Digital BW, The Print

Hello all;

If you've checked DP review today you'll have noticed that Corel 
released a new raw conversion program they'd like you to think works 
only with Corel products; It is actually available as a stand-alone 
(Windows only) and right now is available for free, in a fully-
functional unlimited trial version from: 
http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.html

I haven't tried it yet, but the documentation for a change, is 
pretty darn good, and it looks very much worth the time to evaluate.

Steve Karafyllakis

It seem I spoke too soon- the program functions, and seems quite 
user-friendly and very fast, but the output file in PS is just a 
black rectangle-no image. So I guess Corel does have it sown up, at 
least for now. Too bad.

Steve

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Steven 
Karafyllakis" <steve@s...> wrote:
> 
> Hello all;
> 
> If you've checked DP review today you'll have noticed that Corel 
> released a new raw conversion program they'd like you to think 
works 
> only with Corel products; It is actually available as a stand-
alone 
> (Windows only) and right now is available for free, in a fully-
> functional unlimited trial version from: 
> http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.html
> 
> I haven't tried it yet, but the documentation for a change, is 
> pretty darn good, and it looks very much worth the time to 
evaluate.
> 
> Steve Karafyllakis

On 23 Feb 2005 at 5:58, Steven Karafyllakis wrote:

> It seem I spoke too soon- the program functions, and seems quite 
> user-friendly and very fast, but the output file in PS is just a 
> black rectangle-no image. So I guess Corel does have it sown up, at 
> least for now. Too bad.

Steve...

Are you using an AMD processor?  If so, that is most likely the 
problem.  The first release does not work with most AMD processors, 
but it is something they are working on.  There are several other 
bugs or limitations being worked on also....it is a work in progress.

I've tried it and I think I'm really going to like the user interface 
compared to DPP...not to mention that I think it does a good job at 
conversion, although I'm just beginning to play with RAW format.

Hang in there and keep watching it...hopefully it will work for you 
soon.

HTH,

Lee




-- 
Lee Hiers, AA4GA
Cornelia, Georgia

"Have Dobro Will Travel"

Steve - 

The "black image" on RAW conversion seems to be an acknowledged bug 
in their first release, rather than a result of the program being 
tied to Corel products.

Lots of users are reporting the problem -- seems to be more prevelant 
on AMD based systems, though some have been able to get it to run 
correctly. When it's running right on your system, the images will 
open fine in PS and there has been a lot of positive feedback on it.

The developers have said they will address this in an upcoming 
release -- but that's a pretty big bug to drop on the RAW community 
when you're trying to make a good "first impression" ;>)

Cheers,
 -Richard

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Steven 
Karafyllakis" <steve@s...> wrote:

> 
> It seem I spoke too soon- the program functions, and seems quite 
> user-friendly and very fast, but the output file in PS is just a 
> black rectangle-no image. So I guess Corel does have it sown up, at 
> least for now. Too bad.
> 
> Steve
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Steven 
> Karafyllakis" <steve@s...> wrote:
> > 
> > Hello all;
> > 
> > If you've checked DP review today you'll have noticed that Corel 
> > released a new raw conversion program they'd like you to think 
> works 
> > only with Corel products; It is actually available as a stand-
> alone 
> > (Windows only) and right now is available for free, in a fully-
> > functional unlimited trial version from: 
> > http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.html
> > 
> > I haven't tried it yet, but the documentation for a change, is 
> > pretty darn good, and it looks very much worth the time to 
> evaluate.
> > 
> > Steve Karafyllakis

I have been using Capture One and Adobe ACR practically since day 
one - all my pro work is shot in RAW.  I have to say that the new 
Rawshooter Essentials looks good to my eye.  Yes, there are 
several "issues" that need to be addressed, and for some reason it 
doesn't want to work with Athlon and some Pentium III 
configurations.. and its not available for the MAC!  I'm using it on 
a fairly new XP P4 platform.  What I've seen so far strongly 
suggests to me that this product is going to be a heavy hitter.  The 
fact that the initial release is free is a smart marketing move.  
When it gets "tweaked", Capture One better be looking over their 
shoulder.  This program appears to be a "potentially" serious RAW 
converter with some great features for fast workflow.  Its a work in 
progress, but if you are a RAW shooter, I'd keep an eye on it.

At 11:56 PM 2/22/2005, Steven Karafyllakis wrote:

>If you've checked DP review today you'll have noticed that Corel
>released a new raw conversion program they'd like you to think works
>only with Corel products; It is actually available as a stand-alone
>(Windows only) and right now is available for free, in a fully-
>functional unlimited trial version from:
><http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.html>http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.html

Turn that around.  The program is from Pixmantec, and Corel's free 
distribution is just one way that Pixmantec is trying to get it better known.

 From a few hours working with it ... I like it.  Certainly it's worth 
serious evaluation.



                 A r t h u r    F i n k     P h o t o g r a p h y
                 ------------------------------------------------
                 Ten New Island Avenue               207.766.5722
                 Peaks Island, Maine 04108  arthur@... 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 12:58 AM 2/23/2005, Steven Karafyllakis wrote:

>It seem I spoke too soon- the program functions, and seems quite
>user-friendly and very fast, but the output file in PS is just a
>black rectangle-no image. So I guess Corel does have it sown up, at
>least for now. Too bad.

I believe that the initial version posted does that when used with an 
Athalon processor ... problem to be corrected in the next free release, 
which is expected within a few weeks.

Does that explain your problem?



		A r t h u r    F i n k     P h o t o g r a p h y
		------------------------------------------------
		Ten New Island Avenue               207.766.5722
		Peaks Island, Maine 04108  arthur@...

At 02:34 AM 2/23/2005, richard_h95050 wrote:

>The developers have said they will address this in an upcoming
>release -- but that's a pretty big bug to drop on the RAW community
>when you're trying to make a good "first impression" ;>)

Give them a break!  This was the very first release ... understandable that 
the program hit an incompatibility with a whole class of chips that they 
might not have tested on.  They've promised a release shortly.  For those 
of you with those chips ... can you wait a few weeks, and then have an opinion?


		A r t h u r    F i n k     P h o t o g r a p h y
		------------------------------------------------
		Ten New Island Avenue               207.766.5722
		Peaks Island, Maine 04108  arthur@...

> From: Arthur Fink [mailto:arthur@...]
>
>  From a few hours working with it ... I like it.  Certainly it's worth
> serious evaluation.

It doesn't do nearly as good a job on shadow noise as CaptureOne, and in my
opinion not even quite as good as Adobe Camera Raw. See
http://www.pbase.com/pderocco/image/40075602 and the following two images.
These were 1:1 crops from a pre-dawn image that had a very dark foreground.
I converted it to 16-bit sRGB with all three programs, with sharpening
turned off and other settings at their defaults. Sure, the colors look
different, but that's tweakable. The important difference is in what the
various programs do with the pattern noise from the CCD or CMOS sensor,
which you can see in the red flare area in the upper right corner. RS leaves
a lot of low frequency noise.

So I'll continue to use ACR for most images, because it functions within PS,
and haul out C1LE for the occasional difficult one.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...

Hi Steve,

RSE 2005 is actually a product by Pixmantec, however, Corel is promoting it in direct competition with ACR for use with Paint Shop Pro.

Pay particular attention to the system requirements because they're VERY specific for release 1.0.0; won't run on AMD, for example.

FWIW, I've been playing around with it since reading a brief review on digitaloutbackphoto.com, and my initial impressions are very favorable. I've been a Capture One user for about 4 years and I believe this product might entice me to jump ship. The user interface is more friendly, it incorporates tools that C1 doesn't have like Fill light, and, to my eyes, the raw conversions seem better--more 3D like. Plus, it's just faster to work with...open image, set White Balance, hit Alt-E for initial exposure setting adjustments, "salt to taste", and convert. A little additional sharpening in PS and print!

You can tell that the software has been written by photographers FOR photographers. Actually, their main software engineer and the "other guy" are former employees of Capture One. Maybe they have some ideas of how C1 should be! From what I've seen so far, I'd tend to agree.

I really think that once this software gets rolling it's going to be the one to watch in the raw conversion marketplace. Capture One better be looking seriously over their shoulders because there's a new kid on the block!

Alan Huntley

> 
> From: "Steven Karafyllakis" <steve@...>
> Date: 2005/02/22 Tue PM 11:56:33 EST
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] Raw shooter essentials
> 
> 
> 
> Hello all;
> 
> If you've checked DP review today you'll have noticed that Corel 
> released a new raw conversion program they'd like you to think works 
> only with Corel products; It is actually available as a stand-alone 
> (Windows only) and right now is available for free, in a fully-
> functional unlimited trial version from: 
> http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.html
> 
> I haven't tried it yet, but the documentation for a change, is 
> pretty darn good, and it looks very much worth the time to evaluate.
> 
> Steve Karafyllakis

It's a great product.
  I like the fact that you can use it with your own profile.
I use it with my black and white profile used to softproof Imageprint
in ps. It's pretty nice to be able to visualise your black and white
picture directly in the raw converter. Once you image converted you
are already pretty close to your final print.

  Jerome.

People are correct Arthur.  THAT is why you beta test.  Since it's free they
don't owe anything but have a lot of egg on their face.

Seth 

==-----Original Message-----
==From: Arthur Fink [mailto:arthur@...] 
==
==Give them a break!  This was the very first release ... 
==understandable that the program hit an incompatibility with a 
==whole class of chips that they might not have tested on.  
==They've promised a release shortly.  For those of you with 
==those chips ... can you wait a few weeks, and then have an opinion?

charlsalash wrote:

>  It's a great product.
>  I like the fact that you can use it with your own profile.
>I use it with my black and white profile used to softproof Imageprint
>in ps. It's pretty nice to be able to visualise your black and white
>picture directly in the raw converter. Once you image converted you
>are already pretty close to your final print.
>
>  Jerome.
>
Except when you want to use the Etcetera profiles, the results are awful 
with those.

--
Hans VR
www.hansvr.com

Can it be used tethered?

No Chromatic Aberration correction built in..  Beginning and END of 
story for me.

So far, only ACR has implemented it so far and I will not even consider 
a standalone product, as opposed to a Photoshop plugin, that does not 
implement it.

Keith

 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
and  the Multiverse's largest Canon printer User  Community at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon-printers
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"

Keith,

You might want to keep an eye out... I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that a CA tool was at or near the top of Pixmantec's list for a near future update.

Alan Huntley

> 
> From: "Editor P.O.V. Image Service" <editor@...>
> Date: 2005/02/23 Wed AM 10:04:59 EST
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Re: Raw shooter essentials
> 
> 
> No Chromatic Aberration correction built in..  Beginning and END of 
> story for me.
> 
> So far, only ACR has implemented it so far and I will not even consider 
> a standalone product, as opposed to a Photoshop plugin, that does not 
> implement it.
> 
> Keith

And it only works on XP it seems, won't even have-a-go on win2k, tho' most  
other xp apps do..

Andy

Andy,

That is what it says in the brochure, XP home or pro required.

Bob Frost.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "andy" <andywebster@...>


>
> And it only works on XP it seems, won't even have-a-go on win2k, tho' most
> other xp apps do..

Hi Alan.

I downloaded and played with RSE a little bit.  It takes a little 
getting used to the interface and is very different from ACR, but the 
results seem very nice so far.  Definitely worth a closer look.  The 
images seems sharper, which is suspect is partly due to some 
sharpening built into the program.  I notice that the sharpness 
slider zero point is smack in the middle of the range.  No CA 
adjustment, but there is always ACR if I have a problem with that.  
Darn, yet another user manual to read!  Oh well, I have a long flight 
tomorrow, so I'll print out the manual.

How do you adjust the black point?  In ACR you simply adjusted the 
shadow slider.  

Thanks, Lou


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, 
<Alan.Huntley@c...> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
> RSE 2005 is actually a product by Pixmantec, however, Corel is 
promoting it in direct competition with ACR for use with Paint Shop 
Pro.
> 
> Pay particular attention to the system requirements because they're 
VERY specific for release 1.0.0; won't run on AMD, for example.
> 
> FWIW, I've been playing around with it since reading a brief review 
on digitaloutbackphoto.com, and my initial impressions are very 
favorable. I've been a Capture One user for about 4 years and I 
believe this product might entice me to jump ship. The user interface 
is more friendly, it incorporates tools that C1 doesn't have like 
Fill light, and, to my eyes, the raw conversions seem better--more 3D 
like. Plus, it's just faster to work with...open image, set White 
Balance, hit Alt-E for initial exposure setting adjustments, "salt to 
taste", and convert. A little additional sharpening in PS and print!
> 
> You can tell that the software has been written by photographers 
FOR photographers. Actually, their main software engineer and 
the "other guy" are former employees of Capture One. Maybe they have 
some ideas of how C1 should be! From what I've seen so far, I'd tend 
to agree.
> 
> I really think that once this software gets rolling it's going to 
be the one to watch in the raw conversion marketplace. Capture One 
better be looking seriously over their shoulders because there's a 
new kid on the block!
> 
> Alan Huntley

Hi Lou,

If you're familiar with the Capture One interface at all, picking up on the 
RSE interface is very quick; though I find RSE to be more intuitive and I 
like the control setup better than C1.

Yes, sharpening is built into the program similar to prior versions of 
Capture One before we could really disable sharpening all together. As near 
as I can tell, a setting of "0" applies, basically, capture sharpening. If 
you want to totally disable sharpening during conversion this slider must be 
set to -50. Personally, I think RSE does a fine job in this area so I tend 
to leave it set on zero.

No CA adjustment tool at the moment, but I believe Pixmantec plans to 
include this very soon. Black point adjustment is not analogous to ACR, IMO. 
RSE has the contrast slider as opposed to ACR's Shadow slider, but it's not 
the same thing. Since I don't tend to set black/white point during 
conversion, lack of this adjustment really doesn't concern me. One thing I 
REALLY like is the clipping display for R-G-B channels for shadows and 
highlights in the histogram. Very nice implementation!

IMO, the important point here is that the potential is there in RSE to 
seriously challenge Capture One. Competition is generally ALWAYS a good 
thing for we end users.

Alan Huntley

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Louis Dina" <lbdina@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 2:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Raw shooter essentials




Hi Alan.

I downloaded and played with RSE a little bit.  It takes a little
getting used to the interface and is very different from ACR, but the
results seem very nice so far.  Definitely worth a closer look.  The
images seems sharper, which is suspect is partly due to some
sharpening built into the program.  I notice that the sharpness
slider zero point is smack in the middle of the range.  No CA
adjustment, but there is always ACR if I have a problem with that.
Darn, yet another user manual to read!  Oh well, I have a long flight
tomorrow, so I'll print out the manual.

How do you adjust the black point?  In ACR you simply adjusted the
shadow slider.

Thanks, Lou


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com,
<Alan.Huntley@c...> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> RSE 2005 is actually a product by Pixmantec, however, Corel is
promoting it in direct competition with ACR for use with Paint Shop
Pro.
>
> Pay particular attention to the system requirements because they're
VERY specific for release 1.0.0; won't run on AMD, for example.
>
> FWIW, I've been playing around with it since reading a brief review
on digitaloutbackphoto.com, and my initial impressions are very
favorable. I've been a Capture One user for about 4 years and I
believe this product might entice me to jump ship. The user interface
is more friendly, it incorporates tools that C1 doesn't have like
Fill light, and, to my eyes, the raw conversions seem better--more 3D
like. Plus, it's just faster to work with...open image, set White
Balance, hit Alt-E for initial exposure setting adjustments, "salt to
taste", and convert. A little additional sharpening in PS and print!
>
> You can tell that the software has been written by photographers
FOR photographers. Actually, their main software engineer and
the "other guy" are former employees of Capture One. Maybe they have
some ideas of how C1 should be! From what I've seen so far, I'd tend
to agree.
>
> I really think that once this software gets rolling it's going to
be the one to watch in the raw conversion marketplace. Capture One
better be looking seriously over their shoulders because there's a
new kid on the block!
>
> Alan Huntley







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