[7samurai]

I'm trying the 30 day trial of the Acdsee 4 Pro and so far, I like the organizer, but I'm not to happy with the raw converter.

I was wondering what settings people are using?
I personally like how the Pentax softare interpets the RAW file, so I'm looking for settings that will get me close.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

[Marc Sabatella]

What cameras, and what specifically do you prefer about the Pentax software? If you can answer that, it should be possible to mimic that look.

[boomklever]

I am a satisfied ACDSee user from the very first version. Main reasons: it is superfast browsing through pictures and there's no need to import pictures first.
Now that I have a K5 I am looking too at RAW functions. The Pentax utility lacks (I could not find it) an 'original' button to quickly compare the original and modified picture while still editing. ACDSee offers a lot more control but there's little assistance in which settings to use.
Would be nice to have a setting which equals the Pentax default settings.

No answers for you here, but I will watch this thread closefully for advise from others.

[7samurai]

What cameras, and what specifically do you prefer about the Pentax software? If you can answer that, it should be possible to mimic that look.

I'm using a K-x. I specifically like the out of camera color rendition. I specifically like the 'Bright' and 'Vibrant' custom color settings. I generally don't tweek any of the settings in the Pentax software except for 'Sensitivity (Ev)' and occasionally 'Dodge'. I believe shadow compensation is set to 'low'.

Camera settings are generally set to the defaults except for high iso noise reduction, which i have set to off.

Cropping, Noise reduction and Sharpening I usually do in another application, PaintShop Pro X3, but for the majority of pictures, alittle 'Sensitivity (Ev)' is all I change.

When I open PEF files in Acdsee Pro 4, they seem to be darker. Unfortunately, my inexperience is preventing me from getting the image to a state I like. My baseline is the PEF from the Pentax software.

I've also noticed one anomoly on areas that are over exposed. The Pentax software seems to recover those areas, while in Acdsee Pro 4, they are shown as blown highlights. It's a small issue. I'm wondering if the Pentax software is compensating by using the surrounding pixels.

I also noticed the PEF files in Acdsee Pro 4 shift a few pixels up when viewed vs the jpg.

[Noam]

I recommend ACDSee Pro 4.0 wholeheartedly, particularly because of its excellent RAW converter. I especially like the "Advanced Lighting" tab, which is a truly unique, very powerful, effective, and convenient feature.

Like other programs, but maybe contrarily to some others (e.g. the Pentax utility), ACDSee doesn't try to mimic the camera JPG output (which is highly dependent on many settings, including the chosen "style" (bright, landscape, vivid, etc.), parameters, D-Range/Shadow settings, etc. Rather, it applies some default sane parameters which should provide a decent result most of the times, at least as a starting point for minimal tweaking.

Usually a quick play with the Exposure slider or Gamma (mid-point in the Tone Curve tab) brings you pretty close to the "Pentax" result. With my K10D (and to a lesser extent, my K-7) set at "Bright", I often find the default rendering in ACDSee a bit dark (closer to "Natural"). Applying 1.10 to 1.15 Gamma usually does the trick.

Also, bump Contrast and Vibrance according to taste (and to come closer to high-contrast/saturation settings in camera).

Every RAW conversion software has a little different rendering. You need to play with it some more and see if it grows on you, so take your time evaluating! I've been using ACDSee for several years now (since version 2.0). My usage pattern with it has changed and evolved considerably, and it still does!

[thazooo]

Here's some settings I use with Pro 3. It's posted over at the acdsee forum.

""I'll try to explain what I've done to get Matching Color ( VERY CLOSE ) with ACDSee Pro3 and my other Progs. Progs that match are ACDSee, Corel Graphics X4, Pentax Photo Lab, and Qimage print Rip.

I shoot RAW with color profile in camera set to RGB. If you use sRGB then stick an 's' in front of my reference to RGB. My camera settings are all at Null, sharpen, contrast, etc..... all set center of slider.I have found with my Pentax gear that I need to set WB off of the Auto WB setting and to the correct WB for the scene. Auto WB and ACDSee don't work well together.

In ACDSee color management , I set Enable Color Management and Apply to Thumbs.... to ON. I set my Input Profile to AdobeRGB1998 and also turn on 'Use imbedded profile' just in case I load something from the past thats in sRGB. I set the Output to 'Basic Color Management. Monitor Profile is set to the profile that's loaded into my Video Card, in my case one I created. If you're using the Monitor Profile that came with your monitor, use it. Printer Profile is set to the paper I use when I print, I leave this as a constant value and never change it. I don't use ACDSee to print. Rendering Intent is set to Perceptual. These same settings I use though out all my Progs.

Once you open an Image in ACDSee and go to the Develop Tab, you'll have to set Color Management to on once again. It's the bottom box under the Tune Tab. I set mine to adobergb1998 and check 'Use working space........' . Once checked the Image is displayed VERY close to what is seen in View Mode""

I need to note that I shoot 'Natural' on K10D and K20D. A minor tweek of the 'Vibrance' slider usually corrects any residual color matching problems.

Good luck.
Dana

[Marc Sabatella]

When I open PEF files in Acdsee Pro 4, they seem to be darker. Unfortunately, my inexperience is preventing me from getting the image to a state I like. My baseline is the PEF from the Pentax software.

I usually recommend people do a blind test before spending any time tweaking settings. It's practically inevitable that the first version of an image we see is the one we accept as "correct" or "best", and anything else will be seen as not measuring up to that standard. When we do a blind test, using a variety of different types of images, we are usually surprised to find out that we really don't turn out to have consistent preferences - it's normally much more 50/50 than we might think.

In any case, instead of making it your goal to match some arbitrary other program (eg, Pentax's), you should make it your goal to make the *best* image you can. Again, if you do this without consulting any other version, you might also find you end up preferring rather different from what the Pentax software produces.

That said, again, the better you can describe *exactly* what you want, the better the chance of reproducing it. So it certainly makes sense to practice by using the Pentax as a goal and seeing how well you can describe the differences. If it truly is just darker overall, well, then turning up the exposure slider is all you need. But more likely, you are seeing the fact that ACDSee tends to make the dark/midtones darker than Pentax does; the highlights are usually about the same. So instead of turning up exposure - which will brighten highlights just as much as midtones - you might try turning up Fill Light instead, or turning down Contrast, or use the Curves to brighten the specific tonal range you wish to. Or maybe you see the shadows as being too cool, in which case you could use the RGB curves to bring down the blue channel at the shadow end and bring up the red and/or green. Again, if you can put into words what you want to achieve, you can make it happen, but if you can't put it into words, you probably won't be able to get it.

Then, whatever you come up with, save it as a preset, and you can easily apply it to a whole shoot in just a couple of keystrokes, while still leaving open the possibility of further custom tweaking. I have a couple of such presets for my K200D - one I use for outdoor / well lit images, one I use for low light images. The first just turns up fill light a little. The second applies a tungsten-ish WB setting, adds NR, and adjusts the sharpening settings to use a higher threshold so it's not sharpening the noise so much. I've also created presets that use curves to get specific looks.

Oh, also - be sure you aren't using any Pentax-specific JPEG-only artificial DR-enhancing options in your camera like D-range or highlight/shadow compensation. Those work by deliberately underexposing an image then fiddling with curves to get a specific look when converting to JPEG. You'd have to recreate that curve-fiddling yourself in ACDSee if shooting RAW. You could probably come up with something that matched the effect pretty well.

I've also noticed one anomoly on areas that are over exposed. The Pentax software seems to recover those areas, while in Acdsee Pro 4, they are shown as blown highlights. It's a small issue. I'm wondering if the Pentax software is compensating by using the surrounding pixels.

Could be. Or is doing some "magic" in applying preprocessing curves. In any case, ACDSee can also recover blown highlights, using the Highlight Recovery slider - you just have to do it yourself. Using the Lighting tool in Light EQ or Advanced mode can also help - a lot - here. But this kind of stuff is extremely image-specific; you probably don't really want to make that part of your basic preset, because it might be detrimental on images without blown highlights.

I also noticed the PEF files in Acdsee Pro 4 shift a few pixels up when viewed vs the jpg.

All cameras capture more pixels that they actually report; different programs will use those extra pixels different ways.

[7samurai]

Noam,

Thank you for your recommendation.
Uping the Vibrance (+28) helped the colors greatly.
Raised Exposure (+5)
I actually lowered Contrast (-5) to preserver more detail when I raised Exposure
Mid-tones/Gamma (1.1) seems to help.

Is there a way to the original Raw and my changes at the same time?

[7samurai]

Marc_Sabatella,

Turning down Contrast (-5) help greatly with a little Exposure (+5) bump.
The advanced lighting tool is really quite amazing. I have a slight bump in the middle that really adds life to the image.

Correcting the white balance also corrected the slight color shift I was having (+5500) in this particular image.

At this point, it is far better looking to my eye than the original jpeg from the camera. Since that was my usual baseline, I'm very satisfied with the results.

How do you apply this to multiple images?

Here's what I'm using.

General
----------
Exposure +5
Contrast -5
Vibrance +28

White Balance (very subjective per picture, but in my test picture)
Temperature +20

Advance lighting
a little bump in the middle.

Tone Curves
Midtones +1.1

[stormtech]

Is there a way to the original Raw and my changes at the same time?

So far with Pro 3/4 for a couple months, this is the only feature I find that it is lacking - still trying to figure how to view both at the same time vs. switching back & forth with the "show original" button.

[7samurai]

So far with Pro 3/4 for a couple months, this is the only feature I find that it is lacking - still trying to figure how to view both at the same time vs. switching back & forth with the "show original" button.

Can you tell me where the 'Show Original' button is?

Oops. found it. it's the big button that says 'Show Original'...ha ha ha.

[7samurai]

What are other people using for a general sharpening setting in Acdsee pro 4?

[Marc Sabatella]

How do you apply this to multiple images?

Several ways. If you inted to use the settings a lot (could make sense for all but WB), then you would create a preset by clicking the gear icon at the top of the Develop mode control panel. But if it's just a one time thing, you could hit Done to return to Manage mode, select a bunch more images, then apply the Last Used preset (via right click, or Tools->Process->Apply Preset). There is also a facility to copy and paste settings from Manage mode or Develop mode, and also Batch Develop.

Temperature +20

That's the one you can't use in a preset, because it will record the *actual* temperature, not the offset. Chances are, that same offset wouldn't make sense for other images anyhow. But if you find you do consistently want the color tweaked one way for another, you could use either the Advanced Color or the RGB version of Curves.

As for sharpening, you'll find that is camera specific, also print size specific, also ISO specific. But my starting point is 33/2/10.

[Noam]

What are other people using for a general sharpening setting in Acdsee pro 4?

The default (25, radius 2, threshold 5) is pretty mild and good as a starting point.

In clean low-ISO images with lots of tasty details I like to bump it to about 35, and sometimes increase radius to 3 or (rarely) 4, if I want a more pronounced effect.

With mid to high-ISO images I find the sharpening module much less effective. Threshold must be raised to 12-15 and sometimes even as high as 20. Even then, depending on the amount of noise, Sharpening can amplify the noise, so I disable it completely. On the positive side, I can then keep noise-reduction to a minimum (mostly chroma), so most detail is retained.

[7samurai]

After playing with it for a few days, I bought it. It's a very efficient application. I think it will help me take my photo's to the next level in handling light.