by Anonymous
Version 1.8.3 is impressive.. In side by side tests with Capture One 4.7, Lightroom 2.3 and Photoshop 10 Raw developer can compete effectively with the big guys. I used a Mac G5 with two 2.7gig processors running 10.5.6.User Interface is less sophisticated than Lightroom but has the advantage of splitting up all tool and work palettes into separate windows... works great if you have two monitors.... allowing you to go full screen with the image you are working on.Color controls are sometimes a little slow to respond but do show results clearly.... The screen image seems much more clear to me than on Lightroom.I think you have more control over colors than with Lightroom.When you get to sharpening Raw Developer leaves Adobe products in the dust. I ran some test on images shot with studio strobe at f11 to 20 with a Canon macro 100mm on a Canon 5D set at ISO160. Capture One and Raw developer are very close in image quality when it comes to sharpening and detail revelation. I don't have a scientific way to compare but it seems like Raw Developer has the edge with multiple versions of sharpening available with a click of a button. All other processors use only one method.My personal choice was the Richardson-Lucy Image deconvolution method which is mathematically designed to defeat the antialias filter in front of your DSLR sensor.After running this filter my 5D images look like 4x5 transparency film. That's as good as I can hope to expect from this camera I think.
