What am I seeing here?

[David Robertson]

I do not usually do this sort of thing but I noticed a big difference in the conversion of an image between Silkypix 3.0 and LR. What struck me was the muddy and smudged colours of LR but better detail, versus the fantastic colours of Silkypix but poorer detail. For more comparisons I have also provided conversions from C1Pro and RSP. The words in the image read "Controlled ZONE".

I'm not particularly pleased with any of them but would choose the C1Pro version.
What am I seeing here and what would you do in the various convertors to improve things?

http://www.scot-image.co.uk/RawC.html

The file is from a tripod mounted Canon 1ds, 70-210 @ 125mm, F10, 1/80sec, ISO 100. The conversions (16bit tiffs) are the defaults offered by the various convertors with no sharpening added. Saved as Max quality jpegs.

 

[Don Lashier]

You're seeing color aliasing/color-fringing on high contrast edges. LR did quite well - essentially on par with C1 although C1 did a bit better on shadow detail, while RSP and SP obviously had problems. LR's performance is encouraging as ACR is really quite poor in this regard, I've got some duzie examples. This is one of the areas where less sophisticated de-moisaicing algorithms typically fall down.

- DL

 

[John_Nevill]

I've noticed similar effects in Silkypix, I tried working on some high key images and saw some really strange fringing which yeilding pronounced coloured halos. I've tried using the highlight controller to pull it back but this leads to posterization.
So I have to agree, it great for colours but can lose it at the extremes.

OT: I wish Silkypix (ISL) had a more open environment for such valuable feedback, its defintley lacking, very poor response from emails to their support team. In fact their average stock response time is a week.

Unlike a few others I care to mention, I recently bought Qimage pro and had a couple of minor issues, I happily traded emails with Mike Chaney over the weekend without problem....now that is dedicated support!

 

[Asher Kelman]

John,

SilkyPix reminds me of a spikey fish, (that make you sick or worse), that only expert and licensed Japanese chefs can cook safely! Done right it's a wonderful result! However they don't share their secrets easily.

We have here experienced people at the highest level from Adobe RAW & LR, Aperture, C1 and more. We'd appreciate more expertise in processing in some areas. Anyone lurking from various MFR's PM me so I can greet you!

 

[John_Nevill]

Asher, many a true word said in jest!

Ironically, I gave talk last night on image workflow at the Marwell Photographic Group. I put it to the audience on what application to use and there was resounding concensus for LR. So poor old silkyfish (oops) took a back seat. Two hours later, I had a very horse throat and I barely got my feet wet on functionality.
I had a few critics, namely "I can do all that in CS2, so what do I need LR for", perhaps they've missed the point. But out of the 40 odd people there, most were convinced its the way to go.....perhaps I should get a sales job ;-)

 

[David Robertson]

Don, thanks for your assessment.

I'll give LR another go . . . but those Silkypix colours sure are tempting.

Perhaps my prayers will be answered with C1Pro 4.0.

Dave

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

I do not usually do this sort of thing but I noticed a big difference in the conversion of an image between Silkypix 3.0 and LR. What struck me was the muddy and smudged colours of LR but better detail, versus the fantastic colours of Silkypix but poorer detail. For more comparisons I have also provided conversions from C1Pro and RSP. The words in the image read "Controlled ZONE".

I'm not particularly pleased with any of them but would choose the C1Pro version.
What am I seeing here and what would you do in the various convertors to improve things?

First and foremost, I find RSP has the best color here.

ALR has horrible aliasing (this could be a JPEG compression artifact too).

Both RSP and Silkypix have color casts in the lowe rportionsof the sign.

In the web JPEGs only the Silkypix rendition fails to exhibit significant aliasing. Again, this could be JPEG artifacts.

The 4 images are all at different scales which makes an honest comparison difficult and this variation in size far exceeeds the variation in RAW converter output size AFAIK.

What color were the words Controlled and Zone? I assume Zone was red leaving RSP with the most accurate color rendition followed by Silkypix and then C1Pro. ALR's rendition here looks awful with no color in the word ZONE and horrible aliasing (jaggies).

For checking rendition of detail and color I would suggest trying to make the exposure more constent before worrying about comparisons of detail.

I would ensure that they all either apply a full capture sharpen or no sharpening at all and use your choice of capture sharpening.

These last two will get you a reasonable baseline for comparing the conversions.

All that said, though, for creating photos and not images for technical usage, perhaps the best thing is to work with an image in each converter until you feel happy with it and then compare them. The reason I say to junk the scientific approach to IQ here is you have to work with these tools and you will have to decide which will work best for you. It matters little how great an image comes out if you do not like using the tool and then fail to use it and craft images.

some thougths,

Sean

 

[David Robertson]

Hi Sean,

Thanks for your comments and advice - some valuble tips if I decide to do this sort of test again.

What color were the words Controlled and Zone? I assume Zone was red leaving RSP with the most accurate color rendition followed by Silkypix and then C1Pro. ALR's rendition here looks awful with no color in the word ZONE and horrible aliasing (jaggies).

They were black, which probably puts LR at the top of the pile.

All that said, though, for creating photos and not images for technical usage, perhaps the best thing is to work with an image in each converter until you feel happy with it and then compare them. The reason I say to junk the scientific approach to IQ here is you have to work with these tools and you will have to decide which will work best for you. It matters little how great an image comes out if you do not like using the tool and then fail to use it and craft images.

Very good advice - thanks.

Dave

 

[David Robertson]

Updated LR conversion

I just chanced across a comment on another forum that LR has a bug with its De-noise filter and that the advise is to turn it off. Intrigued, I re-processed the file again and have posted along with the other files. I'm not really wishing to get deeper into this, but posted the new image for to be fair to LR.

http://www.scot-image.co.uk/RawC.html

I see an improvement in colour aliasing between the blue and red on the sign but a worsening around the letters.

I think that the more I look pixels the less I like them! Its time to step back and look at the whole picture.

Cheers

Dave

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

I think that the more I look pixels the less I like them! Its time to step back and look at the whole picture.

Hi Dave,

I would suggest taking a quick look at DxO Optics for RAW conversion (it is too slow for workflow). But for getting the details right for large prints it is the best I have seen.

enjoy,

Sean