Best GRiii Raw developer

gahenty · May 28, 2022

I mostly use my GRii since I use the Digital Camera Utility that came with it to process my raw files. Since the GRiii did not come with a similar software, I don't use it that much since I'm a raw shooter. Any recommendations on what software works for you the best to process your GRiii raw files? Thanks in advance.

Tungsten Nordstein · May 28, 2022

I use Adobe Lightroom because a. it's simple to use, and b. I get free access as I do lots of work for a company with a team license. Basically, with Lightroom you can easily forget you are dealing with raw files, if you choose to. Good for batch processing and has useful output modules for printing and image layout templates.

If it was not for that I'd probably use Raw Therapee, which is free. The downside is the quirky interface– which is typical for freeware but nevertheless workable. Such software does require a little deeper understanding of image processing to develop a work-flow than Lightroom, I would suggest.

Some people here use Capture One which like Adobe offers a subscription model, but unlike Adobe Lightroom also has a one-time buy-out price. That alone probably makes Capture One very attractive.

BTW. You have not said what platform you are intending to use.

--
Tungsten Nordstein, 2145
https://www.flickr.com/photos/156257994@N08/

Tungsten Nordstein · May 28, 2022

i decided to try and process an image in Raw Therapee. It's hard work. I would not wish that on anyone. I think what Raw Therapee is good for is choosing different Bayer de-mosaicing patterns.

DougOB · May 28, 2022

Tungsten Nordstein said:
I use Adobe Lightroom because a. it's simple to use, and b. I get free access as I do lots of work for a company with a team license. Basically, with Lightroom you can easily forget you are dealing with raw files, if you choose to. Good for batch processing and has useful output modules for printing and image layout templates.

If it was not for that I'd probably use Raw Therapee, which is free. The downside is the quirky interface– which is typical for freeware but nevertheless workable. Such software does require a little deeper understanding of image processing to develop a work-flow than Lightroom, I would suggest.

Some people here use Capture One which like Adobe offers a subscription model, but unlike Adobe Lightroom also has a one-time buy-out price. That alone probably makes Capture One very attractive.

BTW. You have not said what platform you are intending to use.

Ya "best" is tough here because there is ease of use, quality of result and cost. Plus the very personal "I like this" vs "I hate this" with software user interfaces.

I use Lightroom largely because I have ever since it came out. Very capable but a bit of a learning curve and not cheap.

Capture One, ON1, DXO Pro.... One inexpensive option is ACDsee which has been around for years.

Some ideas here: https://photolemur.com/blog/raw-photo-editing-software

Doug

Promeneur · May 28, 2022

I'm using Silkypix Developer Studio 11 which came out a couple of months ago and like it a lot. Silkypix has also been around for a long time. I do not know DxO, but it was also under strong consideration for me, but can't say if it is the best choice with a GRIII. I have a lot to learn regarding photo editing software and until I purchased Silkypix had been using Photoshop Elements 2019. I never really liked it as I did not like how it renders raw files to jpeg with my Panasonic cameras or my GRs when I purchased them. I am also not the type of person that is going to give my money over on a monthly basis for subscription based Lightroom. I've used Lightroom in the past in the days when you could buy a student version if enrolled in a Community College program Photoshop class, so do know a bit about it.

Silkypix doesn't seem to have much of a following outside of Japan as far as English language reviews as far as I can find.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63392262

Also:

https://newspacephoto.org/silkypix-vs-lightroom/

Anyway, more of an idea and hope this is a bit of help.

Andrewteee · May 28, 2022

On a Mac? Iridient Developer.

gahenty · May 28, 2022

Tungsten Nordstein said:
I use Adobe Lightroom because a. it's simple to use, and b. I get free access as I do lots of work for a company with a team license. Basically, with Lightroom you can easily forget you are dealing with raw files, if you choose to. Good for batch processing and has useful output modules for printing and image layout templates.

If it was not for that I'd probably use Raw Therapee, which is free. The downside is the quirky interface– which is typical for freeware but nevertheless workable. Such software does require a little deeper understanding of image processing to develop a work-flow than Lightroom, I would suggest.

Some people here use Capture One which like Adobe offers a subscription model, but unlike Adobe Lightroom also has a one-time buy-out price. That alone probably makes Capture One very attractive.

BTW. You have not said what platform you are intending to use.

gahenty · May 28, 2022

DougOB said:
Tungsten Nordstein said:

I use Adobe Lightroom because a. it's simple to use, and b. I get free access as I do lots of work for a company with a team license. Basically, with Lightroom you can easily forget you are dealing with raw files, if you choose to. Good for batch processing and has useful output modules for printing and image layout templates.

If it was not for that I'd probably use Raw Therapee, which is free. The downside is the quirky interface– which is typical for freeware but nevertheless workable. Such software does require a little deeper understanding of image processing to develop a work-flow than Lightroom, I would suggest.

Some people here use Capture One which like Adobe offers a subscription model, but unlike Adobe Lightroom also has a one-time buy-out price. That alone probably makes Capture One very attractive.

BTW. You have not said what platform you are intending to use.

Click to expand...

Ya "best" is tough here because there is ease of use, quality of result and cost. Plus the very personal "I like this" vs "I hate this" with software user interfaces.

I use Lightroom largely because I have ever since it came out. Very capable but a bit of a learning curve and not cheap.

Capture One, ON1, DXO Pro.... One inexpensive option is ACDsee which has been around for years.

Some ideas here: https://photolemur.com/blog/raw-photo-editing-software

Doug

Thanks. I might consider DxO PhotoLab.

gahenty · May 28, 2022

Promeneur said:
I'm using Silkypix Developer Studio 11 which came out a couple of months ago and like it a lot. Silkypix has also been around for a long time. I do not know DxO, but it was also under strong consideration for me, but can't say if it is the best choice with a GRIII. I have a lot to learn regarding photo editing software and until I purchased Silkypix had been using Photoshop Elements 2019. I never really liked it as I did not like how it renders raw files to jpeg with my Panasonic cameras or my GRs when I purchased them. I am also not the type of person that is going to give my money over on a monthly basis for subscription based Lightroom. I've used Lightroom in the past in the days when you could buy a student version if enrolled in a Community College program Photoshop class, so do know a bit about it.

Silkypix doesn't seem to have much of a following outside of Japan as far as English language reviews as far as I can find.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63392262

Also:

https://newspacephoto.org/silkypix-vs-lightroom/

Anyway, more of an idea and hope this is a bit of help.

Silkypix is an interesting option but it's a bit more expensive than DxO PhotoLab. Thanks for the suggestions.

Sjak · May 31, 2022

My suggestion is to try a few packages. Most paid packages have 30-day free trials.

Currently I use Capture One, which I find easy and intuitive to use, but with many advanced possibilities as well. It gives me the results I want the fastest.

There's also free packages I can recommend to try out. Rawtherapee is excellent but the interface is a bit "technical". Darktable is very good too, but I found the interface confusing; it's said to be similar to Lightroom, but I never used that so can't tell if it's true.

But interface-preference is very subjective, and the best way to find out is to try yourself.

sprocket-docket · May 31, 2022

The RAW developer I most often use is... the one in the camera! I shoot RAW but often RAW+JPEG, and I use the RAW development option quite often to fine-tune a shot. It is surprisingly powerful, and the results in JPEG are a lot better than most cameras. For example, my Pentax K-1 doesn't give me the level of fine detail in the JPEGs that the GR III and IIIx does. You can do a lot with the different sliders. For example, if you want to change the brightness of your RAW file after the fact, you can use the +/- exposure option, or the shadow recovery tool, but you can also go into the particular JPEG profile you are using and change the hi-key/lo-key, which affects midtones, or the sliders for highlight contrast and shadow contrast, which affects the overall contrast of the bright or dark parts of the scene (not the details within the bright or dark portions). And that's just for levels - you have lots of controls for colors and other things as well.

When the image needs more than what the camera can offer, I use Lightroom most of the time, with DXO as backup. The issue with either one is that you don't get quite the same pleasing colors as you do out of camera. This can be solved, of course, by addressing the colors manually in the program, but that's a bit more work.

HenryO12 · Jun 4, 2022

DxO PhotoLab. The DeepPRIME algorithm is hands down the best denoiser available. It is phenomenal! You could just use PureRAW and then go to Lightroom. Doesn’t make a lot of difference. But why bother when PhotoLab can do it all?.

maltmoose · Jun 4, 2022

I use Capture one mostly for GRIII and my other cameras. I think it gives the best looking images and has great speed, workflow and tools. I combine this with some topaz tools and affinity photo when needed.

Worth noting that GRIIIx is NOT properly supported by capture one yet, you can work around this a bit though.

I also have DXO photo lab which i sometimes use as needed but much prefer using capture one.

Also have raw therapee and darktable etc and whilst you can get good images out of them and they do have some interesting tools, workflow is not as good and takes longer, i can live with them if i had to but capture one has really speed up and had more of an impact on my processing than any other tools. Its overly expensive though.... but can sometimes get 20-30% discounts on it.

bpatient · Jun 4, 2022

maltmoose said:
Worth noting that GRIIIx is NOT properly supported by capture one yet, you can work around this a bit though.

Could you briefly explain how you work around this issue. I'm interested enough in the GR IIIX to have brought some raw files into Capture One. They actually look pretty good, with only very little distortion, despite the lack of any effect of the alleged manufacturer profile. What have you found that works?

Raist3d · Jun 4, 2022

gahenty said:
I mostly use my GRii since I use the Digital Camera Utility that came with it to process my raw files. Since the GRiii did not come with a similar software, I don't use it that much since I'm a raw shooter. Any recommendations on what software works for you the best to process your GRiii raw files? Thanks in advance.

DXO Prime PhotoLab 5.xx

If you are on a Mac, as long as you don't need high iso noise reduction. Iridient Digital is pretty nice and honors the crop when you do them on the camera, and you can disable them to expose all the RAW data if you also want.

Sjak · Jun 5, 2022

bpatient said:
maltmoose said:

Worth noting that GRIIIx is NOT properly supported by capture one yet, you can work around this a bit though.

Click to expand...

Could you briefly explain how you work around this issue. I'm interested enough in the GR IIIX to have brought some raw files into Capture One. They actually look pretty good, with only very little distortion, despite the lack of any effect of the alleged manufacturer profile. What have you found that works?

Not sure what the issue is?

I use C1 v.20, no camera-profile but the program handles the GR3x-files without any problems.

It obviously helps the GR3x-lens is well corrected optically, so a specific lens-profile is not a high priority.

maltmoose · Jun 5, 2022

Sjak said:
bpatient said:

maltmoose said:

Worth noting that GRIIIx is NOT properly supported by capture one yet, you can work around this a bit though.

Click to expand...

Could you briefly explain how you work around this issue. I'm interested enough in the GR IIIX to have brought some raw files into Capture One. They actually look pretty good, with only very little distortion, despite the lack of any effect of the alleged manufacturer profile. What have you found that works?

Click to expand...

Not sure what the issue is?

I use C1 v.20, no camera-profile but the program handles the GR3x-files without any problems.

It obviously helps the GR3x-lens is well corrected optically, so a specific lens-profile is not a high priority.

Just before jubilee celebrations kick off thought id respond to this.

The GRIIIx isnt supported yet by capture one even though you can mostly get it to look right.

There are a few things to consider.

1. There is no GRIIIx color profile, no big issue as the one it defaults to is ok and you can of course select GRIII or any other profile.

2. There is no lens correction profiles. again not a big issue as i dont even use any distortion correction on GRIIIx, but you need to consider the vignetting and set it manually, i use 20 or so with a generic profile and looks ok but tastes/apertures can vary.

3. This is the BAD one. The noise settings are completely unoptimized and incorrect.

The color noise reduction at default is just wrong and completely kills the color and makes shadows all washed out and terrible. This is more apparent on high iso images and on some images just gives you completely wrong color and can turn shadow areas green/red etc. Turn it off is the work around but you then can get color noise at high iso but its better than the defaults.. You can then run it through topaz noise if you like.

The luma noise reduction defaults also obliterates fine detail. but you can turn that down to like 5 or something but looks a bit rough at high iso.

Best to turn off all noise settings for the GRIIIx

Sharpness setting might be a little too aggressive imo but can easily be turned down a little. tastes vary.

Also if anyone is interested you can change the raw metadata camera type from GRIIIx to GRIII if any of the above bothers you and Capture one works fine and thinks it a GRIII.

hope that helps

Sjak · Jun 5, 2022

maltmoose said:
3. This is the BAD one. The noise settings are completely unoptimized and incorrect.

[...]

Best to turn off all noise settings for the GRIIIx

Good point about NR. But in general, I think NR is not C1's strongest tool.

I've found the default NR-settings in C1 inadequate for most of my cameras, especially at higher ISO's.

maltmoose said:
Also if anyone is interested you can change the raw metadata camera type from GRIIIx to GRIII if any of the above bothers you and Capture one works fine and thinks it a GRIII.

Thanks, I will try that and see if it makes work on high-ISO-files easier for me.

bpatient · Jun 5, 2022

Sjak said:
maltmoose said:

3. This is the BAD one. The noise settings are completely unoptimized and incorrect.

[...]

Best to turn off all noise settings for the GRIIIx

Click to expand...

Good point about NR. But in general, I think NR is not C1's strongest tool.

I've found the default NR-settings in C1 inadequate for most of my cameras, especially at higher ISO's.

Sjak said:

Also if anyone is interested you can change the raw metadata camera type from GRIIIx to GRIII if any of the above bothers you and Capture one works fine and thinks it a GRIII.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will try that and see if it makes work on high-ISO-files easier for me.

Thanks for the replies. Given that the distortion correction is already good, vignetting seems to be the only potential problem that could be best addressed by a manufacturer profile. I don't use default values for noise, color, sharpening, etc. in C1, anyway.

Sjak · Jun 5, 2022

bpatient said:
Thanks for the replies. Given that the distortion correction is already good, vignetting seems to be the only potential problem that could be best addressed by a manufacturer profile. I don't use default values for noise, color, sharpening, etc. in C1, anyway.

It was a useful discussion indeed.

I'll post some pictures soon, which I made at a recent festival, in the worst possible conditions (indoors, low light, continually changing stage lights)

There was a bit of a learning curve, even for B&W-conversions, in particular regarding NR, but also clarity-settings. The GR3x-files are definitely sensitive in this regard, but it can be managed.

Best GRiii Raw developer

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