What's your best RAW converter?

[DWS]

Aperture 2 here....simple to learn and use, and meets my editing requirements

 

[zemlin]

I love working with Bibble Pro from Bibblelabs.com. It's very fast, the quality is great, and the workflow works well for floating the best shots to the top of a large pile.

 

[Alleh Lindquist]

I use Adobe DNG converter and convert everything over then trash the RAW's

 

[DonaldC]

I use DXO Pro 6.6 (soon to be 7) with the film pack 3.2 (great addition). I have used Capture One, Adobe Lightroom 3, and ACR versions. Clearly, they are all very good, but for me, DXO Pro is the best by far, offering the best noise reduction in the biz, specific lens modules to download that automatically correct lens issues. It is intuitive to use and the learning curve is not steep. One can create custom templates of all sorts, which is great for batch processing and the program offers great flexibility of use and personalization with regard to work flow. The good people at DXO are very meticulous in their work and it shows in the end product. Customer support is also good, as they respond very quickly and effectively.

One can try a fully functional trial version for 30 days, so one can really dig in and give a real chance. The tutorials are great and show a streamlined, efficient workflow and demonstrate how to get the most out of this superior product The price is very reasonable for what is offered and I recommend purchasing the Film Pack (Expert version), as it is a great addition with good flexibility and can be used in the application, or as a stand alone program.

The only drawback I can see is that the time to develop the image is a little slow, but worth the wait. That issue is being addressed and I anticipate it will speed up in future versions. I always convert to 16 bit TIFF files, but there are many other options as well as creating ones own output method.

 

[Buckster]

You realize this thread hasn't been active for more than 3 years, right?

At $430 for the "expert" versions of the RAW converter you recommend, I'm glad that LR4 fully meets my needs for less than a quarter of that price.

 

[belial]

You realize this thread hasn't been active for more than 3 years, right?

At $430 for the "expert" versions of the RAW converter you recommend, I'm glad that LR4 fully meets my needs for less than a quarter of that price.

The only difference I could tell between elite and standard is camera and lens support is a bit more for elite. I looked up your camera model and it's supported with what looks like a pretty complete list of lenses. So if you did want it there seems to be no advantage in elite for you. Now the photo pack expert does look better but I'm guessing standard would be decent. Ive never tried it so I'll be doing the trial just because

 

[Buckster]

You realize this thread hasn't been active for more than 3 years, right?

At $430 for the "expert" versions of the RAW converter you recommend, I'm glad that LR4 fully meets my needs for less than a quarter of that price.

The only difference I could tell between elite and standard is camera and lens support is a bit more for elite. I looked up your camera model and it's supported with what looks like a pretty complete list of lenses. So if you did want it there seems to be no advantage in elite for you. Now the photo pack expert does look better but I'm guessing standard would be decent. Ive never tried it so I'll be doing the trial just because

LR4, as previous versions did, already recognizes my lenses to do auto image distortion and vignette correction. It also includes a fantastic noise reduction section, that I rarely have a need for anyway, and I also have Noise Ninja installed in Photoshop if I really need some serious noise reduction help which is, again, rarely. And for those rare occasions I feel a need for them, they seem to work just fine for me - noise gone, but not clarity or sharpness or detail that I want to keep.

So what's to gain by paying so much more for this other program?

Play with it and let us know what you find out, especially if you're a LR user as well to compare them.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

LR4 <---when second best RAW software "won't suffice"

 

[belial]

LR4, as previous versions did, already recognizes my lenses to do auto image distortion and vignette correction. It also includes a fantastic noise reduction section, that I rarely have a need for anyway, and I also have Noise Ninja installed in Photoshop if I really need some serious noise reduction help which is, again, rarely. And for those rare occasions I feel a need for them, they seem to work just fine for me - noise gone, but not clarity or sharpness or detail that I want to keep.

So what's to gain by paying so much more for this other program?

Play with it and let us know what you find out, especially if you're a LR user as well to compare them.

I use LR. but I'm still on 3. First impressions. I don't like it. Like you said I don't notice any real functionality gains but I do notice a lot of functionality losses especially on fine tweaks regarding tones. I also so far am finding the interface way clunky when compared to Lightroom and the image needs to re load at every change which is horrible for workflow and makes it really hard to get your tweak just right (imagine for example tweaking exposure. Every time you move that dial by even a point you have to wait a few seconds for the image to re load to see the results) .

So far it gets a resounding thumbs down. It may as some have said have cleaner conversion results but I've never been unhappy with my Lightroom results so for the downsides I see no real gain. Stick with lightroom I say. I'll probably be uninstalling before the 31 days is up though I'll give it a few more days. I haven't played with the film pack yet though and that plugs into lightroom so maybe that'll be better but I can't see it being worth the cash.

All in all so far I find it unusable at least for my workflow and the way I like to process.

 

[gsgary]

Phase One, Cature One 6