my comparison of Pekka, Fred, BB & YarcPlus

[seanspeng]

The following galleries are my experiments comparing Pekka vs Fred D30 Linear Conversion, and BreezeBrowser vs YarcPlus.

http://www.pbase.com/pengrus/breezebrowser_and_yarcplus_w_pekkas

My conclusions:
1. Pekka's LS 342 produces better image than Fred's in terms of accurate color & more detail, with crystal quality.
2. Fred's Noise Reduction actions like PRO400 and PRO800 are excellent tools to have, even you have YarcPlus.
3. If you convert the raw image, you gotta try YarcPlus' ARF (Artifact Reduction Filter) which gives you cleaner image from the very beginning.
4. BreezeBrowser also has excellent functionality. I would use it for managing files and gallery generation.

Finally, this is what I like the best combination of tools or workflow that works for me:

Pekka's LS342 + Fred's Noise Reduction + YarcPlus

http://www.pbase.com/image/3053179
(the last image in the gallery)

Comments welcomed!

Sean

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Sean,

Interesting! Did you do any tests on 100/200 ISO? That's mainly what I shoot with, so noise reduction is less of an issue.

Regards,

[seanspeng]

Roger,

I am honored to get your reply. I learned a lot from your postings and liked the comparison on your web site. Mine was nowhere close to your professional quality and standards, just a quick way to get me FINALLY decided on which one(s) to use. :)

No, I did not do a comparison on 100/200 ISO yet. 100/200 has pretty low noise, so that does not matter a lot once we decide which LinearConversion action to go with.

I really like Pekka's actions which produce accurate color and crystal clear look.

You've mentioned that Pekka's 400-800 Convert and Sharpening HQ works better than the normal 400-800 Convert and Sharpening. Pekka said that the extra quality comes from the three resize 300% etc. However, my results tell me that 400-800 Convert and Sharpening HQ produces more noise! And the tremendous process time from the 400-800HQ does not justify the extra quality, if any, which I have not seen. Maybe someone can post their work on this --- comparison of HQ actions with Normal actions.

Thanks,

Sean

Roger_Cavanagh wrote:
Sean,

Interesting! Did you do any tests on 100/200 ISO? That's mainly what I shoot with, so noise reduction is less of an issue.

Regards,

[pigasus]

seanspeng wrote:
You've mentioned that Pekka's 400-800 Convert and Sharpening HQ works better than the normal 400-800 Convert and Sharpening. Pekka said that the extra quality comes from the three resize 300% etc. However, my results tell me that 400-800 Convert and Sharpening HQ produces more noise! And the tremendous process time from the 400-800HQ does not justify the extra quality, if any, which I have not seen. Maybe someone can post their work on this --- comparison of HQ actions with Normal actions.

Hi Sean,

I use YarcPlus with ARF1 followed by Pekka's 400-800HQ action (with minor adjustments to the conversion curves - to bring exposure into line- and +12 saturation). I have found Pekka's action to produce the least noise at 200, 400 and 800 ISO. (Being in the UK, I have yet to shoot anything at 100.) Fred's ISOR Pro was left in the dust by it in my tests.

I'm surprised that you find it produces more noise. I once attempted to use it on an 8-bit file (because it runs much quicker that way), and in that case it did increase noise significantly. Are you running it on 16-bit files? I agree it is slow, but I now run it in batch mode (good excuse to get up from the computer for a cuppa).

I agree with you that Pekka's LS gives the absolutely best conversion for the D30, with far more accurate colours than any other method (and I've tried almost every D30 linear conversion profile going - with the exception of Fred's).

D60 owners eat your hearts out. :D

Regards,
Sally

[seanspeng]

Sally,

No wonder you use iso400 a lot! :) Do you have a gallery of UK?

I have purposely shot some images that are not in good light like the vase in the gallery. So we can compare the noise in the shadows. It did show even in 400 ISO, Pekka's 400-800 Convert and Sharpening alone produces more noise than Fred's D30LPBatch + PRO400 NoiseReduction. But what is more important is that Fred's Noise Reduction action will remarkably improve the image quality after you apply Pekka's LS342 -- Fred said that his NoiseReduction works based on the contrast (I do not understand the logic, but it sounds like it can sort of automatically determine how much work to do based on your noise level??)


I performed all the actions in 16 bits TIFF converted from Linear action. No any other adjustment like color, level, etc, only in the final step, I convert to 8 bits TIFF, then convert to JPEG with quality setting of 10. I don't understand why it produces more noise when you run LS342 on 8-bit file? Shouldn't it be the same for both?

When I have only 128RAM, the 400-800 Convert and Sharpening takes about 2-3 minutes and I don't even try 400-800 HQ. Now I have 390RAM, 400-800 Convert and Sharpening takes only 45 seconds. And 400-800HQ takes 5-6 minutes! I wonder if Pekka can improve on the time, which is one of the reasons that some people do not want to use it. But with BATCH mode for 400-800 Normal, this is a great way to go.

Regards,

[seanspeng]

pigasus wrote:
Hi Sean,

I use YarcPlus with ARF1 followed by Pekka's 400-800HQ action (with minor adjustments to the conversion curves - to bring exposure into line- and +12 saturation). I have found Pekka's action to produce the least noise at 200, 400 and 800 ISO. (Being in the UK, I have yet to shoot anything at 100.) Fred's ISOR Pro was left in the dust by it in my tests.

Regards,
Sally



I thought we should use ARF2 (not ARF1) for ISO 400 or higher, am I wrong?

[pigasus]

seanspeng wrote:
I thought we should use ARF2 (not ARF1) for ISO 400 or higher, am I wrong?

I did the original testing of ARF with linear for Michael Tapes. (I nagged him so much about making it available for linear conversion that he threw the ball back into my court and asked if I'd try it out for him.) As part of the testing I applied Pekka's LS (normal HQ) after conversion. I found that the sharpening was stronger (and with slightly more noise) with ARF2. Michael explained to me that a fundamental difference between ARF1 and ARF2 is that ARF2 adds some sharpening in the conversion. As I prefer to do the initial sharpening in LS, I have opted not to use ARF2. I think, based on my intial experiments, Michael recommends ARF1 for all linear conversions due to the additional processing/sharpening steps which follow. I didn't try ARF with Fred's linear action so I can't say whether the same results would occur.

As to whether I have a gallery of my UK images...watch this space. I expect to have my web site up and running next week

Sally

[sagebrush]

I have a simple question for those of you that use Pekka's Action,

I use Fred's Linear_PRO to process my D30 pics. I'd like to compare results from Fred's LP to Pekka's LS342 so I opened a pic in PS6, then under the Action Linearsharpen 342 I selected convert (high sharpening HQ) and hit run. It seemed to run to complete but where is the result?

Also, can Pekka's action be run from PS /Automate/Batch like Fred's LP?

Regards,
Bob

[Roger_Cavanagh]

sagebrush wrote:
I have a simple question for those of you that use Pekka's Action,

I use Fred's Linear_PRO to process my D30 pics. I'd like to compare results from Fred's LP to Pekka's LS342 so I opened a pic in PS6, then under the Action Linearsharpen 342 I selected convert (high sharpening HQ) and hit run. It seemed to run to complete but where is the result?

Well, the picture should still be in PS. A bunch of levels, curves, and other stuff goes on and at the end the linear image should be processed. May be you could try reloading the action in case something got corrupted.

Also, can Pekka's action be run from PS /Automate/Batch like Fred's LP?

Regards,
Bob

Yes, but you have to create an action with open, save and close commands surrounding the call to LS. Also you should not use either of the Chooser options.

You might also like to have a look here http://www.rogercavanagh.com/scripts/index.htm. I have a "menu-driven" version of LS, although the core processing is the same.

Regards,

[sagebrush]

Roger,

I will reload the Action as you suggested. One last question, which actions (or sub-action might be a better word) do you have selected when you run Pekka's Action?

BTW, I have the following selected:
red check by LinearSharpen 343
black check by convert (high sharping HQ)
black check by aftershave 1 (deeper colors)
black check by post 342

Thanks in advance for your time,
Regards,
Bob

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Bob,

All the individual actions in the LS342 action set should have black check marks in the toggle item on/off box, except those that Pekka has used as a message("actions below..." etc.). If some of the actions have red or no checks, this may be where your problem is. The red check against LS342 is caused by the empty actions and is fine.

To run LinearSharpen, just execute _ONE_ of the actions labelled "convert..." or "100-200..." or "400-800...". This is all that is absolutely necessary. You may wish to execute one of the aftershave actions to increase saturation, but not every image needs this.

Hope this clears things up.

Regards,