This article is not an in-depth analysis of these seven programs. My goal in putting up this document was to give the reader an overview of each program's features and capabilities and to provide reasonably accurate image comparisons.

I will take the liberty of expressing my opinions now and then. When considering my opinions you might like to know what I look for first in a RAW converter - Reasonably accurate color and tonal range in the application's default conversion settings - Speed of conversion - Adequate tools with easy and intuitive workflow for those images that did not turn out as I wanted them to look with the application's default conversion.

July 2007: Some of the programs listed in this article are now capable of many image editing and output chores besides just RAW conversions. One of the programs included in this article is an image organization, editing and output specialty program that just happens to include an imbedded RAW converter. There is also an emerging trend to allow Aftermarket RAW converter tool sets to edit JPEG and TIFF (TIFF at both 8 and 16 bit color). It will be interesting to see how this all turns out over the next few years. Maybe someday all high end image editing programs will seamlessly include RAW conversion capability. Or, looking at it from another point of view, maybe aftermarket RAW converters will continue to grow in their capabilities until they have most of the features of high end image editing programs. The fact is that RAW is now the choice of most professional and serious amateur photographers.

Almost all of the image examples in this article are presented as constructed from each RAW converter's default settings. These images are not necessarily representative of the best image that each RAW converter is capable of producing. All of the example images could be improved with a little work in the RAW converter.

I believe the default settings image examples give you a comparative reference for how well each RAW converter interprets the data provided by the camera. If the RAW converter produces good color, exposure and tone curve with its default settings, there will be less post processing image preparation work for you.

I would like to thank the software developers of these RAW converter programs for providing full licenses, and tech support when necessary, for their products. My compensation for making this article available is the use of all of these fine RAW converter programs.

To the best of my knowledge the technical aspects of this article are correct. However, I make no warranty of absolute accuracy and my opinions are just that, opinions. You may see things differently. Your mileage may vary. If you find verifiable technical inaccuracies or any other problems with the content in this article, please bring them to my attention via EMAIL Thanks!

RAW image format contains all of the image information from the camera's imaging sensor. Until the file is opened in a RAW converter program there is no tonal range adjustment (levels or curves). RAW format retains the maximum amount of detail in the shadow areas of your image when you expose for the highlight areas of your image. The increase in dynamic range in RAW over JPEG is because digital camera RAW format outputs at least 12 bits per color channel R,G & B in RAW format. JPEG is only 8 bits per color channel. During RAW conversion the native 12 bit color is interpolated up to 16 bits per color channel for all pre-conversion adjustments. More bits per color channel allows for more shades of colors thus providing for more detail and smoother transitions between colors (tonal range). Just like film exposures, when highlight detail is lost in a digital photo, there is no way to recover it. Using RAW (high bit level) you can expose for highlights and during the conversion draw all the available detail out of the shadow areas. White balance is not critical since you can adjust it at high bit level during RAW conversion.

Digital camera review images and their resulting histograms have had levels and curves applied that match default or user selectable parameters for 'in camera' JPEG images. The same histogram is presented in review mode whether you are shooting in RAW or JPEG. So, there is usually a little fudging room available at the highlight end of the histogram when shooting in RAW. This is the logic behind the philosophy of 'exposing to the right' of the histogram when shooting in RAW. However, some care needs to be exercised in this approach to avoid completely blowing out your highlights. Trail and error and a little experimenting will usually be necessary to figure out just how much you can move the histogram to the right when shooting in RAW before entirely loosing your brightest highlight areas. If your camera offers an option to view a 3 channel histogram (RGB) at image review time, use it. The three channel histogram will allow you to you to see clipping (blown highlights) on any of the channels. Remember that this clipping is based on the contrast curve applied for an 'in camera' JPEG. The 'in camera' default histogram mode is usually a brightness or 'luminance' histogram and this type of histogram doesn't always show clipping. Actually, to really take advantage of your camera's histogram you need to know how to interpret the histogram based on individual image content. There is no universally 'correct looking' histogram. If you aren't up to speed on this, see my article on how to interpret an RGB histogram.

RAW converters that have slider type adjustments and/or numerical inputs for their image adjustment tools provide the opportunity for exact fine tuning of white balance, overall exposure and other critical image quality parameters.

Although much can be done with an image in Photoshop, the interpolation method and color math used to construct the image from the camera's sensor data can make a huge difference in the amount of work necessary to take that image to its final output destination. Most DSLRs have very capable firmware that does a nice job of constructing a JPEG image. However, for those who want the best image quality, maximum editing flexibility and total control over the way their images are prepared for a specific output device or usage, RAW format and editing at 16 bit color level is the way to go.

I used Canon 20D and 1Ds Mark II DSLR RAW files for the image comparisons in this article. However, I feel that the program overview information and image comparisons will have value to owners of other digital cameras that can output RAW and are supported by the multi-camera capable applications in this article, (Adobe's Camera RAW, Adobe Lightroom, BreezeBrowser Pro, Capture One , Bibble, SilverFast DC VLT / DC Pro and Silkypix Developer Studio.

All of the multi-camera capable applications, ACR (Adobe Camera RAW), Adobe Lightroom, BreezeBrowser, Bibble, Capture One, Silkypix and SilverFast DC Pro and DC VLT have limited time trial programs. Capture One and Bibble are also available in an "LE" or lite versions. Owners of the newest Canon DSLR cameras will have a copy of Canon's Digital Photo Professional included in the OEM camera package. If you own an older version of Digital Photo Pro, an updater for DPP can be downloaded for free from Canon's web site.

There is an ongoing debate about the value of 'linear workflow'. I've done just a little research on this subject and have come to the conclusion that linear workflow applied to an image with average tonal range is just too much work for too little, if any, increase in image quality. In a linear workflow 16 bit color information is made available without any preliminary tonal range adjustments. In other words, all RAW converters analyze the color information and data included in the RAW file and then adjust levels and set a tonal curve. Levels is the setting of the white point, mid point or gamma and the black point. The tone curve sets the initial contrast of the RAW preview image. These adjustments are done behind the scenes before you see the initial preview in your RAW converter. In a linear workflow the histogram of the image after it leaves the converter program is highly compressed to the left side of the histogram graph. You must set the initial white and black points, mid point and tone curve yourself. Do this incorrectly and you will create unwanted color shifts and other problems. There are also issues to consider with monitor gamma settings. Linear workflow may have some advantages with images that contain a huge dynamic range of tonality and for certain specialty applications. I'm not going to include information about 'linear conversion' in this article. Shooting in RAW allows you to get maximum quality and flexibility for your image. The RAW conversion process should add as little extra time and effort as possible to image preparation workflow.

It was interesting to see the subtle differences in the way these programs assigned pixel colors with their default settings. Pixels have only one attribute, COLOR. Every correction we apply to a digital image is nothing more than changing the color of pixels. As an example, sharpening and blurring is a methodical changing of adjacent pixel colors. In sharpening an image we increase the contrast between adjacent pixels in areas that we want the eye to perceive as a 'hard edge'. The only way to increase the contrast is to lighten the color of the pixels on lighter side of the 'edge' and then darken the color of the pixels on the dark side of the 'edge'. See an example below.

The images below are from a screen capture from part of a 3072X2048 image at 1600% magnification. This screen capture is part of the side of a camper truck in a parking lot. The image on the RIGHT has had unsharp mask applied at 100% with a radius of 2.5 and a threshold of 3. Unless your monitor is poorly adjusted you will easily be able to see the increase in contrast caused by color shifts in adjacent pixels that originally had only slightly differing color values.

By now you are probably wondering where I'm going with this. Simply put, the original color assignment by the RAW converter for each pixel is critical to image quality. Pixel color assignment not only determines the overall color balance of the image and tonal range but perceived sharpness as well.

Some of these RAW converters' tools give you quite a bit of control over the image's pixel color assignments. It is my opinion that a well designed RAW converter should make good pixel color choices for most images with minimal use of its tool set. An image properly constructed in the RAW converter eliminates the need for further image quality adjustment in your image editing program. This is particularly important if you are using an image editing program that does not support 16 bit color editing. For the few images that may need a little tweaking beyond the RAW converter's default choices, a full and easy to use tool set is a necessity. With that in mind, you can see some of the tools and features that are available in these seven programs in the features comparison chart below.

If you'd like to see more information about the advantages of working with 16 bit Color, read this section from my 'Practical Guide to Interpreting RGB Histograms' article.

Full in PS -
Lightroom includes
sRGB & Adobe RGB and Pro Photo RGB & full CM printing

Bridge in PS -
Built in for Lightroom

PS & Lightroom

X

ACR in CS3 -
+/- pre-set sizes depending on camera

Lightroom - unlimited via constrain length or width of output

Conversion speed time in seconds with default settings & saved to 16 bit TIFF (P4 @ 3.0 ghz HT & 2 gigs of RAM). 1st number is 7mb Canon 20D RAW file 2nd number is 15mb 1Ds Mk II RAW file.

* Background processing means the program can be converting and saving images while you are working on other images.
** ICC profiles -  NOT new camera models.

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LINKS:
Introduction and comments on RAW format
Features comparison chart
Adobe ACR 4 (Photoshop CS3 & Lightroom) overview
Bibble Pro overview
BreezeBrowser Pro overview
Canon Digital Photo Pro overview
Capture One Pro overview
Silkypix Developer Studio overview
SilverFast DC Pro / DC VLT overview
comparison examples - color renditions
comparison examples - landscapes
comparison examples - artifacts and sharpening
comparison examples - tungsten and florescent white balance at ISO 1600
comparison examples - studio lights and custom white balance
comparison examples - studio lights with Kelvin white balance
comparison examples - digital noise at ISO 1600
EXIF and IPTC information