Shooting RAW offers many advantages over using your camera’s JPEG processing, including the ability to increase the dynamic range of the original photo. It also means finding the right software to process the files into a format suitable for prints, and uploading to the web. I’ve been using Capture One 4 for over a year now, and been very happy with it.
I made the following notes when I was evaluating RAW converters, looking specifically at:
- the level of detail extracted
- ability to assign comparative ratings
- customizable sharpening
- noise removal
- batch processing
- color rendition for my Canon 400D files (.CR2)
Pluses
- great workflow with Bridge
- excellent viewing and editing performance
- sidecar files (ie. the ability to save your edits in a file external to the RAW file)
- DNG format support (a standard for RAW files that is gaining wider support)
Minuses
- doesn’t display red correctly for CR2 files, even worse when it’s converted to DNG
- conversion is slow