Raw Engine

[dronecrasher]

Hello, I can select between two different engines but I don't understand what it is and what it does?

Perhaps someone can explain it to me? Thanks in advance!

[firstdefence]

Read this post, James Ritson explains the difference for you.

These are two of the many raw engines out there and I would urge you to find a raw converter that gives you the best results, if that is serif or apple core then cool but don't limit yourself to just two, explore a lot of options, there is a free apps like Rawtherapee

Which Camera do you have? and what are the raw files NEF, CR2 etc?

[marcdraco]

I was just talking a pal of mine (a pro photographer) about this.

He likens it to a hammer. There's more than one hammer design (I lost count actually) it's case of finding the right one.

On Windows I don't get a choice of which engine to use but I can switch to Open Source software like Darktable or RawTherapee to get other options. @firstdefence is spot on. It's a case of finding the right engine for (a) your camera and (b) the shots you take. Not every shot will work well on any given camera/image because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter

Perhaps the most important part of the process is demosaicing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing) which converts the human-eye biased sensor pattern into a proper RGB image.  The Wikipedia article is quite easy to follow and it will help you decide if you want to go down that path or stick with what you have. Ultimately, a lot of this is personal choice and as an artist you're the only person to decide what looks right to you.

Personally, I think Affinity Photo rocks and it's the best £50 I spent on software. Period.

[marcdraco]

I did some tinkering and tried a few different Raw engines on this image (this is extreme magnification) and uses RawTherapee so you can see the actual pattern as recorded by the camera's sensor. No noise reduction has been applied here - this really is exactly how the camera saw this section of a Microsoft mouse. The inset goes in even closer still so you can see exactly the problem these convertors have and that's before they start applying noise reduction, colour correction, curves, sharpening … you name it. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised with Serif's convertor - which performed as well as Aliasing Minimization and Zipper Elimination did (to my eye) even on this fairly noisy image which isn't where AMaZE is know to shine. 

I wonder if Serif can be persuaded to include alternative engines in future? RawTherapee suggests some algorithms for Sony cameras and others that work well with high-ISO (noisy images).

Fascinating stuff.

[dronecrasher]

1 minute ago, marcdraco said:

I did some tinkering and tried a few different Raw engines on this image (this is extreme magnification) and uses RawTherapee so you can see the actual pattern as recorded by the camera's sensor. No noise reduction has been applied here - this really is exactly how the camera saw this section of a Microsoft mouse. The inset goes in even closer still so you can see exactly the problem these convertors have and that's before they start applying noise reduction, colour correction, curves, sharpening … you name it. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised with Serif's convertor - which performed as well as Aliasing Minimization and Zipper Elimination did (to my eye) even on this fairly noisy image which isn't where AMaZE is know to shine. 

I wonder if Serif can be persuaded to include alternative engines in future? RawTherapee suggests some algorithms for Sony cameras and others that work well with high-ISO (noisy images).

Fascinating stuff.

Thanks for your comments and indeed - some interesting stuff