Re: Processing with Work Space
1
OutsideTheMatrix wrote:
Is Oly Viewer 3 now phased out since I dont see a download link for it anymore?
Gone forever.
When processing RAW files from Work Space, I see some differences vs shooting L SF directly with the camera. The main thing is that the file sizes are about half! When I shoot L SF in camera I get file sizes of between 8-10 MB. When I shoot RAW (14 MB) and use Work Space to apply the same JPG settings to the RAW file and output an L SF image from that RAW, the file size is only 5 MB! By comparison, EXIF-TIFF files are around 45 MB (larger if I select the 16 bit option- but is that even necessary since Oly RAW aren't 16 bit?) Is L SF processed from RAW using a different compression ratio?
The camera LSF is a bloated jpeg without great advantage, the smaller LSF from Workspace makes a lot more sense. In my case I use the LN jpeg from the camera with no pain if for some reason I don't want to play with the raw file.
As an experiment, make a 16 bit tiff from Workspace, then use FastStone Viewer to make a bunch of varying quality jpegs (100%, 95%, 90%, 85%, 80%, 75% 70% with different suffixes of course) from it and then compare side by side at 100% in FastStone to see if you can see any differences between say 100% and 95% quality levels.
For a printing file I would keep above 95% for safety, particularly if a large print. For display on the web, 75% up to 85% depending on the content and the intent of the posting, usually downsized anyway to screen display size as it's silly to give away your images (if it's a good one of course). If someone insists on seeing your image in pixel peeping form, then upload at the original quality level or not more than say 5% worse than original.
With FastStone Options at Save As.....
By using 100% quality and the Better Quality option for colour got me the largest size jpeg on a random 16MP jpeg from the camera as a source (being a camera 3.5MB LNjpeg which looked good).
File size variations come with sharpening and the one thing I do not like about Olympus camera jpegs and the results from Workspace is that some noise reduction and some sharpening is done even when I have everything set to off or minimum. Typically the camera jpeg has some halo edge and that contrasty edge increases jpeg file size.
(It is even less than L F out of the camera!) I saw another thread where other users mentioned seeing the same thing. I used a third party RAW converter (FastStone) and saw the same result- I couldn't get my processed files to be any larger than about 5 MB.
There's way way better converters than FastStone Viewer or Workspace, FastStone does not do the usual geometric corrections so wide angle lens results can look a tad fishy at the edges.
Affinity Photo is cheap and darn good if used carefully, getting more capable with each update and so far no extra cost to update. DxO Photolab3 Elite even better but only at discount times. Black Friday for the last two years saw DxO at a rare 50% discount, so time to look is then, otherwise wait for their regular 30% discounts. DxO is expensive to own over the years but, darn, it is good.
Another question I had about Work Space is that I now see options for Live Composite in the software where I can do both "light stacking and "dark stacking." Am I correct in assuming that this software now allows my non Live Composite cameras like the E-PL6 to do Live Composite now if I process with this software in the same way that my later cameras that do have the feature do it? That would be nice! I also see that I can do focus stacking with it, which means users with cameras that dont do in camera stacking like my EM10Mk2 can use this software for that also!
No answer there.
One downside of Work Space that I found is that I can only download it on one computer for each camera serial number. For example- I have two computers, one desk top and one laptop. I wanted to have it on each computer. I downloaded it to my desk top first using my EM10Mk2 serial. I tried to use the same serial when I tried to download it on my laptop and it came up as "invalid serial." Have others seen this kind of thing too? So I then was able to use my E-PL6 to download it to my laptop. Does this mean if something happens and I have to reformat either hard drive I wont be able to redownload the software again? Maybe I should save a copy of the .exe on an external drive just in case?
That I find totally curious. I only ever download Workspace using the usual lazy serial number of "123456789" and have it installed on different computers at home (five, maybe six?) with no problems. Workspace then works with all Oly raw files I have and will also work with any brand jpegs I have. But I way prefer DxO followed by Affinity.
