Straight out of the camera vs. photoshop, have questions!

[JensR]

I like it, but I see posterisation and noise.

Both would be reduced if you'd have access to a TIFF (after RAW conversion), or can ACDSee Pro work on RAWs directly?

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'Well, 'Zooming with your feet' is usually a stupid thing as zoom rings are designed for hands.' (Me, 2006)
My Homepage: http://www.JensRoesner.de

 

[miles500]

I am no expert in this but stretching out the histogram does seem to make the image a tad noisier and it may not have helped that I applied a small degree of unsharp mask. Nevertheless I still prefer the ACDSee outcome which was achieved simply by manipulating the image by dividing it into 9 individually adjustable tones. I have recently become a convert to this program after using PSE6. I agree that it is much better to start with a RAW file. ACDSee can process RAW files and here again I much prefer its converter to the Adobe one. On the other hand ACDSee does not have quite a few of the bells and whistles contained in PSE so one really needs to have both programs.
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Miles500