Didix

Personally I am working now on Win10. However, I guess that recommendations for Mac and Linux would be also welcome for others. -Didix

Which freeware tool could be recommended for that? Does it support 4k? -Ddix

Of course this is a solution. However, Panasonic's method is very fast, especially for objects that do not sit around for minutes .. Yes, I have seen that, but I hoped to get a recommendation whether there is a freeware that performs well. -Didix

Hi there Panasonic produces focus stacks by putting the images in a mp4 movie. Is Affinity Photo able to import this mp4? If not, what procedure do you recommend? -Didix

Thanx a lot @AffinityFran ! Sorry for answering that late, we were three days in the mountains to gain more visual material Your development of this image strongly encourages me for going with the combination DT/AP. Personally I think, It did even better cope with the dark part of the trees behind the lake than ACR did (well, the way I parameterized it). How did you cope with noise and sharpening? Did you do this in DT or AP? How? -Didix

Hier noch zwei Varianten: Das erste Bild ist OOC jpg Lumix GX7, das zweite mit ACR entwickelt. -Didix

Since AP offers a RAW editor, it has to face a comparison. I think this is ok. I have the feeling that people in general judge fair about this and use AP in combination with a different RAW editor. Thanx! Exactly what I was lookin for! @AffinityFran : since you got a lot of experience in using DT, I would be happy if you could show us, what you can get out of the RAW that I have uploaded with post #5 in this thread? YES! A problem we face from most software, whether free or commercial, whether imaging or something different. -Didix

So far, my workflow looked like this: A. Most images come out very good as jpeg, developed by the Lumix Camera RAW Developer. Those images I postprocess with Photoshop (contrast, sharpness, vibrance). C. Few images come out as the one presented. Then I use ACR plus PS. C. Of course, sometimes I need a real photoeditor to do enhanced stuff, but this is not very often. For that case I also use PS. Now comes the important point: for some personal and political reasons I want to go away from Adobe (please let's skip further discussions about adobe's license policy in this thread). Therefore I need a RAW engine and a Photo Editor. For the latter, my choice goes with 99% to AP (I already bought a license). Now I need a valid RAW editor that can hold a candle to ACR. -Didix

Thanx all together for participating in this thread! During the day I had to do something for my salary, but now I am back :-) @ColinG: Yes, I disabled the automatic curve. I followed the instructional videos. They propose flat development and then working with tone mapping. @Gnobelix: You did a far better job than I did, so this is a proof, that it lacks me on experience. Therefore I will not give up :-) However, I suppose, Darktable and ACR/LR deliver better results. @Wafer: For way over 90% I am happy with the JPGs that the built-in raw engine of my Lumix cameras produce. Often they are so excelent, that I am not able to reproduce them by using ACR & PS. However, images as the one uploaded, need special treatment. @GabrielM: yep, I guess I go with 32bit. ------------------ @everybody: Let's hope, that AP will catch up with other raw editors. Would be really nice to have an embedded process! Alternatively, a good cooperation with raw engines as DT and RT to get a seamless integration would be a great progress. -Didix

I have to admit that I am a newbie to AP. But I have viewed most of the instructional videos concerning RAW development, HDR, ToneMapping, etc. to get an impression how to use AP. With this basic knowledge I have made several trials at images described in my starting post. The way of processing is somehow different from ACR/PS but that's fine for me. I am open for new things. That's why I was viewing the videos - excellent work, BTW! However, comparing the results is sobering. The recovery of underexposed portions shows a huge difference between AP and ACR. I then installed Darktable and even the first trial was superior to my best trial with AP. I have attached the RAW to show what kind of scene I am talking about. It's for sure not an every-day-picture. But it's sometimes real life and a good example to test RAW engines. -Didix 2018-08-16_P1160006.RW2

Thanx Gabe! What format would you recommend? TIFF16 or TIFF32 or even a different format? -Didix

I always take jpg & raw. For 90%+ the jpg pictures are doing fine for me. I only develop out of raw, when the camera engine didn't do a good job. Most time (for my way of taking pictures) this is the case when there is to much dynamics in the image. I often go hiking and early in the morning sometimes one half of a valley is lighted by the sun and the opposite is still in dark shadow. So my main application is getting around with hi dynamics, which means getting a reasonable image out of the shadow without noise. Well, and there is the catch where Affinity Raw falls far behind ACR (&LR). Also far behind Darktable. Affinity does a bad job, ACR a realy good one and Darktable a reasonable good one. I bought Affinity as a replacement for the Adobe stuff and in combination with Darktable this could become a good solution. However, there should be a convenient way to develop an image in Darktable and then changing to Affinity as a transparent process (without saving and re-importing). Can this be done? Any idea? What is the easiest process? -Didix