RAW processing for Olympus M5 Mk3 images

Hi

as I have a good tax rebate I decided to update my M5 Mk2 to the Mk3 as people are telling me it's a good upgrade.

I didn't think to check about software however, and as I use a standalone version of Lightroom 6.14, it seems the RAW files aren't supported.

I'm aware there's a free converter tool, but it adds another layer of processing.

I have previously trialed DxO, I think that's the name, but always gone back to Lightroom.

Thoughts?

I didn't go with Adobe subscription as I have PSE 18, and the standalone lightoom, and don't want a subs based thing, as I am due to retire in a year or so.

Many thanks for ideas and suggestions. I don't have huge amounts of money ..... :)
 
I railed against the Adobe subscription for a while, but I’ve now reconciled myself to it. If you look at other non-sub based alternatives (DxO) etc, they release new versions every year or so and the upgrade price is pretty much what the Adobe sub is. New camera support is often delayed to new versions and of course new features only come in new versions. If I look at LR now compared to when I first subscribed, there are many new features that I use all the time (e.g. masking, much improved performance, sky selection, improved presets, …). Then with the sub I also get Photoshop included and Adobe cloud. I also think that Adobe will add AI noise reduction (a la Topaz etc) soon which will further increase its value to me. I think for three coffees a month, it’s worth it. Good PP makes a huge difference.
 
Hi

I use Affinity Photo, it's like PhotoShop so gives that level of edibility of the images, it does support Olympus OMD RAW files and is stand alone software and at the moment half price, do a quick Google and they should come.
 
As slow as it is, if you are not processing tens or hundreds of images at a time, the Olympus Workbench software is actually not that bad.

If you do not want to go the Adobe route, then my secondary software would be Capture One. I would never have found this out had I not been looking for something to more easily handle the RAW files for my Fuji cameras. I've looked through a lot of RAW processors and find that Capture One does a great job. I still prefer Lightroom for mass processing just due to the ease of which that happens....but if I had to divest from Lightroom - Cap One would be it.
 
Rose, if you dare wrap your head around open source, I've had good success with darktable; since ORF files are tried and tested (the sensors are a couple of years old by now), support is often very good. As with every piece of software, there's a learning curve, but helpfully, you can put together a personal workflow (with some work and fiddling, but you'll get there) that suits your needs. The toolset is pretty good, and results are convincing. Even more is offered by RawTherapee, but I admit that I personally find it daunting in its wealth of tools and clearly geared towards image processing experts, which of course I'm not.

Another trick if you are concerned about RAW files being supported: Use Adobe's free RAW-to-DNG converter to get "standardised" DNGs, then use the RAW processor of your choice - compatibility issues are all but eliminated that way.

The reason I bring this up: I think in many cases, we pay a lot for functionality we neither need nor want - only to pay again when the software gets an "upgrade" - with more tools and tricks we may, but most probably won't, want or need. I'd rather not invest any money in something that *will* be over the top *and* on its way to obsolescence the moment it hits my machine ...

M.
 
One other option is to modify the exif info on a copy of the raw file to make the software think it is from an E-M5.2 or E-M1.2. You can use exiftools (command line) or there are GUI wrappers for it as well.

That said, I use and like DxO PhotoLab 5. I have also used Affinity Photo, Darktable, and the Olympus software with success. Just export to a 16-bit/ch TIFF and use PS Elements for editing.
 
I have settled with DXO PhotoLab 5, it works extremely well with Micro Four Thirds files and clears the images up very nicely. You can always download a free 30-day trial if you want to give it another shot. I dislike subscription services in general and try to avoid them wherever possible, DXO still uses standalone licences.

Another maybe interesting option would be Capture One 22, I liked that software too, but I am not a fan of the catalogue based file system, as I prefer opening the files right away without having to import them.

Most developers are offering free trials of their software, so you can give them a go before buying. Affinity Photo has been mentioned here: Affinity Photo is very affordable and until now they have a very, very generous update policy: Ever since I've bought the Windows version of AP at launch many years ago, every single update has been absolutely for free. So I paid less than 50 Euros five and a half year ago and haven't been charged a single Cent since then. To be honest thought I absolutely barely use Affinity Photo at all, as I think it is rather complicated and for RAW processing it can't really keep up with DXO in my opinion. nevertheless if you are looking for an affordable, fully fledged RAW converter and photo editor, Affinity is a great choice, there also is a fairly large community around it.
 
Rose, if you dare wrap your head around open source, I've had good success with darktable; since ORF files are tried and tested (the sensors are a couple of years old by now), support is often very good. As with every piece of software, there's a learning curve, but helpfully, you can put together a personal workflow (with some work and fiddling, but you'll get there) that suits your needs. The toolset is pretty good, and results are convincing. Even more is offered by RawTherapee, but I admit that I personally find it daunting in its wealth of tools and clearly geared towards image processing experts, which of course I'm not.

Another trick if you are concerned about RAW files being supported: Use Adobe's free RAW-to-DNG converter to get "standardised" DNGs, then use the RAW processor of your choice - compatibility issues are all but eliminated that way.

The reason I bring this up: I think in many cases, we pay a lot for functionality we neither need nor want - only to pay again when the software gets an "upgrade" - with more tools and tricks we may, but most probably won't, want or need. I'd rather not invest any money in something that *will* be over the top *and* on its way to obsolescence the moment it hits my machine ...

M.

Hi

are you using those Open source products on Linux or windows?

Years ago I ran various flavours of Linux, but mainly Pclinuxos and tried GIMP and digikam, but when I invested in a DSLR a friend gave me an old copy of PS CS2 (I think it was), and then she recommended Lightroom, and I found I liked that with PSE for a little of extra tweaking, so I went back to windows. Subsequently I had a hard drive failure, and used LR and PSE, which I have upgraded once or twice.

i have tried the free converter in the past, must have been while waiting for LR to update supported cameras, but it another layer of processing.

I did download darktable for Windows and had a look at ti, can't remember now what my impressions were.

Thanks for the input.
 
I railed against the Adobe subscription for a while, but I’ve now reconciled myself to it. If you look at other non-sub based alternatives (DxO) etc, they release new versions every year or so and the upgrade price is pretty much what the Adobe sub is. New camera support is often delayed to new versions and of course new features only come in new versions. If I look at LR now compared to when I first subscribed, there are many new features that I use all the time (e.g. masking, much improved performance, sky selection, improved presets, …). Then with the sub I also get Photoshop included and Adobe cloud. I also think that Adobe will add AI noise reduction (a la Topaz etc) soon which will further increase its value to me. I think for three coffees a month, it’s worth it. Good PP makes a huge difference.

As I have PSE 18 I don't need PS, and found that, for the year I subscribed I didn't use it, and don't need most of the features, so it was a waste. I do not too much PP most of the time.
 
I have settled with DXO PhotoLab 5, it works extremely well with Micro Four Thirds files and clears the images up very nicely. You can always download a free 30-day trial if you want to give it another shot. I dislike subscription services in general and try to avoid them wherever possible, DXO still uses standalone licences.

Another maybe interesting option would be Capture One 22, I liked that software too, but I am not a fan of the catalogue based file system, as I prefer opening the files right away without having to import them.

Most developers are offering free trials of their software, so you can give them a go before buying. Affinity Photo has been mentioned here: Affinity Photo is very affordable and until now they have a very, very generous update policy: Ever since I've bought the Windows version of AP at launch many years ago, every single update has been absolutely for free. So I paid less than 50 Euros five and a half year ago and haven't been charged a single Cent since then. To be honest thought I absolutely barely use Affinity Photo at all, as I think it is rather complicated and for RAW processing it can't really keep up with DXO in my opinion. nevertheless if you are looking for an affordable, fully fledged RAW converter and photo editor, Affinity is a great choice, there also is a fairly large community around it.

Thanks for your thoughts. I've noticed on various forums that quite a few m4/3rds users do use DxO, so maybe I need to do another trial.
 
One other option is to modify the exif info on a copy of the raw file to make the software think it is from an E-M5.2 or E-M1.2. You can use exiftools (command line) or there are GUI wrappers for it as well.

That said, I use and like DxO PhotoLab 5. I have also used Affinity Photo, Darktable, and the Olympus software with success. Just export to a 16-bit/ch TIFF and use PS Elements for editing.

Thanks.

I haven't used the command line for many years, and even then I used it rarely when I ran Linux. will check it out though.
Thanks
 
Hi

are you using those Open source products on Linux or windows?

Years ago I ran various flavours of Linux, but mainly Pclinuxos and tried GIMP and digikam, but when I invested in a DSLR a friend gave me an old copy of PS CS2 (I think it was), and then she recommended Lightroom, and I found I liked that with PSE for a little of extra tweaking, so I went back to windows. Subsequently I had a hard drive failure, and used LR and PSE, which I have upgraded once or twice.

i have tried the free converter in the past, must have been while waiting for LR to update supported cameras, but it another layer of processing.

I did download darktable for Windows and had a look at ti, can't remember now what my impressions were.

Thanks for the input.
I use both GNU/Linux and Windows - though lately, I'm pretty much using Windows exclusively because I need it for work, and switching OSes just for fun is a bit gratuitious (I've just set up a Lubuntu box, even so - to relieve that little machine from the strain of running Windows 10). btw. On Windows, I use XnView alongside darktable (or any other RAW editor, for that matter) for image review and printing.

The conversion step shouldn't be necessary most of the time - I just added the hint to indicate that should you ever run into problems, there's a solution.

GIMP is overkill for most of my own needs - I like things straightforward, tool depth isn't on the agenda most of the time. That's why I tried it for my everyday tasks and gave up pretty quickly. I have dabbled with digikam as well, but not enough to have a qualified opinion. I remember it being daunting at the beginning because it does a lot of indexing - but there are obviously advantages to that (as there are to Lightroom's similar behaviour). I don't need that, though (at least not yet - I may curse myself down the line, but we'll have to see).

I'm not sure darktable is for you (or anyone) - I just found it to be a nice drop-in for Lightroom, but of course, YMMV, it's different, and at least on Windows, it's not the fastest (to say the least). But it's simple to try and see - you'll not lose anything except time.

All the best,
M.
 
Thanks for your thoughts. I've noticed on various forums that quite a few m4/3rds users do use DxO, so maybe I need to do another trial.
You're welcome! With the release of PhotoLab 4 back in 2020, DXO introduced DeepPRIME noise reduction, which is a clear step up from the already very good PRIME noise reduction they used in the past. Around that time I was on PhotoLab 3 and didn't want to upgrade at first because I thought the hype about DeepPRIME was bloated - but I quickly noticed it was in fact true and upgraded during their Black Friday sale.

DeepPRIME clears up images very nicely, even images taken at low or base ISO can benefit from it. All that aside, I just think DXO handles MFT RAWs very well and it is quite easy to get pleasing results - although it is even easier getting "overprocessed" results.
 
I use DxO PL5 and have since I started out in photography again maybe 7 years ago.
I like that what you buy you can keep and use for ever (dislike subscription).
One thing to note about DxO PL is that you skip upgrading every other time , so go from version 5 to 7 and 7 to 9 etc. (Hope this is still true!)
This keeps the yearly cost at about half. (Not that I have ever skipped an update, but you can do it.)

Oh, and if you go for DxO PL take the Elite version, more expensive but DeepPRIME NR among other things are not available in the Essential version.
I can also recommend their DxO Viewpoint SW and the DxO Filmpack, buying them as package gets you a good discount.
And of course you will want that DxO NIK Collection package also.;)

But if you miss upgrading it is buy new again. (Your yearly cost will take a hit if you miss updating, but it evens out.)

I do recommend to trial DxO PL5 again!
 
Just reread your OP and if is just a RAW converter you want maybe DxO PureRAW is what you are looking for?
DeepPRIME NR + the optics modules but nothing else, I have not tried it but should work as a plug-in in LR.
(€129)
 
Hi Rose, I would have to agree with @pdk42 . I thought that the Lightroom subscription was going to be a pain, but they are always improving it. One of the great additions over the LR6 you have is the great masking capability (subject detection, sky, and you can mask by luminance values). Makes it so much nicer to use. Also I really enjoy using the Color Fidelity Huelight color profiles, and they only work in Lightroom. To me, I've saved many, many hours with the subscription model and gotten better results at the same time.

I also will use DXO Photolab 5 as an external editor for their lens corrections and DeepPrime noise reduction on certain photos. It's nice to bring back to lightroom with lightroom catalog structure and the ability to still apply the color profiles.

I rarely use Photoshop, but when I do, it's great that it's already there.
 
One other option is to modify the exif info on a copy of the raw file to make the software think it is from an E-M5.2 or E-M1.2. You can use exiftools (command line) or there are GUI wrappers for it as well.

That said, I use and like DxO PhotoLab 5. I have also used Affinity Photo, Darktable, and the Olympus software with success. Just export to a 16-bit/ch TIFF and use PS Elements for editing.
Just a note: PS Elements has limited ability to edit 16 bit files (cannot use layers or functions that internally use layers, e.g. dodge, burn, etc.)
 
Back
Top