to be quick with a natural color balance then Master or Studio are much faster.

Sure, it just very easy to adjust the WB in Lightroom. But I will still get colors that I feel are not balanced, albeit in a different WB setting.

If you have found a way around this I would very much appreciate it if you could share your olympus color profile. I will soon be switching to CS4 and would love to use ACR regularly because it is much more powerful than Studio in many ways.
Klazs
 
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