The examples on this page were shot with my Canon Rebel XTi using auto white balance. They were converted from RAW to TIFF using each RAW converter's default color and exposure choices. Default settings for sharpening were used. If there was no sharpening in the program's default tool settings, I used about 50% of the sharpening power available in the program. The screen capture image sections shown below were taken from the original TIFF images.

Sharpness in converted image is influenced by several factors: The algorithm or interpolation method used for Bayer pattern demosaicing, the tone curve applied by the RAW converter and the type of sharpening algorithm used when you apply the converter's sharpening tool. It was interesting to see how differently some of these program's handled sharpening. Some did a better job than others.

Just below is the full size image. The white box approximates the area of the screen captures. There is a car on the trail toward the bottom of the capture area. The images on the left are at 100% magnification and the images on the right are at 400% magnification for you pixel peepers...And I plead guilty to being a pixel peeper too. This is one area where my comments can be taken with a grain of salt, unless you are making a lot of fine art quality 20X30" prints that will be scrutinized at rather close distances...:^)

It took a combination of my photo editing skill and each RAW converter's sharpening tool set to render these results. For this reason my photo editing skills and my understanding of each RAW converter's sharpening tool set could be considered a limiting factor in making this a truly fair comparison. An expert with each program may have been able to produce results superior to my attempts.

ACR/Lightroom: A very average result when viewed at 400% and a bit disappointing. I cannot duplicate the image detail in this program that I can achieve in Capture One Pro. This rendition is somewhat soft overall but nonetheless it still has noticeable patterning.

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