What do you think of Pentax Photo Browser / Laboratory software?

ta131js · 12-12-2008, 07:42 PM

This week I got my K200D

, and came bundled with it Pentax Photo Browser 3 and Photo Laboratory 3.
I already have on my Mac's hard drive Photoshop CS (I don't know much about) and iPhoto 8 that I like for its ease of use and elegant interface.

So should I bother with Pentax' software?
Do they offer anything special for Pentaxians?

I intend to stick with my current lineup if I can help it.

eclipsed450 · 12-12-2008, 07:49 PM

I installed it, then quickly uninstalled it..from what i can tell, get much more out of picasa...

cpopham · 12-12-2008, 07:54 PM

Photo Browser is.... yeah... the most charitable thing I could say is that it understands all the Pentax metadata.

Photo lab, on the other hand, once you get past the fact that the interface is.... untraditional is a polite way to put it, it's actually pretty good for RAW developing. I hated it at first, but got used to it.

On the other hand, I use RAW sparingly, so your milage may vary.

SpecialK · 12-12-2008, 08:46 PM

I used Pentax software, which consists of Photo Browser and Photo Laboratory for a year and a half. Browser is for looking at JPGs or RAW images, and cropping or rotating JPGs only. Has a light or strong "auto fix" feature.

Photo Laboratory is for converting RAW files (Pentax .PEFs) to some other format such as JPG or TIFF.

Photo Browser is very tedious to use. It often locks up and occasionally requires a button push on your computer's On-Off switch. When deleting files, it can be slow. It has no cloning or healing brush so you can not spot for dust or other blemishes.

Photo Laboratory is OK for the basic conversion - contrast, brightness, etc. And if your Pentax camera has crappy viewfinder-sensor alignment like both of mine do, you will appreciate being able to level the horizon. However, the layout is extremely poor because it wastes so much extra room with the various windows, which have too much white space. They could make the windows about 1/2 size very easily, which would eliminate having to drag them off each other, even on a 22" widescreen - unless you want a small preview window.

So, even though I stuck it out for a year and a half, both programs are pretty poor in the final analysis.

There are 2 useful features of Browser, however. I'll only mention the one everyone may appreciate. You can print a CSV (like a spreadsheet) of your exif information for a batch of images through Tools > Save data list. I copy this to a master file of exif info for the day I might want to look at something specific. I used to make the list from JPGs after converting from RAW files. But, that turns out to be meaningless for many values as they can be changed in the processing. Now I create the list from the PEFs which shows the actual effect of the original settings.

I finally decided there has to be something better. There is. I downloaded the Elements 6 trial. It read the K100D PEF files directly (I ultimately had to download the latest plug-in for Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) for it to recognize the K20D files, though).

It has a spot-healing brush that blends the surrounding area so I can fix dust spots much more smoothly and non-destructively (was using a third program before...), and can level horizons. That was enough - I bought it for $70 that night. Of course it became obsolete about 30 days later with v7 which some people do not like as well.

It also has some other "features" such as tags (never use them), slideshow creation, and some other goodies.

Everything flows a lot better and it saves some time as well.

But, compared to the Pentax software, just about anything will be more user-friendly, though the output of Photo Laboratory is very good.

Class A · 12-13-2008, 03:52 AM

Photo Laboratory does a high quality RAW->JPEG conversion. Not every RAW developer is as good as the SilkyPix engine.

Also it supports lens distortion/vignetting correction and two types of noise reduction.

The GUI is odd but the functionality isn't bad at all.

*reeftool* · 12-13-2008, 07:26 AM

I suppose Pentax is obligated to include some sort of photo software with a camera but I installed it and used it once and will probably never use it again. While it does work, to put it politely, it stinks. I don't shoot a lot of Raw so I can't comment on the quality compared to the others but I find it a terrible piece of software to use. I use the free Picasa for most and Photoshop Elements also.

silvershoes · 12-13-2008, 03:02 PM

I've tried a number of different programs and keep going back to the Pentax stuff for RAW processing. I get much better results than I do with things like ACR. Of course I finish up in PSCS3, but I would anyway.

Duh_Vinci · 12-14-2008, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by silvershoes

I've tried a number of different programs and keep going back to the Pentax stuff for RAW processing. I get much better results than I do with things like ACR. Of course I finish up in PSCS3, but I would anyway.

I agree with you 100%. I too use Photo Laboratory, but much like yourself, strictly for RAW->JPEG or TIFF conversion. I love colors of Pentax, and every other converter I've tried - colors, contrast, white balance and overall appearance of the photos are very different... In Photo Laboratory and camera - I like what I see, and I get exactly that.

But indeed, I use another software to finish up the photos (if I have to) - CS3, as the rest of the controls/adjustments and gui of Photo Laboratory I find very cumbersome, awkward...

Regards,
D

rfortson · 12-20-2008, 06:05 PM

Even though I've recently switched over to Lightroom, I used the Pentax software (and still do on occasion) for a couple of years (over Photoshop Elements) and was always happy with the results. It's not as capable at extensive editing, but for processing and adjusting image parameters, it's very good. Also, the lens correction tools are handy.