Silkypix Raw File Converter settings

CyberNomad wrote:

Hi RMGoodLight,

Thank you very much for your comments.

Does Silkypix 7 or 8 any advantage over RAW FILE CONVERTER EX 2.0 or over SilkyPix Developer Studio 4 SE regarding RAW demosaicing quality?

Thanks in advance,

In my experience the free RFC EX2 uses the same demosaicing engine as Silkypix7 does. I have the impression that EX2 is capable of 80% of IQ of SP7. The film simulation look the same. You get 3 of 5 sharpening algorithm that you can use in SP7.

I think the week spots of SP compared to LR are the lifting of shadows, pushing highlights and keeping noise in check. The later I found difficult with EX2. I don't like the denoise options of SP / EX2. It is difficult to only add very few noise reduction. So I try to handle noise with sharpening. I think no sharpening at all provides a good start in SP / EX2 and I try to balance noise and detail over sharpening. SP2 has some advantages in that kind approach over EX2 since you get natural detail and unsharp mask as sharpening algorithms.

I would prefer LR over SP in two other categories too. First LR is better in processing Bayer images. It is way faster and more detailed than SP with images from Bayer sensor cameras.

Second is color fidelity. LR pulls out subtle color information more than other RAW converters I used. This is especially true for high ISO images in bad light. I saw this first with a towel that LR rendered dark blue and SP black. The real color was blue but SPs color noise reduction equalized the subtle color in this high ISO image to black. I see this even with fur of (black) dogs in bright sunlight where LR shows subtle brown strains but SP pushes all color to black and dark grey.