Below is an e-mail response from my brother responding to questions from
people about digital camera software. I thought many on this list would
like to read it. My brother does mostly catalog work, where color matching
is critical. For example, a sweater may be available in twelve colors. He
shoots all 12 and the digital files *and the sweaters* are sent to the
printer. The printer must make sure the colors in the printed catalog
*exactly* match the sweaters. The printers used (and we're talking BIG
printers here, million+ press runs) tell my brother his colors are the best
they have ever seen, and require less than 5% correction to allow perfect
color match on the presses. So he sort of knows what he is doing.
And yes, he has a Zuiko to EOS adapter [OM content]. Studio camera for the
Phase One back he mentions is a Mamiya RZ system.
Steve Troy
-------------------
Hey Guys,
We use Phase One's C1 software for everything we shoot in the studio. We
use both the Phase One H20 back and Canon DSLRs (1Ds Mark II & 1D Mark II).
It is the best raw file program on the market, by far. It is not a
perfect program, but it beats the compitetion. What most people don't know
is that the software is every bit, if not more, important than the
camera/chip. Manufacturers never tell you that...
When we were shopping for digital equipment reps from all of the major
companies brought their hardware and software to us to try. We did side by
side tests with Kodak, Leaf, Adobe and Phase One. The Phase One had better
color accuracy, better contrast, and most importantly, sharpness and less
moire issues. The differences between some files was dramatic. C1 also has
very good controls that are fairly easy to learn. When the Kodak rep from
New York came to spend a day with us I kept asking how do you do this or
how do you do that. His answer was usually "you can't."
I'm not sure if they support the program anymore since they discontinued
the medium format backs.
In terms of full disclosure, I provide feedback directly to Phase One about
the features of their software. I do not get paid or get free programs
from them but I do have an open dialog with them. There is no bias,
especially because I constantly tell them which features suck and how they
need to change. Most of these issues are not related to DSLR use. They
are very responsive and welcome the feedback/abuse.
C1 will give you the best image quality. It will maximize the quality of
your camera. It also has nice batch processing features. You can select
as many images as you want, make individual or universal corrections, then
tell it to process and walk away from the computer. The questions you need
to ask are this:
Can I justify the price? It ain't cheap.
What is my use of the photos going to be? If you are just going to e-mail
72 dpi images, do you really need the quality this will give you?
Feel free to contact me with any other questions.
Dan Troy
www.dantroy.com
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