From Thom Hogan: Currently Recommended Raw Converters

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JAJohnson

JAJohnson

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For Nikon shooters, he recommends NX Studio. DXO PhotoLab, Capture One, Affinity Pro 2, and Raw Power get prominent mentions as well. I'm certain there are other excellent raw converters in use among those in the BCG community. Let's see your recommendations.

Currently Recommended Raw Converters | Thom Hogan

Thom's currently recommended raw converters for Nikon Z System users
www.zsystemuser.com
 
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There are a lot of converters out there but some are more specialty than others or use the same underlying technology with a different UI. Iridient X-Transformer, for example, is used by a lot of Fuji enthusiasts as they feel it’s better (although these days not as much) than others for the X-Trans files. Photo Ninja, once upon a time, looked promising with a different way of doing demosaic but it’s essentially abandonware. I know some people are very tied to raw therapee, dark table, and acdsee though I haven’t used them myself. I have tried SilkyPix but it is just different enough to not be good for me. It approaches things from a different point of view to what’s been standard with Adobe/C1. NX Studio smoothed over a few of those rough ends but not enough so I don’t really use it.
 
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JAJohnson said:
For Nikon shooters, he recommends NX Studio. DXO PhotoLab, Capture One, Affinity Pro 2, and Raw Power get prominent mentions as well. I'm certain there are other excellent raw converters in use among those in the BCG community. Let's see your recommendations.

Currently Recommended Raw Converters | Thom Hogan

Thom's currently recommended raw converters for Nikon Z System users
www.zsystemuser.com
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Affinity does not support Nikon NEF HE* files at this time. It is why with the purchase of the Z9 I switched to Photoshop. Affinity was the only non Adobe application that would open my old PSD files with layers with no corruption taking place (which was the case with every other application).

I have always had better Raw to TIFF conversion using Nikon Studio than with any other application. I just wish I could save as 10-bit instead of the much larger 16-bit files.
 
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Topaz Labs Photo AI program now supports HE* files and is frankly amazing. It imports a NEF file and does a lens correction and other minor adjustments and then does an auto noise reduction. I used to test 4 or 5 NR applications each year to find the best one and Topaz deNoise was usually the best one overall. Below is the result of the auto processing of a NEF file that I find most impressive. The total processing time for the NEF file was a few seconds.

Topaz Photo AI 2.7.JPG
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I've used a lot of different raw converters over time but I keep coming back to Lightroom. For me it's a combination of image quality, user interface, and value. I used to use Capture One a lot but, with them pushing subscriptions hard and charging significantly more than Adobe, the value just isn't there for me. The open source ones like RawTherapee and DarkTable are capable of producing excellent image quality, but the user interfaces are atrocious and they're missing some features I like. ACDSee is fast but again missing some features. Photo Ninja was good once upon a time but they still haven't managed to get out the 2.0 release which is coming "really soon now" for the past ten years. Luminar and OnOne were horrendous, buggy messes when I tried them. I'm sure there were a couple others in there but so many of them lack features I use on a regular basis.

For me it's Lightroom. It strikes the best balance between all the different features I'm looking for and provides better value than a lot of the alternatives because you get Photoshop as well when you need to do more advanced editing.
 
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Lightroom makes use of ACR to do the conversion as does Photoshop. It is not a bad converter but on occasion there will be a problem with a raw file that is not a problem when converted with Nikon Studio. This should not be surprising as the Nikon software engineers have full access to Raw file creation process whereas everyone else, including Adobe, need to reverse engineer their conversion code using the Nikon camera.

Lightroom as with Capture One forces photographers to follow a rigid workflow process that emulates what in theory a film photographer would have done. Using their process slows me down considerably with no real gains from their flat file for meta data. I use both a workstation and multiple laptops and so I keep the file viewing and culling separate from the raw conversion and also the editing of an individual file.

Photoshop is advantageous as it provides me with a batch process of actions for processing thousands of files quickly. I can do a batch resize or Levels adjustment for a batch of files without needing that I be sitting at the computer.
 
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Calson said:
Lightroom makes use of ACR to do the conversion as does Photoshop. It is not a bad converter but on occasion there will be a problem with a raw file that is not a problem when converted with Nikon Studio. This should not be surprising as the Nikon software engineers have full access to Raw file creation process whereas everyone else, including Adobe, need to reverse engineer their conversion code using the Nikon camera.
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This is why I keep NX Studio installed on my main photo editing machine. However, I haven't used it in years.

Could it be that once Adobe reverse-engineers the encrypted metadata fields, they no long have to (for that camera and it's RAW file schema)? I mean, once they've reversed engineered it, aren't they reading the same values that NX Studio is? I think the one critical field they encrypted for my one remaining Nikon camera is White Balance, but I seem to get perfectly good WB from those NEFs in Lr/Ps/ACR.

However, there may be another encrypted field I'm not remembering.

Chris
 
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I switched to Capture 1 from Lightroom (I think 5) when C1 added panorama stitching. I still like it and the workflow suits me well enough. But like Thom I’ve been getting the feeling that I’m being asked to pay more for a product is increasingly geared toward a different kind of photography than I’m interested in. (They seem to be focusing on tethered/collaborative work. Mostly portraiture. Their new project is called “Studio.”)

One problem is I have never liked Adobe as an entity. Their business model has always left me feeling used - like I need to shower after dealing with them. That said, I’m 6 months into a one year subscription to C1 and if C1 doesn’t up its game by December I’ll probably switch back.
 
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JoPoV said:
It seems this is not as easy as it sound, from some forum of those converters.
Why, for example, is it dificult (impossible) to some raw converter to display nikon focus zone ?
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It's not impossible. There is a plug-in available for Lightroom that does this. Why it's that particular field is not built into LR is something you'll have to ask Adobe.

As for the encrypted fields, they've never been "impossible" to figure out. Reverse engineering means figuring them out.

For anyone that wants to delve deeper into the issues, problems, and some solutions to proprietary RAW forms, see the OpenRaw site. For the purpose of this discussion, scroll down to "Phil Harvey's ExifTool" under "Useful Facts and Resources". This tool reads most of those encrypted fields and ALL of you can use this tool to inspect your own RAW file metadata.

Chris
 
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