This is an old thread but I'll briefly revive it because of a new and intriguing RAW processor which I just got - and which (gulp, I know this is heresy) may actually do a better job of converting RAW-out-of-the-camera photo files - into usable and processable digital negatives (which then I can play around with in Lightroom). The app or program is called RPP - Raw Photo Processor - created and programmed by Andrey Twedokhleb, a brilliant Russian photographer and programmer, many years ago. I stumbled onto some threads about it - threads full of technical details I didn't really understand - but the part that stood out was that when Lightroom 'converts' RAW files from my cameras into usable digital negatives, it does so, apparently, in a heavy-handed manner where some detail gets lost. Or, at least, that was the essence of it. But the part that really got me were seeing a number of files by users of the app which rather blew me away. Long story short....I decided to download a copy and try it.
And a quick warning: it (apparently) is a Mac-only program - so already I realize this may be of little to no interest to quite a few of you. C'est la vie as they say, different strokes for different folks but, coming back to the subject - quite a few of the sample RAW conversions - seemed remarkable to me.
The program itself is somewhere between simple and complicated and I won't go into details because there are better resources and websites and posts which do that. But suffice it to say that, after processing a small handful of RAW files (from my Pentax KP) - which the RPP program converts into TIFF files - and then importing them into Lightroom (I'm using LR6, the non-subscription standalone version) - the results have been...interesting, to say the least. I've only really done two RPP conversions to date - but both have delighted me.
Here is the latest one - lightly tweaked in LR6 after processing it in RPP (which by the way, after a small donation, can be used as a Lightroom Plugin) -
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
The jury is still out, as they say - but I'm going to continue playing around with RPP. Converting files is a tiny bit more work than just simply importing them into LR (which usually does the conversion as a default setting) - but I think it may be worth it.