Analysis of Panasonic G5 RAW Files from Focus Numerique - Page 8

DHart · #71 August 20th, 2012, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by meyerweb

Wait, did you simply do a straight conversion in SP, or did you try to save the highlights first, and then convert to TIFF. If you did the first, no duh.

A tiff is still a "baked" file. Any processing you want to do to recover highlights or shadows, or adjust color balance, and probably a number of other things needs to be done before the conversion to Tiff, within SP. Once you've "baked" the blown highlights into the tiff, they're blown forever.

Silkypix probably isn't as good as LR in that regard, but it's still going to be way better than trying to recover data that no longer exists. This has nothing to do with Silkypix. If you do a straight conversion to Tiff in LR, without first recovering the highlights, and then feed the TIFF back into LR, you'd see the same result.

meyerweb... of course... how could we have been overlooking that simple fact...

good thinking and excellent point. Gotta love the combined knowledge, experience, and thinking that this forum provides!

Using SilkyPix is such a chore... we-so-need Adobe to update LR4 for the G5. I'm sure it will happen fairly soon.. just not soon enough for we anxious early-adopters.

Kiwi Paul · #72 August 20th, 2012, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DHart

Paul, that last conversion comparison really shows a significant loss of highlight data with the SillyPix conversion to TIF.

I was quite surprised when I saw the loss of the very bright highlights in some of my outdoor G5 test images that were SilkyPix conversions to TIF, and especially so with my kitchen DR test. It's unfortunate that SillyPix does such a poor job with this.

I'm certainly looking forward to the LR4 update!

I have amended my DR Test post earlier in this thread to make it quite clear that the SilkyPix conversion is likely to blame for the significant loss of highlight data in the G5 test image.

Yeah it seems that way but Meyerweb is correct and I think you do have to process in Silkypix first, I was under the impression a tiff was more like a raw than a jpg but it seems it still is "fixed", a tiff seems to have more latitude for adjustment than a jpg but not as much as a raw file.
I would spend more time trying to get up to speed with Silkypix but really can't be bothered as I like LR and can't see me using SP long term.

Seems at the moment there isn't much we can do other than learn SP or wait for Adobe.

Paul

Kiwi Paul · #73 August 20th, 2012, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by meyerweb

Wait, did you simply do a straight conversion in SP, or did you try to save the highlights first, and then convert to TIFF. If you did the first, no duh.

A tiff is still a "baked" file. Any processing you want to do to recover highlights or shadows, or adjust color balance, and probably a number of other things needs to be done before the conversion to Tiff, within SP. Once you've "baked" the blown highlights into the tiff, they're blown forever.

Silkypix probably isn't as good as LR in that regard, but it's still going to be way better than trying to recover data that no longer exists. This has nothing to do with Silkypix. If you do a straight conversion to Tiff in LR, without first recovering the highlights, and then feed the TIFF back into LR, you'd see the same result.

Thanks Meyerweb, you are correct, I was under the impression a tiff was more like a raw file than a jpg but it appears to be something in between as far as latitude of adjustment goes.
It seems unless we want to learn SP and process the raw that way the only other option is to wait for Adobe.

Paul

Kiwi Paul · #74 August 20th, 2012, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeln

Fortunately, the OOC jpegs are pretty darn good when you shoot in Large/Fine mode. It's not like I am some Fine Art Pro who needs to always work in RAW. My crap works OK in jpeg, I just enjoy using ACR on RAW files (sorry, I have LR 4.1, but don't like it much).

Shoot in raw and jpg, when Adobe brings out G5 support you can still go back and process the raw files.

Paul

DHart · #75 August 20th, 2012, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiwi Paul

Shoot in raw and jpg, when Adobe brings out G5 support you can still go back and process the raw files.

Paul

DHart · #76 August 20th, 2012, 02:16 PM

I have completely re-written my earlier post with the attempted comparison test to reflect the findings of your combined thinking! Thanks, guys, for all of your contributions.

Kiwi Paul · #77 August 20th, 2012, 03:54 PM

I decided to give Silkypix a real go so spent the last hour working on a single photo (taken with G5 in raw) just trying to learn it and see what it can do, I tried to fathom the highlight control and gradually got use to sort of how it works but the only way I could bring up shadows (without trying to play about with the curves control) was to raise the gamma and soon as I did that all my my highlight adjustments went out the window, so I seesawed back and forth and this is the best I could do, I converted it to a tiff then tried to optimize it in LR and managed to recover the highlights a bit more and bring up the shadows better.
To be honest I'm not impressed with Silkypix, I really can't see why anyone would prefer it over LR.

Here's the photos.

Original (well as original as Silkypix makes it, but this was before I made any changes).

Raw file edited with Silkypix as best as I could get it

The Silkypix tiff file processed in LR to refine it more.

arad85 · #78 August 21st, 2012, 04:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DHart

I had done a test of an intensely contrasty subject to compare the RAW file from G5 with a RAW file from the E-M5. Since LR4 does not yet recognize RAW files from the G5, I had to use SilkyPix to convert the G5 RAW to a TIF before bringing the file into LR4. That fact alone, and especially since I did not first recover highlights in SilkyPix before converting the file to TIF, flawed my test result. Therefore, I've removed the test results which compared recovered highlights and shadows.

Just to highlight (!) the importance of this, here are two images that are imports of the SAME G3 raw into SilkyPix and Lightroom 4 with default processing applied. The SilkyPix is the first image, Adobe the second. You can clearly see better highlight processing (and better de-mosaic sharpness) from the Adobe image.

sLorenzi · #79 August 23rd, 2012, 12:34 PM

Just for your concern, downloading some G5 raw files just to try with rawtherappe I ended up noticing that the Paintshop Pro X4 can open G5 files. If anyone want to give it a try, the link is here.

Ultimate Photo Editor - Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate

Kiwi Paul · #80 August 23rd, 2012, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sLorenzi

Just for your concern, downloading some G5 raw files just to try with rawtherappe I ended up noticing that the Paintshop Pro X4 can open G5 files. If anyone want to give it a try, the link is here.

Ultimate Photo Editor - Corel PaintShop Pro X4 Ultimate

Thanks for the link, I downloaded it and tried it but while you can view the raw files they are washed out and have poor detail so you can't really do anything with them, Picasa is the same.

Paul