On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 11:16 PM, Jim Couch
<zuikoholic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> The discussion on white balance and Olympus Master brings up a question
> - what is everyone using to convert Olympus raw files? What do you
> like/dislike about the software you are using? As someone who is new to
> Olympus DSLRs I would love to know what work flow/software everyone is
> using.
Jim,
My pretend cousin IanW/Swisspace and I ran into a problem in that with
Lightroom (me) and Aperture (him) the RAW conversions didn't match
jpgs. If this fact does not bother you, then sample all of the
available converters and just settle on one whose workflow you like.
Why is it important, to me at least, that the jpgs match the RAW file
file? Initially, I want to know that I am getting what Olympus thinks
the camera should be producing colorwise. If the jpg says one thing
and the converted image another -- based on the same in-camera
settings -- then my conclusion is that I am not getting Olympus color
from the very outset of the process.
Since I shoot RAW, I use in-camera settings which I then immediately
change, so it is not a question of my really, ultimately wanting the
converted image to match the jpg. I just don't want non-Olympus color
at the outset. At first I was enamoured of Lightroom for a host of
reasons, but ultimately its color rendition doesn't look like Olympus
color. It's not that it's not nice, but I'm looking initially for the
Rock of Biblical Truth in Olympus Color, which comes by way of the
Olympus software. Every other decision is really a pig in a poke to
me.
If the question is about workflow, then that's entirely another matter.
So I'd just recommend you try a number of different converters and
compare how the RAW file converts without changing in-camera settings
to a jpg with those same settings. If it is satisfactory to you, then
consider other things like workflow, etc. If you start with
considerations like workflow, the aesthetics of the program on screen,
and so forth, you're really off on a tangent when it comes to the real
purpose of the RAW converter. I really enjoyed Lightroom for all
those tertiary things, but it has its own ideas about color. For what
I do (on a PC) I have a reasonable workflow using FastStone to manage
files, navigate, and view, Studio2 to do RAW conversion with fairly
minimal settings changes, and finish up in Photoshop (mine is the
original CS -- I'm not very up to date but it's got everything I need,
and since I don't use it to convert RAW, I'm off their upgrade
treadmill). If I were doing this again, I'd just try to use Master2
in place of Studio2, since I don't use many of the features of Studio2
anyway. Master2 seems to connect better for firmware updates too.
Joel W.
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