Adobe admits its got a problem with RAW

[Ron Green]

Go to the Adobe forum board:

http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html

and click on photoshop.

Amongst the replies from Adobe is one where they say that Fuji was not cooperative in Adobe's effort to include certain code.
Thus the results, Although the workflow from within Photoshop is faster and user friendly, the resulting images don't hold a candle to Fuji software. You can read all about it here.

Further, on may systems, saving with the included JPEG 2000 option, crashes Photoshop.

You might want to wait awhile 'till Adobe rebuilds.

Same Canon, Nikon and Minolta users are happier than S2 folks.

Meanwhile we need to lobby Fuji to cooperate with Adobe.

[jknights]

Ron,

Certainly my initial tests indicate that the colour temperatures reported for Fuji S2 RAFs looks way out !!
For Nikon D1x NEFS it looks OK.


Apparently Fuji did not collaborate with Adobe on this but the other camarea manufacturers did. :confused:

[bjnicholls]

The Adobe converter doesn't honor the white balance settings from Fuji .raf files with any accuracy. The colors are dramatically shifted to red. You can manually compensate, but the preset values the application offers are also far from accurate, so color balance with .raf files is subjective. My testing with some Nikon D1 nef files shows much better "As Shot" color balance, but these tend to red as well. The Adobe converter ignores any of the other settings like contrast and sharpening from raw files, you have to manually override the (bad) Adobe defaults. The noise reduction default setting is far too strong and the other settings are typical too-contrasty over saturated P&S digicam style settings.

The Adobe converter is fast, it has a sleek and functional interface and it can create nice conversions. For Fuji S2 owners, be prepared to intervene and spend a lot of time figuring out what settings will produce decent color. For .raf files, I have zero confidence in the color accuracy I'm getting with the Adobe converter.

If you have a viable workflow for raw files now, you may want to sit tight 'til fall when Photoshop 8 ships with this stuff included. Adobe didn't make it clear that some raw file formats would be handled much better than others, but they did make it clear that the Camera Raw and Jpeg 2000 support will be in the next Photoshop version. No credit will be given toward the upgrade for the $100 you pay now.

I've been doing a series of tests for conversions done via the Fuji EX converter and the Adobe converter. Here's a link to an image series that I created to evaluate the resampling necessary for Fuji's non-square pixels. The first link is to a small file showing the context image (shot with SB-28 flash illumination, 60mm Micro Nikkor, f32), the second is to a series of actual res detail samples from the same image. The same level of sharpening is applied in Photoshop after the conversions:

http://users.sisna.com/bjnicholls/watch-small.jpg

http://users.sisna.com/bjnicholls/raw-sampling-sizes.jpg

If Adobe is being honest about Fuji's poor cooperation, we should start applying pressure to rectify the situation. However, it's quite typical of software providers to blame another party. Adobe obviously didn't invest in shooting color targets under controlled lighting to make their presets accurate with .raf files.

[jknights]

BJN,

I'm finding exactly the same as you are when comparing results between Fuji S2 RAFs and Nikon D1X NEFs processed with Adobe CR plug-in.

The Fuji colours are way out and the colour temp is way, way off.
The Nikon NEFs produce more neutral colurs that Bibble but the blacks are not so noise free but it is close.

I love the plug-in interface. Very easy to use band understandable. I like the ISO, Shutter speed, fstop and focal length being present in the image details window bar.

Would be nice to be able to open two sessions of the same image but as yet I haven't been able to do this.


I have found that the EXIF data in processsed file is fully there for me to view in ACDSee V5 - Great to have.

All I want is the coloour temps to be right for the RAFs and we will be in good shape.

Come on Fuji give Adobe a little help !!:)

[bjnicholls]

I agree on the interface, it's great to sort through images in the Photoshop browser and then see a high res almost instantly. The alt key plus the slider control converts the display to show where the image is affected via color and levels adjustments.

And so far, the Adobe converter seems to minimize track noise artifacts even with the smoothness (noise reduction) set to zero.

I don't want to bash this new converter. It handles detail far better than Bibble and the Quimage interface is a nightmare by comparison. The Fuji EX interface isn't all that bad, but the interaction with the Fuji viewer is very clunky and there's no integration with Photoshop.

From experience, I've found Adobe will often respond to the squeaky wheel. It sounds like Fuji will, too. I'd like to see the color settings resolved, I'd also love to have full EXIF data available via the converter with an option to print or save as a text file. If the ability to honor contrast and sharpening settings is asking too much, I'd at least like to be able to set my own neutral defaults.

The more participants we get at the Adobe forum the better, I'm not sure what channel works with Fuji.

[jknights]

BJN,

If you want to get a text file output of your EXIF data then try this program.
http://users.bigpond.net.au/thomas/exif.html

It is a DOS based util but runs on a WIN2K in a DOS box.

I tested it through to the new version V2 release and it works well at extracting EXIF data from Nikon D1x NEfs.
If it works for NEFs and also for JPGs, it should also work for RAFs.

Can do one file or a whole directory/subdirectory tree all in one pass and is extremely rapid.

I tried to induce the author to make a full Windows version but he was not keen.
If it does not work for RAFs let me know and I will conatct him and he will hopefully fix.

[bjnicholls]

Thanks for the tip! I'll give the ulitity a try. The Fuji viewer provides extended exif data for browsing. I've seen that extended exif data can be shown from the Adobe browser, but I can't find a way to access it for .nef files - I haven't needed to until trying to document the Adobe converter issues.

BJ

[Stormfield]

If Fuji would release documentation about their RAF files to third party software developers, many more photo software programs would be able to offer full RAF support, making the program more functional for those using RAW files.

Several software authors (David Cardinal with DigitalPro, Mario Westphal of IMatch, and others) have told me that this is the major reason why RAF support is difficult to incorporate into their software--They have to reverse engineer the RAF file, or provide limited (read only) RAF support by only extracting the embedded jpeg, etc. Compounding the problem is that the file structure is likely to change with new cameras (or firmware upgrades-like the D1X recently and its NEF files).

Why won't Fuji share this info so that their camera will be even MORE desirable with a larger choice of software to use?