racgordon
New Member
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
- Name
- Rob
This is probably a Silly Newbie Question...........
But
I have just moved to an X-E1 with the 18-55 from a Canon EOS-40D and various lenses, and whilst the pennies slowly accumulate for interesting pieces of glass like the 14mm and probaby the 27mm pancake, I have decided that I should actually spend some time getting a feel for RAW file work flows.
Now the sorts of things I am likely to be shooting are going to be product shots of custom HO model trains (semi business) and general pictures of real stationary trains (to provide detail references to produce custom HO trains) and then general travel and architectural shots (fun) and eventually portraiture (when there are some more options in the 60-70mm focal length region). Actually playing with LR 5.3, the first thing that hits me is how good the Fuji JPEGs really are. OK some of that may have something to do with too many years with the Canon 40D which has wonderful IQ when using RAW files but whose JPEGs are, well good for mid 2000s technology.
The "business" justification for going Fuji is to get the best pictures of grimy dirty work-stained Diesel locomotives so that I can reproduce the same in HO scale for people who like to buy detailed and customized models. So I will be trying to pull as much detail and tonal variation out of shadows and tonal variations that are on the dark side, which of course (as I understand it) is where working with RAW files shines.
So the question (yes there is one) is Lightroom vs Silkypix, which will give better results when trying to pull the last ounce of detail, color accuracy and tonal variation. If Silkypix, which version? The 3.?!? File processor that comes with the X-E1 and has a few updaters (and does not like my Retina Macbook running Mavericks one bit) or moving up to V4 or even V5.
Whilst my initial output is really to produce images to display on a 28" 4K monitor (to be used as visual references for manual airbrushing and detailing of HO models) I may have to go to some higher resolution files for a "Digital Tampo Print" project that I am working on, which would use one of a number of possible methods to reproduce multilayered multi colored and perhaps multi-media paint or ink out put onto 3D surfaces (it sounds far more complex than it is) but it essentially means being able to reproduce in paint or inks a rendering of a workstained locomotive (or whatever) without having to do each one by hand. Anyone who has ever built and painted a model of anything and wanted to make it look less plastic will get the idea.
Anyway back to the question. How much better than lightroom is silkypix going to be, or am I better served on working on developing custom curves for use in lightroom?
I have a certain amount of imaging industry insight and in a different life was in at the very start of what became lightroom. Sony certainly appears to be betting big on post processing technology in its newer parts of the Alpha line and so is Olympus......which could make all my (potential) hard work in developing things for the LR 5 framework redundant in a possible future LR 6. Against that I have to think of 25 plus years experience of understanding photoshop and then lightroom vs learning a new interface......... Is Silkypix worth it?
But
I have just moved to an X-E1 with the 18-55 from a Canon EOS-40D and various lenses, and whilst the pennies slowly accumulate for interesting pieces of glass like the 14mm and probaby the 27mm pancake, I have decided that I should actually spend some time getting a feel for RAW file work flows.
Now the sorts of things I am likely to be shooting are going to be product shots of custom HO model trains (semi business) and general pictures of real stationary trains (to provide detail references to produce custom HO trains) and then general travel and architectural shots (fun) and eventually portraiture (when there are some more options in the 60-70mm focal length region). Actually playing with LR 5.3, the first thing that hits me is how good the Fuji JPEGs really are. OK some of that may have something to do with too many years with the Canon 40D which has wonderful IQ when using RAW files but whose JPEGs are, well good for mid 2000s technology.
The "business" justification for going Fuji is to get the best pictures of grimy dirty work-stained Diesel locomotives so that I can reproduce the same in HO scale for people who like to buy detailed and customized models. So I will be trying to pull as much detail and tonal variation out of shadows and tonal variations that are on the dark side, which of course (as I understand it) is where working with RAW files shines.
So the question (yes there is one) is Lightroom vs Silkypix, which will give better results when trying to pull the last ounce of detail, color accuracy and tonal variation. If Silkypix, which version? The 3.?!? File processor that comes with the X-E1 and has a few updaters (and does not like my Retina Macbook running Mavericks one bit) or moving up to V4 or even V5.
Whilst my initial output is really to produce images to display on a 28" 4K monitor (to be used as visual references for manual airbrushing and detailing of HO models) I may have to go to some higher resolution files for a "Digital Tampo Print" project that I am working on, which would use one of a number of possible methods to reproduce multilayered multi colored and perhaps multi-media paint or ink out put onto 3D surfaces (it sounds far more complex than it is) but it essentially means being able to reproduce in paint or inks a rendering of a workstained locomotive (or whatever) without having to do each one by hand. Anyone who has ever built and painted a model of anything and wanted to make it look less plastic will get the idea.
Anyway back to the question. How much better than lightroom is silkypix going to be, or am I better served on working on developing custom curves for use in lightroom?
I have a certain amount of imaging industry insight and in a different life was in at the very start of what became lightroom. Sony certainly appears to be betting big on post processing technology in its newer parts of the Alpha line and so is Olympus......which could make all my (potential) hard work in developing things for the LR 5 framework redundant in a possible future LR 6. Against that I have to think of 25 plus years experience of understanding photoshop and then lightroom vs learning a new interface......... Is Silkypix worth it?
