Panasonic/Olympus RAW file processing

[Hinomotocho]

Thank you to the others who recently contributed lengthy posts, I appreciate the extra effort. If I was feeling overwhelmed starting out with learning how to process RAW, before that I have to spend some time looking into the options suggested here. Having a quick attempt to salvage some shots that the camera didn't get right, I've been happy with my inexperienced tweaks, so I'm optimistic and peachy keen to get on with a few years of trip photos.

Thanks again

 

[Jamajuel]

Unfortunately monthly subscriptions are a no go for me as I can get busy with work and other things so have long periods where I may not use it to get my moneys worth, so I am looking at free or low-priced options.

DXO Photolab is 229€. That’s a lot of subscription months.

You don’t need to stay subscribed. You can just get a month, immediately unsubscribe and then re-subscribe later again etc.



There is an advantage in using something like Lightroom that a majority using in that you find a lot more material to learn, both written and YouTube.

 

[grcolts]

If you think you will not be deep in RAW, why not try the free Silkypix?

Save cost: nothing to lose if you don't like it.

Compartiabilty: 100% because it is recommended by Panny, every in-camera setting and filter will be applied automatically.

After you sure enjoying the RAW conversion (IMHE if you can do the best setting in camera, RAW from G85 does not offer a lot but only needs extra time to develop each of them for a similar to little better than SOOC JPG) or you might not go back to Olympus, then you might consider to invest in paid RAW converters like DXO etc.

On Silkypix, the default setting would bring you very close to SOOC JPG already without work. The HDR slider, curve are simple to use and good for basic editing. However, I find the noise handling of Silkypix strange: it adds and make noise more grainy than G85' JPG engine!

I use Silky Pix Pro 11 and it works so well with Panasonic cameras. As for the RAW noise I too find it strange. Normally, after processing my images I import them into ACDSEE where I clean the noise up quickly. Works like a charm. If one just uses Silky Pix Pro 11 for RAW then I find it helpful to use noise control quite liberally. Just my 2 cents.

 

[JosephScha]

I subscribe to Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. Lightroom uses the same Raw develop module as Photoshop. I almost exclusively use Lightroom Classic except when something I need to do requires Photoshop, like inverting a photo of a negative.

--
js

 

[Bob Carstens]

I use DxO for most of my processing but just used RawTherapee (latest version) on my E500 files because DxO won’t provide the file for it. Also happy with Silkypix 11.

 

[MNE]

Several times a year Amazon sell the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop 12 month subscriptions at a cheaper price. I think last time in the UK they were about £80 which over a year isn't too bad at all.

I pay $10/mo USD for an Adobe photography subscription. I know some people complain about subscriptions but that is a very reasonable price to have unlimited updates to Lightroom (all products), Photoshop, and Bridge.

I just have to sacrifice a few coffees from Starbucks.

--
Mark

 

[alcelc]

Several times a year Amazon sell the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop 12 month subscriptions at a cheaper price. I think last time in the UK they were about £80 which over a year isn't too bad at all.

I pay $10/mo USD for an Adobe photography subscription. I know some people complain about subscriptions but that is a very reasonable price to have unlimited updates to Lightroom (all products), Photoshop, and Bridge.

I just have to sacrifice a few coffees from Starbucks.

My latest Photoshop is the CS4, which was my last PS and IIRC costed me US$600~700 15+ years ago. As per the US Inflation calculator US$600 at that time should mean US$865 in 2024.

If I would have to subscribe it on a US$10/month instead of a one time payment for the CS4, I would have paid US$1800 already in last 15 years. The saving could fund some of my gear upgrading over the years. Yet, not only I do not own it, I am having to keep on feeding Adobe until the day I shall turn to another software! :-(

Although I am using a vintage version, and its ACR can no longer handle RAW of my cameras, its basic editing tools are still powerful enough for my uses. There are RAW converter free with the camera plus give away software from time to time. If nothing else, the free DNG Converter is my last resort.

Money is not my main concern, just against the business model.

 

[Jacques Cornell]

Several times a year Amazon sell the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop 12 month subscriptions at a cheaper price. I think last time in the UK they were about £80 which over a year isn't too bad at all.

I pay $10/mo USD for an Adobe photography subscription. I know some people complain about subscriptions but that is a very reasonable price to have unlimited updates to Lightroom (all products), Photoshop, and Bridge.

I just have to sacrifice a few coffees from Starbucks.

My latest Photoshop is the CS4, which was my last PS and IIRC costed me US$600~700 15+ years ago. As per the US Inflation calculator US$600 at that time should mean US$865 in 2024.

If I would have to subscribe it on a US$10/month instead of a one time payment for the CS4, I would have paid US$1800 already in last 15 years.

And, how much would it have cost you to buy the lifetime license upgrades for 15 years instead? The modern versions of Photoshop, Bridge and Lightroom are way more capable and worth way more than CS4. You're not comparing similar products.

The saving could fund some of my gear upgrading over the years. Yet, not only I do not own it, I am having to keep on feeding Adobe until the day I shall turn to another software! :-(

Although I am using a vintage version, and its ACR can no longer handle RAW of my cameras, its basic editing tools are still powerful enough for my uses.

There's no way on earth I could run my event photography business today with CS4.

There are RAW converter free with the camera plus give away software from time to time. If nothing else, the free DNG Converter is my last resort.

Money is not my main concern, just against the business model.

If all you need is the feature set from 16 years ago, then sure, stick with it. But, if you can benefit from modern technology, a subscription works out to be a pretty good deal. So says the guy who paid $600 for Photoshop 6 in 2002 and $300 for Apple's Aperture in 2005.

--
Event professional for 20+ years, travel & landscape enthusiast for 30+.
http://jacquescornell.photography
http://happening.photos

 

[alcelc]

Just a matter of few more clicks, few more mask? More manual instead of auto selection...

The improvement over the years are tempted but not a lot for me to invest money in for a non earning hobby... For a professional if it can make your life easier and can pay the investment off, surely a no brainer choice.

Only the basic, e.g. shadow push, highlight recovery, color, contrast to human face /body shape editing (painting indeed :-( ), cone stamping, HDR (I am using the free NIK plug in), stacking etc CS4 is more than enough.

Indeed, I am moving to SOOC JPG, keep pp minimal as my goal. I shall be angry if from any shooting session more than a few outputs couldn't be useful without editing in post. PS is not used asxmuch as a couple of years before.

 

[acfo]

Several times a year Amazon sell the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop 12 month subscriptions at a cheaper price. I think last time in the UK they were about £80 which over a year isn't too bad at all.

I pay $10/mo USD for an Adobe photography subscription. I know some people complain about subscriptions but that is a very reasonable price to have unlimited updates to Lightroom (all products), Photoshop, and Bridge.

I just have to sacrifice a few coffees from Starbucks.

Apart from the subscription the other reason to avoid Adobe Lightroom is the incredibly invasive installation on a Windows system. It installs background services which run on startup, hog the memory and block access to the images for other applications.

Adobe Lightroom is not what you want if you only use raw development occasionally . I cannot recommend installing Adobe Lightroom on a work computer.

 

[JamesMorgan]

I used Rawtherapee for a year or two and in general got good results. I then switched to 'Another Rawtherapee (ART)' (https://discuss.pixls.us/c/software/art/36) which is a fork from the original Rawtherapee. It is similar in many ways, but in general the UI is slimmed down and as a result is often faster to get similar results.

However, the main limitation for me with both of these products is that the noise reduction is not as good as the current batch of AI NR products.

I tried trial versions of DXO, Topaz and ON1 products. All of these products achieve great NR - results will vary by the type of image. In general, I found DXO marginally the best, following by ON1 then Topaz. However, these findings will inevitably change as the vendors bring out new releases. There wasn't enough difference between these products to make a decision based on functionality so in the end I simply went with the cheapest - which was ON1 Photo Raw. I have been using it for over a year and very happy with it. Like the OP, I won't consider subscription models. ON1 is a one-time purchase although you do need to pay for major upgrades. I paid for the 2023 version. There is a newer version out now (2024), but I don't see any real reason to upgrade to this.

That said, if ART had better NR I would have stayed using that product - as a general Raw processor it achieves results just as good as the paid products (although it doesn't have fancy AI features such as sky replacement, and some of the masking options).

 

[Jacques Cornell]

Just a matter of few more clicks, few more mask? More manual instead of auto selection...

No. Current tools can do things CS4 simply cannot.

The improvement over the years are tempted but not a lot for me to invest money in for a non earning hobby... For a professional if it can make your life easier and can pay the investment off, surely a no brainer choice.

Understood.

Only the basic, e.g. shadow push, highlight recovery, color, contrast to human face /body shape editing (painting indeed :-( ), cone stamping, HDR (I am using the free NIK plug in), stacking etc CS4 is more than enough.

Indeed, I am moving to SOOC JPG, keep pp minimal as my goal. I shall be angry if from any shooting session more than a few outputs couldn't be useful without editing in post. PS is not used asxmuch as a couple of years before.

That's fine. But, if all you need is a tractor, there's no point in complaining about BMW's business model.

 

[alcelc]

Just a matter of few more clicks, few more mask? More manual instead of auto selection...

No. Current tools can do things CS4 simply cannot.

I guess just a brush and the paint should cover majority of painting (editing?)?

The improvement over the years are tempted but not a lot for me to invest money in for a non earning hobby... For a professional if it can make your life easier and can pay the investment off, surely a no brainer choice.

Understood.

Only the basic, e.g. shadow push, highlight recovery, color, contrast to human face /body shape editing (painting indeed :-( ), cone stamping, HDR (I am using the free NIK plug in), stacking etc CS4 is more than enough.

Indeed, I am moving to SOOC JPG, keep pp minimal as my goal. I shall be angry if from any shooting session more than a few outputs couldn't be useful without editing in post. PS is not used asxmuch as a couple of years before.

That's fine. But, if all you need is a tractor, there's no point in complaining about BMW's business model.

For a life time license, I have an option to upgrade or not. Over the years I had bought many applications, some might be useless now (e.g. Alcohol 120%) but some are still very valid until today (e.g. still using the MS Office 2003!).

Despite Windows 12 will be launched soon, I shall hang on to Windows 10 as long as the applications I am using can run on it. When will Microsoft discontinue its support is not my concern. If it will be on subscription, it will turn into the situation of either using it or not using it!

It is not a purely cost matter. US$10 can barely pay for a quick lunch. Whenever there will be alternative, I avoid subscription.

 

[Jacques Cornell]

Just a matter of few more clicks, few more mask? More manual instead of auto selection...

No. Current tools can do things CS4 simply cannot.

I guess just a brush and the paint should cover majority of painting (editing?)?

I don't use brushes or paint. The global adjustments, lens corrections, geometry & perspective corrections, and noise reduction I use are not available in Photoshop, and even if I could approximate some of their effects in Photoshop it would be less effective, much more labor-intensive, and not non-destructive. Lightroom is more effective and user-friendly, and it operates directly on RAW files in a way that allows subsequent modifications. That said, I use Lightroom primarily for selecting, culling, ranking and organizing my files, and I do all my RAW adjustments in DxO's PhotoLab, which works seamlessly with Lightroom.

The improvement over the years are tempted but not a lot for me to invest money in for a non earning hobby... For a professional if it can make your life easier and can pay the investment off, surely a no brainer choice.

Understood.

Only the basic, e.g. shadow push, highlight recovery, color, contrast to human face /body shape editing (painting indeed :-( ), cone stamping, HDR (I am using the free NIK plug in), stacking etc CS4 is more than enough.

Indeed, I am moving to SOOC JPG, keep pp minimal as my goal. I shall be angry if from any shooting session more than a few outputs couldn't be useful without editing in post. PS is not used asxmuch as a couple of years before.

That's fine. But, if all you need is a tractor, there's no point in complaining about BMW's business model.

For a life time license, I have an option to upgrade or not.

Sure. If the subscription stops delivering value, I'll look elsewhere.

Over the years I had bought many applications, some might be useless now (e.g. Alcohol 120%) but some are still very valid until today (e.g. still using the MS Office 2003!).

OK.

Despite Windows 12 will be launched soon, I shall hang on to Windows 10 as long as the applications I am using can run on it. When will Microsoft discontinue its support is not my concern. If it will be on subscription, it will turn into the situation of either using it or not using it!

It is not a purely cost matter. US$10 can barely pay for a quick lunch. Whenever there will be alternative, I avoid subscription.

I guess you don't need the improvements the past 15 years have brought. For those who do, though, the subscription model, as currently implemented, offers good value. Honestly, someone like you is probably better off with a different tool that offers 1) a lifetime license, or 2) a lower subscription price. There are lots of good competing apps out there designed specifically for photographers with more limited needs. Photoshop ain't exactly the most user-friendly tool around. Believe it or not, as a full-time event pro, I almost never use it. I'm paying $10/month just for access to Lightroom's DAM features, output sharpening, and occasional use of its Merge to Pano feature. I pay about $100/year for upgrades to PhotoLab, which does my heavy lifting.

--
Event professional for 20+ years, travel & landscape enthusiast for 30+.
http://jacquescornell.photography
http://happening.photos

 

[mihu86]

@ReedW @JamesMorgan

I trialled multiple RAW processors extensively recently. I ended up paying (more) for DXO (truth to be told, I wouldn't have bought anything if AI noise reduction tools weren't this damn good - as otherwise Darktable would be perfectly sufficient. Also, noise reduction in DXO is a lot more consistent than ON1, despite good results can be achieved with ON1 with the correct settings and perhaps masking.). I bought Affinity as well for potential editing or panorama/hdr merging.

ON1 Photo RAW 2024 seemed very promising (it would be so good with all its features if it was working well!), but something looked just a little bit strange with the colours it produced.
I managed to pinpoint it later in one of my photos: it has daffodils in a corner. Their middle is a visibly darker yellow tone (as it is in reality) in basically all editors, but ON1. When working with the RAW (from my Pana G9), the flowers look uniformly yellow. I couldn't bring out the difference by editing or playing around with different colour spaces.

And here's the twist: if I open a tiff (or jpg) produced by another editor, simply saving it with ON1 makes these yellows more uniform and washed out, without any modifications! So it is not a demosaicing issue I think. I tried ON1 Effects 2023 too, both standalone and as an Affinity plugin, it does the same. (The difference image feature of IrfanView comes very handy here.)

To illustrate this, I exported a 16-bit TIFF with sRGB colour space from DXO. I then simply opened it without any modifications except cropping in Affinity and ON1 (I did it with Effects as my Photo RAW trial ran out - starting from RAW with Photo RAW was even worse, beleive me).
I know, it is a tiny part of the original image. Yet, quality differences lie in the small details.


Cropped and exported from Affinity


Cropped and exported from ON1


IrfanView difference image (zoomed in screenshot)

The difference is the biggest in the blue channel.

I inspected some other photos too, and came to the conclusion that ON1 somehow reduces colour detail.
Have you experienced similar quirks? I can share the original RAW privately if you would like to experiment.

Just for reference, roughly the same crop as above from the RAW developed with ON1: