So,
I was going back to some of my pictures I imported using Aperture 1.x and, since I’m using Aperture 2 now, I wanted to try the 2.0 RAW developer on some “old” pictures.
See, I didn’t convert my whole photo library from RAW 1.1 to RAW 2.0, because I noticed it tends to change the color balance quite a lot, which means that, if I have painstakingly tweaked and adjusted a photo, it can turn out bad if I change the RAW format but leave the adjustments made with the previous RAW developer. Like, try a photo with loads of yellow in it, polish it using RAW 1.1 and then convert it to 2.0. Yeah, yuck!

But there’s something I just noticed going over a night shot: the 2.0 RAW developper gives MUCH better results when reducing ISO noise than what the 1.0 and 1.1 did.

In the example below, which is a crop of the same image processed using (top to bottom) RAW 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0, we clearly see the differences in the three engines: 1.0 generated a lot of sharp color noise, 1.1 gave smoother results which ended up blotched, but 2.0 seems to hit a sweet spot between the two: no big blurred areas as in 1.1 but no really visible noise as in 1.0

Now, if you look at a 400% enlarged crop of the above image, you can see what happens in details:

(yes, the colors are off, but that’s because I took a screenshot of the 400% image in Photoshop.)

So, overall, a BIG step in the right direction.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 13:21 CEST and is filed under Software, photo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.