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Canon RAW converter comparison, take two

:: Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 @ 2:09:30 am

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Four years ago, I wrote a RAW converter comparison article called The Mystery of RAW Converters. Here’s a one-image update to the article.


RAW converter comparison for underwater sunballs

In the 2004 article, I concluded that I prefer Canon’s Digital Photo Professional for RAW conversions when the image contains an underwater sunball. That conclusion still holds.

In general, I find that the Canon 1D series cameras (Mk III, these days) produce “natural”, pleasing colors. I almost always like the embedded thumbnail’s look more than the thumbnail images that pop up once Aperture or Lightroom generate thumbnails upon import. Aperture tends to boost the image somewhat — colors are stronger and contrast is higher, but it’s not always pleasing when compared to the original.

Underwater photos that contain “the blue” get whacked really badly; photos and distant reef subjects tend to take on a green cast when compared to the colors in JPG images taken straight out of the camera (extracted from RAW files).

Sunballs are still a disaster when images are converted with Aperture or Lightroom. Underwater, I would rather shoot sunball images in JPG mode than use Aperture or Lightroom to convert RAW files — and believe me, it takes a lot to convince me to shoot JPG over RAW. Luckily, Canon’s free software, Digital Photo Professional, continues to do an excellent job in converting underwater sunball images, closely matching the RAW converter built into the camera.

Popularity: 1% | Yap, Micronesia | link | trackback | Sep 16, 2008 02:09:30
  • http://www.lars-kirchhoff.de Lars Kirchhoff

    Thanks Eric,

    I was shocked about your results and my ignorance of taking DPP into consideration for converting RAW files. Lately I was very frustrated with some sunball shots I took in summer and developed with Lightroom 2.

    /lars

  • Lesley Mitchell

    As a confirmed BibblePro user, I’d be interested to see the same image processed by that tool.

  • Henrik

    Thats just nuts! It should not be that way… I think.

    How does the utility dcraw ( http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/ ) compare to these, if you have the time to test it?

  • http://www.deepdreams.com Rogier

    I agree with Eric. Despite beeing a huge advocate for Aperture I have also concluded that my images look much better in DPP than in anything else. Workflow etc. sucks but the images look great. Now I am shooting much less its not a requirement any more. Currently I am back to what I started years ago. DPP and iPhoto….

  • Mike V

    He still talks funny, no matter the converter :P

    Hi T! :)

  • http://echeng.com echeng

    Lest you think I hate Aperture, 99% of the images on ECHENG.COM from the last year and a half have come out of it. I still use it as my main RAW converter.

    However, when I need to print something, I will run it through the best RAW converter for the shot — typically, I use CaptureOne, Aperture, or DPP, depending on shot content.

    The conveniences of Aperture make it the best program for me, overall.

  • http://twitter.com/jauderho Jauder Ho

    Eric, Lightroom 2 has camera profiles (beta). Have you tried that in comparison?

    Personally, I still prefer RawShooter but it does not handle UTF-8 properly nor GPS EXIF so I have to use Lightroom now.

  • http://echeng.com echeng

    I don’t have Lightroom 2. I may not ever get it — we’ll see. Also, I am not a Bibble user, nor do I use dcraw. However, if I have time, I’ll give them a try.

    In general, I am not willing to use one-off programs anymore after the advent of non-destructive editing and organization.

  • Brian H

    I am relatively new to working with RAW files and tried to use DPP to touch-up and convert a set of pictures a took at an outdoor wedding last week (I was not the official wedding photographer). When I exported the photos as JPEG’s, all the sharpness I had added disappeared and the colors in many of the pictures went a little crazy. This was comparing the converted JPEG’s in Preview in MacOSX 10.5 to the RAW in DPP v3.4.1. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I am considering getting Aperture since I would like to continue working in RAW, but I’m concerned now that I’ve seen there are situations where Aperture is actually worse then DPP. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

    Thanks…

  • http://echeng.com echeng

    Brian — you should not have any surprises when you export JPGs from Aperture. Be sure you know what color space you are exporting in, and be sure that your viewer supports color profiles.

    If you are doing this for screen or web viewing, be sure your export is in sRGB.

  • Brian H

    Hi Eric – Thanks so much for your reply. I hadn’t thought to check to make sure my color space was still sRGB. As it turns out it is (sRGB 1.31 (Canon)), so that doesn’t seem to be the immediate problem. However, one other thing I’ve found since writing yesterday was that the pictures look different in different applictions. I had originally just looked at them in the MacOSX Preview app. where they exhibit the problems I mentioned before. But if I look at them in Firefox, they look fine. Safari and Graphic Converter are both some place in the middle. In these apps, the sharpness seems to be there, but the photos have a lot more red then in Firefox and DPP. I’m sure this is probably something I’m doing wrong, but since I’ve never seen behavior like this before, I don’t quite know what to do to correct it.

    Brian

  • http://echeng.com echeng

    Brian – it doesn’t really matter what color space you shoot in if you are shooting in RAW, unless you are extracting thumbnails or shooting simultaneous RAW + JPG.

    It sounds like your display is profiled poorly. Firefox doesn’t color manage images, and the other programs you mention do. The other apps will read the embedded color profile and try to do a conversion to your monitor’s color space. In the case of the Mac, by default, this means a bit more contrast and saturation.

  • Brian Heath

    Eric – Thanks for your comments and insights. I will continue to play with the images to see what I can figure out.

    BTW, you have some incredible photos in your collection. I’m very jealous of your photography skills and some of the places you’ve gotten to shoot. I’ve now added your blog to my Google Reader list so I can keep up with your travels.

    Thanks again…

    Brian

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