Silkypix Raw File Converter settings

Hi Everyone,

I'm in X-T2 since 2 months and I have been trying some RAW converters.

I get the best results overall with RAW File Converter (free sw).

However... Regarding sharpness and detail without getting worms, false color and watercolor effects the best settings I have found on RAW File Converter are:

- Demosaicing sharpness 0.

- Noise reduction all sliders to zero specially "false color ctrl".

- Sharpness all sliders to zero.

And then, when exporting to JPG or TIFF use "Enhancing Settings" tab with the following values:

- Amount (%) : 150

- Radius (pixel) : 0.5

- Threshold (level) : 0

Apart from the specific settings what is important is to not sharpen the image with normal "Sharpening" options and only do it when exporting images and Enhacing Settings tab.

This way I obtain best sharpness, at a very close level if not the same that ID and RawTherappe but not losing Fuji Color Simulations, etc...

Please, try it for yourself and please let me know your opinion on this subject.

Best regards,

I just tried this, the 'output only' sharpening method (described above) is a bit softer perhaps.... which does make it less 'artifacty' but also less sharp

But I only tried on one image, which was base ISO

In my opinion RAFs via RFC/SilkyPix tend to look best with the least amount of detail and the most amount of outline that you can get away with.

So for example, I might use detail 15/outline 60 on detail sharp or perhaps 20/65 on normal sharp

But this is with SilkyPix Pro, which has some subtle rendering differences to RFC, even with similar values applied (the NR engine is different)

Thank you both for your comments.

Regarding detail I have been able to get the same amount of detail with the X-T2 DPReview RAW studio sample developing it with Fuji RAW File Converter as with the analogous D7200 or a D750 samples developed by DPReview in their respective Nikon cameras reviews.

So, I think that it can be the RAW developing sweet spot between detail without getting artifacts... That is in resume what I'm looking for.

But, again, I don't get more details with Iridient comparing with Fuji RAW file Converter in this same Studio sample with the settings I have commented previously.

Regarding sharpness, not detail, it is possible to use stronger settings on output sharpening also...

Please, can more people try and let me know what you think... I'm not very strong conviction on what I have test and what I think.

Best regards,

I upgraded to SilkyPix Pro 7 and gave the DPReview test shots some ride to evaluate sharpening settings. The result where 7 presets that I use as a starting point depending on ISO and subject.

All settings with demosaic sharpening 0 and color reduction 37.

Sharp 0

• Pure Detail
• Outline 25
• Detail 25
• False Outline 0

Sharp +1

• Natural Sharp
• Outline 17
• Ringing 14
• Bokeh 24

Sharp +2

• Pure Detail
• Outline 75
• Detail 10
• False Outline 0

Sharp +3

• Pure Detail
• Outline 75
• Detail 15
• False Outline 0

Sharp +4

• Natural Sharp
• Outline 25
• Ringing 25
• Bokeh 24

Sharp +4b

• Natural Sharp
• Outline 30
• Ringing 14
• Bokeh 24

Sharp +5

• Unsharp mask
• Amount 175
• Radius 1
• Threshold 0

Sharp +6

• Unsharp mask
• Amount 260
• Radius 0.6
• Threshold 0

@CyberNomad

Your settings give me an equal sharpness to my +3 settings.

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,

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.

You're right about the differences between RFC2 and SilkyPix 7 but, the advantage to buying SilkyPix, now version 8, not 7. is that you can work on any RAW file or Jpeg and they do have free updates that add new cameras. RFC2 will only open RAFs or jpegs from Fuji cameras. If you only have Fuji RAFs, than RFC2 is probably all you need but, if you have multiple brands or RAW files from other brand cameras, you need to buy SilkyPix if you want to use it. Besides Fuji, I have RAW files from Olympus, Panasonic, and Nikon. I bought SilkyPix DS 7 Pro  to eliminate using four different RAW converters, even though each one was free. The best one was Olympus OV3 but like RFC2, it only works on Olympus photos. Even though Panasonic also bundles SilkyPix with their cameras, that version, which is also based on SilkyPix 4, like RFC2, will not load anything except Panasonic files.

From your samples I'd say might as well go SOOC, they end up best most of the time, especially for natural looking faces, hair and skin.

Time for an update.

I found a workaround to use X-Transformer with SilkyPix (7).

SilkyPix can load DNG files but does not support the ones created by X-Transformer. The reason is it only supports DNG files up to Camera RAW 5.4.

But there is a workaround!

1. Convert the RAF files with Irident X-Transformer to DNG files.
2. Import the X-Transformer DNG files into Lightroom.
3. Export the DNG files within Lightroom as DNG files.
4. Select Compatibility: "Camera Raw 5.4 and later" in the export settings

5. 

6. Open the reexported DNG files in SilkyPix
7. Work in SilkyPix!

Pros

• No crashed blacks! The film simulations in SilkyPix have a weaker dark contrast and offer a better starting point.
• SilkyPix offers more sharpening algorithms and better control over sharpening.

Cons

• More steps involved in postprocessing workflow.
• SilkyPix takes a lot more time for rendering JPEGs than Lightroom.

Some words to the performance of SilkyPix (7). I measured how long Lightroom and SilkyPix took to render the same images. Some of you migth find this useful too.

• Lightroom rendering RAF: 6 minutes
• Lithroom rendering DNG (X-Transformer): 4 minutes
• SilkyPix rendering RAF: 20 minutes
• SilkyPix rendering DNG (X-Transformer): 11 minutes

It is easy to see that Lightroom is faster when it comes to exporting final images. By using DNG files you can speed up the whole process but I did not include the time it took X-Transformer to generate the DNG files.

An example of the workaround.

Lightroom:

Velvia; Auto WB; sharpening 25, 1.0, 100, 0; luma noise reduction 4

Ligthroom + X-Transformer:

Velvia; Auto WB; sharpening 25, 0.9, 25, 0; luma noise reduction 5

SilkyPix:

Velvia; Auto WB; sharpening pure detail 25, 25, 0; luma noise reduction 15

SilkyPix + X-Transformer:

Velvia; Auto WB; sharpening pure detail 25, 25, 0; luma noise reduction 15

RMGoodLight wrote:

Time for an update.

I found a workaround to use X-Transformer with SilkyPix (7).

Brian from Irident Digital gave me a hint for a much easier way to get X-Transformer and SilkyPix work together.

Fix: generate SilkyPix compatible DNG files with X-Transformer

• Enabling Bit depth: 16 bits/ch will fix the compatibility issues with SilkyPix (7).
• You can use loseless compression and do not store a preview images to reduce file sizes of the generated DNG files.
• just open the generated DNG files in SilkyPix and apply film simulations, sharpening, exposusure as you like
• no conversion of DNG files within Lightroom needed (as described in my previous post)