Basic Photoshop settings for RAW JPEG conversion.. EX2F?

ttbek wrote:

Petak wrote:

ttbek wrote:

Petak wrote:

I actually don't recommend Lightroom, I don't really use it, so someone else could probably be more helpful on that. RawTherapee (I think on OSX?, Linux, and Windows) is probably what I would recommend for absolute quality

I have tested both RTh and Lr5 with my NX2000 files and Lr has both more straightforward interface

Subjective, I don't find the LR5 interface that great either.

and visibly higher quality conversion (better detail

I'm not seeing that, see below.

, smoother and more accurate colour profile

They use the same color profiles, unless you're using that as a layman's term.

).

Did you only use defaults? I would like to see some evidence.

Because you did present evidence to support your claim of RT's "absolute quality"?

I wasn't asked to. Maybe they've made improvements in this from LR4 to LR5, but:

RawTherapee 400% crop CA correction, everything else turned off

LR4 400% crop CA correction (can you turn other things off?, can you use different demosaicing?)

There are notably more "jaggies" in the LR4 image. This could be due to some default sharpening I don't know how to turn off. The default tone curve in LR4 is more contrasty and pleasing, but it's just a default. Also the default jpeg export quality setting in LR4 is 60%.... I did them a favour and bumped it to 100% for this comparison. The jaggies are not due to the CA correction, I also looked without and that was the same.

You said you already tested them both for your NX2000, so it should have been easy for you to show the results. I had to go out of my way to do these just now, requiring me to reboot in Windows etc...

Now, it may be that some other things in your process LR does better than RT, a certain kind of noise reduction, etc... but at the very basic conversion stage (demosaicing) RT offers the user more options and the potential for better results. Unless you (or someone else) can show otherwise I think that this is where the evidence is currently pointing.

I believe what you call "jaggies" is in fact the inevitable result of up-sizing to 400% - something rarely anyone does or needs. Below are two 100% crops of the same raw file developed in both LR5 and RT 4.1 with the default settings. To me the one produced by LR is clearly better - cleaner, smoother, with better detail and less magenta and sharpening halo around the text and with better colour separation.