A first play with Olympus Viewer 3/Thoughts on New Sensor

I finally downloaded Olympus's latest software today.  Conclusion?  Well, it's not a great deal different to Olympus Viewer 2.  It looks a little smarter, a little more responsive and they've moved a couple of things around.  I wanted  to play with some of the picture modes and art filters, specifically with respect to photos taken using that new 16MP sensor.  Some thoughts:

1. Is Natural The New Vivid?

With my E-30 and E-PL1, I often either shoot to vivid, or convert to vivid when nothing else will work. Playing with the different picture modes, on photos from my E-PM2 today, I thought vivid was way over the top:

Vivid Rambos, ©2013 Jason Hindle

Personally, I'm finding natural and muted modes more attractive, in particular the more neutral way they render skies.  Perhaps vivid will make a return when I start shooting a little longer (probably going to pull the trigger on a 45 1.8 next week):

Naturally Rambo's, ©2013 Jason Hindle

2. Combining Effects

Perhaps this is something you've always been able to do do, but I liked the fact that Dramatic Tone works with the picture mode used:

Dramatic + Muted, ©2013 Jason Hinde

Dramatic + Mono, ©2013 Jason Hindle

3. Correcting Mistakes

While inferior to the likes of Lightroom or Aperture (no highlight recovery, no highlight or shadow adjustment), OV remains the best way to correct mistakes behind the camera while still retaining the Olympus look (raw is a PITA in Aperture, with raw files from the 16mp sensor).

Exposure -0.3 in Olympus Viewer, ©2013 Jason Hindle

4. Clunky Workflow

My Olympus Viewer workflow remains clunky though.  First I make whatever adjustments I want in raw (usually exposure comp, distortion correction, picture mode and not much else).  Then I export to TIFF.  Then I apply contrast and USM to the TIFF, exporting to JPEG.

The finished article, ©2013 Jason Hindle

5. Conclusion

It's going to be a nice piece of software to have on the corporate doorstop when travelling, but I much prefer Aperture, as I slowly get used to Aperture's default rendering for raw (they've gone from over bright with the 12MP sensor, to far too dark withe raw files from the 16MP sensor).

Still, as I've found in the past, when I've been struggling to get the look I want in Aperture, Olympus Viewer can be a good backstop.