Comparing RAW converters

[Pa]

I now have Rawshooter Essentials, Photoshop CS, and Nikon Capture on trial. For comparison, I converted a RAW image with each, making NO post-processing adjustments.

First, Nikon Capture:

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Next Photoshop CS:

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Finally, Rawshooter:

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Comments?

 

[Scott Sherman]

Hi Pa, if I can call you that,

I took your NC image just for comparison. I did not touch it, this is your unedited image.

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And I took the image you opened in PS without editing. I opened this one in PSCS2, bumped the red saturation up +35 and the yellow saturation down -10 and the yellow hue up +10.
View attachment 8982

Just using my old eyes it looks pretty close on my calibrated Mac computer monitor. Took me about 5 seconds. If you agree that they are pretty close, it makes an argument for using PS when you consider all the other benefits of using PS.

Keep it going.

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[Pa]

To my eyes, and on my monitor, the red shades are quite different from the ones I posted on BOTH the images you posted!

 

[Scott Sherman]

That is a problem with computer monitors. It's a bit like going to the department store tv section where they have 30 or 40 televisions on the same channel and each looks a little different. I am not sure if you saved your imges in sRGB, (the standard for web) so i made the assumtion and resaved them as sRGB. Also, my monitor is a Mac but it is set to 2.2 as a gamma starting point. Also if your monitor is not calibrated you will definitley see something different from me.

I wish I could have you come into my house and see what i see, because they look very very similar. To my eye they look identical. My NC image and your NC image are just slightly different which may be due to resaving them for web in sRGB if you did not do that. But for comparison, my two images appear very similar.

However, having said that. You can easily recreate my little experiment on your own computer. Open the image in PS again and make the adjustments I made or your own which will probably be similar and see if you can't bring the two images into agreement.

The point I was trying to make is that using PS you can easily produce an image that is pleasing to the eye. If you do not have to duplicate an image to a scene or product, PS is (IMHO) a very good image editor due to the flexibility and available options to go beyond the intial edit.

 

[JeffKohn]

Scott I agree the two shots you posted look similar, but to me they don't look anything like the NC image that Pa posted. That can't be a monitor issue because I'm viewing all 3 on the same monitor. The one you posted as being untouched is washed out and has horrible JPEG artifacts, I wonder if you mistakenly posted the wrong image.

 

[Scott Sherman]

All I did was to right click on the images in Pa's posting to save them to my desktop. I did not look to see what file format they were saved in. I did not touch Pa's image other than to save it to my desktop and then resave it to sRGB to upload to to my post. I copied his to put next to the PS version which I treated the same way except that I opened that image in PS and edited the red and yellow hues. It is possible that the two images underwent some changes in the import/export process. I wanted to put the two images close together for easier comparison. I was not trying to match Pa's NC image. I was trying to match the copy of Pa's NC image that I saved and then reposted for the comparison. Also to be fair, I edited a .jpg file that has been reduced twice for the web (which accounts for the jpg artifacts) instead of raw files as Pa did when he started the thread.

I fear that I may have confused the original intent of Pa in posting the images. I wanted to see if it was possible to edit an image opened in PS to appear similar to one opened in NC easily and quickly. I was able to do that . The purpose I did this was to help determine if using PS as a raw converter was a reasonable alternative to NC.

If I distorted Pa's intent or misunderstood his motive for the post, I apologize. I was only trying to offer help and participate in a disussion of comparing raw editors. A fairly controversial subject at the moment.

 

[tamachan]

I now have Rawshooter Essentials, Photoshop CS, and Nikon Capture on trial. For comparison, I converted a RAW image with each, making NO post-processing adjustments.

What are your camera settings? Any in-camera sharpening, hue adjustments, saturation? I would like to see the same test with all your camera settings set to None.

 

[Scott Sherman]

These are done with all auto settings turned off. I found the same thing as you did I believe

https://www.nikoncafe.com//forums/viewtopic.php?t=3927&highlight=