IRIDIENT’S RAW DEVELOPER 1.8.1

For the past 2 weeks I have been using Iridient Digital’s RAW Developer software - free trial download available here. During the past year several forum members have suggested trying RD for the Canon 1Ds Mark III (for its colors), the Leica M8 and now the Mamiya ZD. Initially I was Phase One’s C1 software for the ZD (version 4.1.x) and the conversions looked pretty good, but noise control was limited.

The GUI’s of C1 and RAW Developer (RD) are very different looking. C1 is laid out similarly to Adobe’s Lightroom. RD’s GUI is more basic with floating tool palettes and windows which cannot be anchored. Both programs offer similar functionality with RD having a deeper set of parameters while C1 has better workflow. Some of the key differences in RD include:

White Balance:  Color temperature (K) can be set directly and based upon the normal K scale or a DNG estimate. There are presets and the ZD’s AWB value can used too. It seems like RD put more effort into interpreting the ZD’s AWB value and it usually comes back with a very pleasing result. There is no correlation in how the two applications interpret AWB - on one image C1 came back as 4300 K and RD came back with 6731 K RD. In their way both images look pleasing because C1 and RD produce very different looking files. In RD the white balance can be further tuned at the highlight, mid-tone and shadow levels --- if the shadows looks cold and uninviting, then warm them up! Very nice.

Sharpening & Noise Reduction:  Both editors have parameters for tuning sharpness and taming noise levels. Compared to C1 version 4.1, RD offers more sharpening options with four completely different sharpening algorithms. I have tried all four and prefer the basic Unsharp Mask (USM) because I prefer to select and sharpen specific areas in Photoshop rather than categorically sharpening an entire image.

RD has a deep set of parameters for pattern, chrominance and luminance noise control. RD’s noise reduction appears more effective, but color, exposure and white balance play a big role in any noise reduction effort (RD, C1, Photoshop, etc). C1’s noise reduction can be effective too, but needs more parameters for betting tuning / targetting. What I like most about RD’s noise control is the ability to automatically fix hot pixels - VERY COOL! For the ZD this is critical when shooting at faster ISOs and / or longer exposures (anything more than a second).

THE BOTTOM LINE

Comparing these two applications could easily span 20 web pages - and I would still “get it wrong” in somebody’s opinion. Both companies offer free demo’s - try both apps because their renderings / outputs are very different. RD is Mac only, so PC users may want to try SilkyPix.

C1 is good at producing a contrasty, bold image. With good light and ISO 50, C1 will produce a “Velvia” style result with saturated, bold, eye catching colors. C1’s workflow is faster and its GUI is laid out better. C1 tends to produce a sharper image (though, this depends heavily on the parameter settings) and does a better job at managing moire.

RD produces bold images too, but its strengths are in its abilities to tune tonality and draw attention to the subtle nature of tonings and gradients. If spending several minutes per image in the RAW editor is okay, then RD can be very rewarding. RD’s output tends to look more 3D - probably because its files have more mid-tones. The RD images have a more relaxed, natural look.

C1’s output tends to be smoother in the background sections whereas RD’s can look more grainy. For pictures with shallow DOF and large blurred or busy background sections, I prefer C1’s cleaner output. Also, C1 does a better job of cleaning up clipped magenta highlights (see the image to right right).