DNG Develop Tool - Help Me Decide?

[gcoupe]

After many years of just using JPGs, with the acquisition of my new Nokia Lumia 1020, I'm dipping my toe in the water of RAW and DNG files.

So I need software to develop the digital negatives that I'm going to be producing.

I'm currently looking at trial versions of both Lightroom 5 and Photo Elements 12. Frankly, both strike me as expensive, considering that I only want to use a very small part of what they do, because PSU will remain my main DAM tool. It does a dam(n) sight better than either LR5 or the Organizer in PE12.

From what I've seen thus far, the main advantage of LR5 is the non-destructive development processing. PE12 seems to use the Camera RAW plug-in to produce an altered version of the file. On the other hand, the PE12 editor has more functionality than LR5.

If there's anyone out their using these (or other) tools for digital development, I'd be interested to hear why you've picked the tools you have.

[andy@damroundup.com]

HI Geoff - I can't tell you how many editors and DAM tools I have loaded on my computer at this point... at least 20-25.. I've tried just about all of them. For me and my workflow, I love Lightroom. I find the tools work very well and I can quickly group images together to make quick work of those images taken in similar situations. I subscribe to the workflow of Serge Rimelli (sp?) - his videos can be found on youtube but his technique works pretty well on most images.

The hard part - getting LR and Idi to play nice together... and DNG seems to be the only solution to make this an easy (easier) task. Because LR will easily update the embedded DNG preview with your edits, Idi should then pick them up and update the catalog so your thumbs and previews match the edits made in LR - without having to export a unique version as you would need to do if using JPG.

Some other products to consider - Sagelight (probably one of the most powerful and fast RAW editors on the market (written in Assembler)... but - single image editing only [until next version\, crazy UI [again, supposed to get upgraded in next version] and the developer just disappears into development land for months at a time), ACDSee Pro (the tools are pretty amazing once you get used to them.. and it has many of them now).

Hope this helps... always interested to hear what other think about this stuff... - Andy.

[Doug Pardee]

I'm biased, but I generally use LightZone. It's now free, open-source software, and it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. http://lightzoneproject.org/

[tstoddard]

Andy,

You mentioned a couple of raw converters that I wasn't familiar with so I tried to check them out. I was unable to find a converter called "Crazy UI". Do you have a link to that software?

I don't use Lightroom so I can't speak to the workflow issues related to using LR and PSU but from what I've read LR is an excellent raw converter. I try to avoid Abobe products in general because of cost and also because of their new push to a cloud services model. They still make lightroom available with a pertetual license but who knows for how much longer that will last.

I use Photo Ninja to process my raw files, which are NEF files. I don't use DNG files so I can't say how anything works with them. I use Photo Ninja because I find that I can usually get results that I like much faster and easier than with other programs I've tried. Photo Ninja does have batch processing capabilities but I find that I usually work on one image at a time anyway. The one aspect of PN that I find limiting is that it is only able to process the entire image. There is no way to select an area within the image and affect only that area. I guess other programs enable this by offering layers. I don't have a lot of experience with photo editing software so I'm not real sure about how other programs do this or which ones do and don't offer that capability. I have experimented with several others but always go back to PN because I'm able to get results I like so easily.

I've also used AfterShot Pro but I found that Corel doesn't support the product very well. Many new camera models are not yet supported and it seems to take Corel forever to update the program. They are supposedly working on a major new version but there is very little information about it. I did like using it and it has a lot more functionality than Photo Ninja but again, I prefer the result I get with Photo Ninja. RawTherapee is a free program that has a lot of functionality built into it but it is not nearly as easy to use as some of the other programs I've tried. I also have ViewNX2, which came with my camera, but it has very limited functionality and Nikon's full raw processing software is very pricey so I haven't tried it. I've downloaded some other trial software but haven't found anything I like enough to spend any significant amount of time on.

[jstartin]

After many years of just using JPGs, with the acquisition of my new Nokia Lumia 1020, I'm dipping my toe in the water of RAW and DNG files.
So I need software to develop the digital negatives that I'm going to be producing.

The fact that the "raw" file is a DNG does not remove the need for the converter application to "support" the specific camera which involves having a camera-specific colour profile. I'm not a Lightroom user, but I understand you can prepare your own camera-specific colour profiles to use with it. I read that Nokia have profiles, made by some keen photographers who work for the company, available for download.

Many other applications are not so versatile. My usual raw development application allows use of DNG versions of the image files for cameras it supports, but does not support the Nokia 1020 and gets no further that displaying a stop sign on a downloaded sample file. There is no information on whether or when support will be added.

[Doug Pardee]

The fact that the "raw" file is a DNG does not remove the need for the converter application to "support" the specific camera which involves having a camera-specific colour profile.

That depends on the converter application. A few — Apple Aperture and LightZone among them, and I think SilkyPix — always use their own, built-in color profiles and will indeed be unable to work with a DNG from an "unknown" camera model. However, DNG files contain color profiles that most Raw converters will use if they don't happen to have their own profile.

[jstartin]

The fact that the "raw" file is a DNG does not remove the need for the converter application to "support" the specific camera which involves having a camera-specific colour profile.

That depends on the converter application. A few — Apple Aperture and LightZone among them, and I think SilkyPix — always use their own, built-in color profiles and will indeed be unable to work with a DNG from an "unknown" camera model. However, DNG files contain color profiles that most Raw converters will use if they don't happen to have their own profile.

Doug, you have a point there, and I should have written "does not necessarily remove". I understand that AftershotPro is another that doesn't work with unknown cameras (or DNGs from the Adobe converter) and that Capture One produces a result but with "off" colours. I don't know about ACDSee, PhotoNinja, Photoline and all the other raw converters and raw-capable editors, but I suspect that "most" should be "some".

Incidentally, with the Lumia 1020 DNG sample I was able to download, PSU gives wildly incorrect colours for anything other than the thumbnail.

[andy@damroundup.com]

Andy,
You mentioned a couple of raw converters that I wasn't familiar with so I tried to check them out. I was unable to find a converter called "Crazy UI". Do you have a link to that software?

Lol... whoops - sorry... Crazy UI was in reference to SageLight... I think it is the most powerful software on the market but I'm not a big fan of its user interface... and the face the developer continues to disappear for months at a time (leaving unfulfilled serial number purchases for customers) doesn't give me a good feeling for the future of the product.

Sorry for the confusion! - Andy.