Updated Third Party RAW of X-Trans

Just came back from D-Clic photo show in Montreal and had the chance to talk with Billy from Fuji Guys. He asked me if I was happy with my X-Pro1 and I said yes, very happy BUT would like Adobe and others to better support it (or at all in the case of Aperture...). I expected him to play it safe but he actually acknowledged the problem right away and told me that they recently signed a non-disclosure agreement with both Adobe and Apple and provided them with specs for supporting the X-Trans sensor !

He said he is also pushing strong with Fuji to add support for TIFF in the camera so that could be another good thing for some.

Lets hope this leads to progress...

I will be overjoyed if this is true

JasperD wrote:

I sure hope this to be true,  [ ... ]

I think they collectively have no choice; it will maybe take some time, but they will get there, together ("they" being Fuij, Apple and Adobe).

Sometimes people call this "market forces" ...

Maurizio

I hope that Phase One get wind of this and jump in too with C1

This is good news! I have read a professional opinion that TIFF would have been the preferred standard format over JPEG, had not the (earlier, perceived) limitation of file size not made JPEG so attractive.

==m==

That would be great. Lightroom's support for X-Pro1 and X-E1 *really* leaves to be desired at the moment, some images look like they have been painted...

I really do not see any advantage of tiff being stored on the card in camera.

- slower write speeds

- uses a lot of card space

- results in a processed file (even as 16 bit) that does not contain all the RAW data

I would be very happy  to see improved handling of xtrans RAW files in LR though.

The default ACR settings are not optimal. With proper processing these problems are dramatically reduced, to the point where results are already extremely good.

Over time I expet ACR to produce stunning results from X-tans, but posting ineptly processed examples overstates the problem hugely and only spreads FUD.

CraigArnold wrote:

The default ACR settings are not optimal. With proper processing these problems are dramatically reduced, to the point where results are already extremely good.

Over time I expet ACR to produce stunning results from X-tans, but posting ineptly processed examples overstates the problem hugely and only spreads FUD.

It is what people see when they load their RAW files into ACR/Lightroom, as simple as that.

I am sure you agree that it is not quite as easy as changing a couple of default settings like sharpening, you can tweak sharpening in Lightroom as much as you want, it will not help if the de-mosaicing algorithm is sub par. The branches on the first 100% crop should not be yellow, for example.

I think a good temporary fix would be for Fuji to share their lens correction settings with Adobe. This would allow for  1:1 pixel matching between jpegs and raw files in Photoshop. Any artifacts found in the raw conversion could simply be masked and replaced with the data from the jpeg layer.

Perfect? No, but it would befiery useful.

MatW wrote:

CraigArnold wrote:

The default ACR settings are not optimal. With proper processing these problems are dramatically reduced, to the point where results are already extremely good.

Over time I expet ACR to produce stunning results from X-tans, but posting ineptly processed examples overstates the problem hugely and only spreads FUD.

It is what people see when they load their RAW files into ACR/Lightroom, as simple as that.

I am sure you agree that it is not quite as easy as changing a couple of default settings like sharpening, you can tweak sharpening in Lightroom as much as you want, it will not help if the de-mosaicing algorithm is sub par. The branches on the first 100% crop should not be yellow, for example.

People are applying the techniques and settings that have worked with their other cameras, but these don't work well with the X-trans.

On your image above try this:

Contrast: 30

Clarity: 30

Color & luminance NR: 0-10 (way down from the default of 30)

Sharpness:20

Radius: 0.7

Detail: 50

If there are still any overly smooth areas add grain of around 10, 20, 20.

Now compare that print to a 20Mp file from a 5D2/3, D600, Sony A900 or similar.

I'm NOT saying that ACR can't or won't or shouldn't get better, just that a lot of people are botching the conversion and blaming it all on Fuji/Adobe because they assume they have nothing to learn.

In the thread the foliage issue I suggested for foliage to use either Silkypix that comes with the camera or Helicon filter 5 They prevent bleeding and smearing eventhough fine adjustment is not as good as in Adobe

I usually adjust light andd contarst, the record Tif 16 bits that I read with ACR for good c olor, contratsd etc... mastering

It is not the easiest workflow but with it I get all details and excellent results