What raw converter do you use for Canon?

Camera Raw (ACR8.5).

D Thompson wrote in post #17030663
Camera Raw (ACR8.5).

Same for me. I found the update to be a big improvement from previous version.

Canon DPP, the OEM thing...

Mac:

Raw Photo Processor
Iridient Developer
ACR
DXO
DPP
C1
dcraw
Color Perfect

Lightroom 5.5

Kirk, what can you tell me (us) about Color Perfect? A worthwhile addition to more mainstream converters? What exactly do those lovely sounding phrases "color correct", "color purity" and "color clarity" really mean?

Lightroom 5

Canon DPP and DxO9

tzalman wrote in post #17031868
Kirk, what can you tell me (us) about Color Perfect? A worthwhile addition to more mainstream converters? What exactly do those lovely sounding phrases "color correct", "color purity" and "color clarity" really mean?

It is a quirky but, sometimes, much more "accurate" way to render raw files, I have found. You can read through the white papers about the approach, but the basic idea is that each camera that is supported can be calibrated by its grayscale rendition. The processing that takes place in this workflow requires the use of a helper application (MakeTIFF) to convert your raw file into a 16bit, linear, UniWB TIFF - that is, the demosaicked data in linear, un-white-balanced form (MakeTIFF uses the AdobeDNG SDK to do the demosaicking - you can also choose to have dcraw do it instead). If you can perform this conversion in your own raw converter, then you can perform things like noise reduction and lens corrections during demosaicking. I have used RPP and Iridient Developer to do the conversion to this form as well.

From there the PS plug-in does the final conversion based on the camera model and the color space into which you want to convert. The controls are based on the principle of "color integrity" about which the authors write - you add and subtract black and white and you balance color with the analog of color filter packs (CC). There is a Zone System control for controlling tone and several interesting features which leverage the presence of an alpha channel or selection for performing localized adjustment.

This approach is not for everyone, but can yield much better color results, I have found, than many traditional raw converters. I'll send you an example when I get a chance.

I use may different raw converters for many different reasons and this is just one of them.

kirk

DPP.

Adobe Camera Raw, as implemented in Lightroom.

Capture One is rumored to do "better" raw conversion, but I don't want to add yet another set of steps to my workflow, or yet another set of files to manage. Then there's all that stuff that kirkt mentions, choosing the right raw converter for each file - - but man, ain't nobody got time for dat.

When I have to process and deliver hundreds of files at a time, I can't spend hours individually perfecting, fine-tuning, and nit-picking each file. If I can keep my workflow entirely in Lightroom (from import to publish), I can cut down my turnaround time quite drastically. Outside of my normal workflow, I hit the point of diminishing returns almost immediately. I can spend 4 hours in Lightroom and deliver a set of a hundred images that are 95% perfect, or I can go spend an extra 20 minutes on each one and maybe they'll be 98% perfect, or I can spend 2-3 hours on each one and they'll be 99% perfect... I don't have that kind of time.

I acknowledge that different people have different needs.

Capture 1
Aftershot (formerly Bibble)
DPP
and BreezeBrowser primarily for InfraRed work, although now many of the other converters can finally handle IR custom white balances. for some time this was not the case. But now I'm just used to it.

LR 5.4

Apple Aperture

In answer to your second question "is there a best one" personally I would say there is NO definitely best one

Hey, nice to see useful info popping up!

I'll make a "true confession" here...I have not been inclined to a lot of experimentation with a variety of applications. I jumped into shooting Raw with my Canon DSLRs back in '06 when Adobe Camera Raw was "leading the way" in conjunction with Photoshop (CS2 at the time) and then, at the time, the subject of "Digital Asset Management" (DAM) had become, well "hot" for those of us who needed a way of managing a growing quantity of photos, and word came out that both Adobe and Apple were working on applications that could efficiently blend together Raw processing (in the "digital darkroom") with DAM without the overhead of all the Photoshop "stuff", so when Lightroom came out I jumped on the Beta, and then as it went through the early troubleshooting I committed to Lightoom as my image processing "grand central", since it both incorporates the excellent Adobe Camera Raw processor but then integrates a suite of great DAM capabilities.

Well, that's been my story since, gosh, '07, it's worked for me!!!