PROCESSING X-TRANS IMAGES IN IRIDIENT DEVELOPER SAMPLE

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1 PROCESSING X-TRANS IMAGES IN IRIDIENT DEVELOPER!2

2 Introduction 5 X-Trans files, demosaicing and RAW conversion Why use one converter over another? Advantages of Iridient Developer for X-Trans Processing About this guide Where to get the software Chapter 1: Setup 11 Getting the colour profiles Setting up Iridient Developer to work as a plugin Iridient Developer setup Lightroom setup How this works in action Photos Edit extension Chapter 2: A Quick overview of the interface 19 The Main Window 20 The Settings Window 21 Other Windows 22 Chapter 3: Working with images 25 Getting images into Iridient Developer Opening a folder Drag and dropping images onto Iridient Developer Saving, closing and understanding open images The Settings Window: Understanding the Controls Exposure and Colour Controls The Exposure Tab The Colour Tab Mono & Curves The Mono Tab The Curves Tab Detail !3

3 RAW Process 40 Sharpening 42 Noise Reduction 44 Other Controls 46 Lens and Out Tabs 47 Lens 47 Out 48 Saving presets and camera defaults 50 Getting images out of Iridient Developer 53 Processing vs saving 53 Processing a single image 54 Batch processing 55 Conclusion 56 Chapter 4: Workflows for integrating with Lightroom 57 Finishing in Iridient Developer vs finishing in Lightroom 58 Finish in Iridient Developer 58 Finishing in Lightroom 59 Working with one image at a time 60 A Batch Processing Workflow 62 Conclusion 65 Chapter 5: Conclusion 66 Learn more about Iridient Developer More Fuji X-Trans Guides More information !4

4 Introduction Iridient Developer is a lightweight but powerful RAW converter for Mac OS X. While it is not a fully featured photo workflow application like Capture One or Lightroom, it has some powerful RAW conversion features. For Fujifilm X-Trans shooters, it offers an interesting alternative to Lightroom or Camera RAW, as it uses a different demosaicing and rendering engine to deliver crisp and clean, artifact free results. Iridient Developer also has a lot of controls for getting into the mechanics of the RAW conversion process and it offers you significant control over the conversion of your images. That doesn t mean that it is overly complicated though. Its interface is clean and easy to use, yet it is flexible enough to let you control a wide range of options when working with your images. Iridient Developer works equally well as a standalone application, or as a companion to another program such as Lightroom, and you can even set up Iridient Developer to work as a plug in for Lightroom. This will let you send images directly from Lightroom to Iridient Developer, and use Iridient Developer s RAW processing engine, should you need to. Alternatively, you can use Lightroom as an asset management solution, making your selects in Lightroom, editing your images in Iridient Developer, and managing the resulting files back in Lightroom. X-Trans files, demosaicing and RAW conversion Fuji s X-Trans sensor is a unique imaging sensor that uses a design that is different to the type used in most other cameras. This has led to some differences in the way different software handles the conversion of Fuji RAW files. There are two things that make Fuji's sensor unique: 1. The X-Trans sensor doesn't use a traditional Bayer filter array. Instead Fuji came up with a new design that the company says was inspired by traditional film. The!5

5 colour filter cells are arranged in a more randomised pattern and Fujifilm engineers claim that this is closer to the pattern of grain in traditional film. 2. Due to the semi-randomness of the colour filter layout, the problems of moire and aliasing are reduced and so the X-Trans sensor doesn t need the optical low pass filter. This is the second thing that makes Fuji s sensor different. Because of the uniqueness of the X-Trans sensor design, most RAW converters have not been able to use the traditional methods of converting the RAW data into RGB image data. This has led to many different interpretations of how best to convert the files, and it is the reason that there can be such a variation between different RAW processors. Why use one converter over another? The reason that you may want to choose one application over another is that you may not be happy with the way a specific application demosaics the Fuji RAW files. Many people have expressed disappointment at the way Lightroom processes Fuji files for example, and that is one of the main reasons that you may want to use software like Iridient Developer in the first place. You may also want to combine applications, and in this guide we will look at workflows for working with both Lightroom and Iridient Developer. In order to take advantage of a different RAW engine, in this case the one in Iridient Developer, it is important to understand the differences between RAW data and RGB data. RAW data is essentially a dump of the information that comes from a camera s sensor straight into a file. In order to see that data as an actual image, you need to convert it into standard image data, or what is often referred to as RGB data.!6

6 RAW data is also not really image data either. For example, when a sensor captures an image, the circuitry in the sensor records an electrical charge at each of the cameras pixels or photosites. This electrical charge is converted into a digital measurement of the light hitting the sensor at that point. This is then combined with information from all the other sensor elements. As each photosite sits behind the colour filter, the measurement of light is combined with information about which red green or blue filter colour was in front of that particular element, and this is interpreted to create a colour image. This is normally done by the processor inside your camera, which converts the information coming from the sensor into what you see on the screen or the viewfinder, and in turn saves that to a JPEG file. When you save RAW data, it bypasses this conversion and writes the information coming from the sensor straight onto your memory card. You then have to do the conversion in software on your computer. By shooting in RAW and using software to convert your images, you have lots of options to control the process. This is how you can recover highlights and so on, because you re accessing all the information that the sensor had at the time of capture. RAW data is different for every camera and every sensor deign. This is why your software needs to!7

7 be updated to add support for new cameras when they come out. The most fundamental part of this process is turning all the information about light and colour values recorded by the sensor s elements into visible RGB data. This is where there can be some confusion when it comes to using different RAW converters with X-Trans images. To gain advantage of the different conversion engines, it s not enough to just open the file in a different piece of software and save it again. Because RAW files are like negatives, there s no way to change them. In order to take advantage of the conversion engine in Iridient Developer you need to actually convert the RAW data to RGB data. This means that you need to open the file in the software and save it in a standard RGB format such as JPEG or TIFF. Otherwise you won't be taking advantage of the actual conversion process. If you just "save" in many RAW converters, you're actually just saving the metadata, or maybe the "recipe" for the changes that you have made. However, this information is often incompatible between different RAW processing applications, and re-opening the RAW file in a different piece of software will just use that applications conversion engine anyway. If you convert the image from RAW data to an RGB format such as TIFF or JPEG, then that conversion process is now baked in to the file. If you open this file back in Lightroom for example, it can't now change the RAW conversion or demosaicing process any more. In some cases this act of conversion may be all you want to use a different conversion application for, but it's important to understand the need to process out the file as some form of RGB format for this to be worthwhile. Advantages of Iridient Developer for X-Trans Processing Iridient Developer has a number of advantages when it comes to processing X-Trans images. It is capable of extracting an incredible amount of detail from Fuji RAW files. Its unique demosaicing engine, coupled with its powerful sharpening algorithms are capable of creating clean and very detailed images. Unlike some other converters, it!8

8 doesn t smear fine textures or create false detail in images with a lot of fine repetitive detail, such as foliage or concrete. It has a number of unique controls and options that allow you to customise and tailor the results to your own personal style. It offers several different raw conversion algorithms as well as several different sharpening methods. These give you an incredibly wide range of options for achieving the exact kind of image that you want. Finally, it offers a unique monochrome method for demosaicing Fuji X-Trans files. This technique is capable of producing some beautifully detailed and rich black and white images from Fuji RAW files. About this guide This guide is designed to help you get the best results from processing Fuji X-Trans files in Iridient Developer. It is not a complete guide to every aspect of the software. It is designed specifically for X-Trans shooters to tell you what you need to know to process your images in Iridient Developer. While it assumes no prior knowledge, you should at least know how to install and start up the application. You will need to have a good working knowledge of computers and RAW files to get the most out of this book. In this guide we re going to cover the following topics: Opening a folder and getting images into Iridient Developer. Using Iridient Developer as a Lightroom Plugin. Understanding the Iridient Developer controls. Understanding the demosaicing and sharpening settings. Noise reduction and lens correction. Creating black and white images in Iridient Developer.!9

9 My recommended settings for sharpening Batch processing and exporting. Workflows for working with Lightroom. Where to get the software If you haven t already downloaded Iridient Developer, you can get it from the developer s website at Iridient Digital. The software is currently $99 to buy and there is also a trial version available. To get the trial version of Iridient Developer, you can find it on the Iridient Digital Website at: To buy the software go to the Iridient Digital store at: You should also download the Fuji colour profile presets for the application. You can find them on the release notes page for the software. I ll cover these in more detail in the first chapter. Note: This guide was written for version 3 of Iridient Developer. At the time of writing 3.1 was the current version. The instructions in this guide require version 3 or higher.!10