LR Alternatives for Fuji

5teveO wrote:

Yes I know this has been debated to death.. and I know there are varying opinions on LR's effect on Xtrans files - I'm not here to debate them (again ) My opinion is all that is here and is very subjective..

I'm a relatively new XT4 user coming from Pentax (K3 Mk1) and I love the camera - so fast (compared the the K3) and the lenses (18-135 and 70-300) and fantastic.

I'm a long time LR user (still have the LR5 disks) and am subscribed with the latest version. I have already come across the worms and wierd processing in a few images when pushing sharpness. Noise reduction is generally done for bad images in Topaz, but I shy away from it as I just cant stand workflows where I have to create new files to edit and have excess files. I am an engineer by trade - so inherently lazy, but like things tidily organised, plus have a 5 year old and a business to run and far too many hobbies so very very time poor. My workflow has to be fast and efficient. I'm not looking for stellar results as im a poor amateur at best. I dont want to convert and process etc..

We have just been on a big family holiday to Dubai and I took around 1000 images. So have given them the first pass in LR, Culled, categorised (eg noisey - needs work etc) and processed around 30% of them as keepers (family snapshots TBH) exported and generally happy with them as far as snapshots go. A few I want to work on.. but thought i'd look at other options to LR

As a test I decided to have a look at the options out there for alternatives. As time allows I'm learning Darktable but its immense and unfamiliar - so is a huge learning curve.

I have installed and trialling the following as a quick look see how the software renders a few specific images and deals with things like sharpness and NR (and some initial thoughts - bear in mind ive had an hour or so in each and am only familiar with LR basics):-

Capture 1 - Bloody expensive now and hard to justify - lovely rendering of the images though. Sharpening can be pushed hard, adjustments are pretty quick and colours match LR pretty well. Not keen on the interface - LR really is king here as is the speed of LR - I find myself waiting with C1 for images to load etc - Machine is old but well spec'd

On1 Raw - Well priced - Produces very nice images also albeit with a slightly yellow cast to them on skin tones - not sure if LR and C1 are just warmer though. Interface is slow in some areas and fast in others - buttons ect really dont confirm to any windows standard so are a bit confusing - Produces .on1 files instead of XMP - not sure if they can be used elsewhere or converted. Sharpness can be pushed hard and AI NR is pretty impressive for some shots although very very slow... and NR needs to be locked to stop it from reprocessing.. which is a bit wierd

Exposure X7 - Well priced - Speedy kinda LR speed - renders Xtrans nicely - but images just looked a bit rough for want of a better description. sharpness just isnt there jpg output looks a bit grainy

Lightroom - Honestly almost holds its own when looking at JPG exports - however unless I am willing to not pixel peep and accept there will be some rendering oddities C1 and On1 give better output - but it wont effect everything. One example was my 5 year olds eyes on a photo. at 100% with medium sharpening in LR worms were starting to appear at the interface of the iris and sclera (white) - again only noticeable at 100% - I do like the file management of LR too..

So here I am - more confused than ever

re quality C1 and On1 seem to be the clear quality winners to me. C1 with an edge to rendering and On1 for noise reduction on some images albeit very slow.. however LR still has the speed and useability for larger culling sessions. From what I have read here C1 seems to be closest in regard to performance and number of tools / options.

I know there are a lot that recommend C1 over LR so useability must be there - me being unfamiliar makes things harder. Price is hard to swallow in AUD though.

So without bashing any of the above softwares... what do you use and importantly WHY? I'm genuinuely interested in what drives you to use what software..

Steve

The thing is that it isn't worms that's the real problem. Worms can occur even with bayer files when applying too much sharpening, even if X-trans files do seem to be a bit more susceptible to it. But honestly, if you get worms you're oversharpening anyway.

The real problem is subpar demosaicing which yields less detailed images and causes foliage and several types of textures to look like a waterpainting. Sharpening has nothing to do with this. This is why LR is the worst software for X-trans. However, there are a couple of workarounds; you can use either the "enhance details" feature in LR or you can use Iridient X-transformer to convert the files.

Sadly people often tend to get these two separate issues mixed up.