[Caver]

Good news for those who are using Silkypix in their workflow. If you own previous versions you can have your copy for a special price.

For overseas English versions:
SILKYPIX Developer Studio -- For beautiful photos.

For English version in Europe:
Silkypix Upgrade | Silkypix

[dosdan]

Just started to use the new version. The speed in SP6 is much faster when loading and viewing lots of thumbnails. Also the screens have been resigned to occupy less screen space. Elements like the histogram can now be quite small.

The NR algorithm has been updated to NR5. Development / Output --- SILKYPIX Developer Studio Pro6 Special Site

I tried this on a difficult ISO12800 K-3 from https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/253942-pentax-k-3-high-iso-test.html

You can directly download Stagnant's PEF file which was used in this raw develolper comparison:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8INe0_VKyQ8Z3ppNXhsaWpGVjQ/edit?usp=sharing

Here is a 100% crop comparison of the same region processed using the Default taste which adjusts SP's default processing settings based on the Exif data:



NR5 is claimed to do a better job than NR3 (SP5), amongst other things in preserving outline sharpness, but I prefer SP5 here. The definitive test would be to print out the whole image, not a 100% crop and see which version looked better. Even after moving off the default NR settings that SP6 chose for this image, I as unable to get as smooth a result as SP5 achieved.


Both HDR & Dodge now have a Colour Burn option which looked promising when I applied it to a strongly back-lit image

Development / Output --- SILKYPIX Developer Studio Pro6 Special Site

Dan.

[Den]

Your example (what I see) the SP6 is slightly sharper, maybe more detailed?, but definitely more noise!

[Homo_erectus]

I don't mind more noise as long as the character of the noise is pleasing and, to my eye, the SP6 example is much more pleasing than the SP5 example.

Totally coincidentally, I downloaded the demo of SP6 last night having not even realized that it was just released. I played around with it a bit this morning. It seems quite powerful and feature rich. I played around with a few of the "taste" plugins and they seemed interesting as well.

It'll take me a few weeks of using the program before I am comfortable enough with its UI to be able to tell if I even like the program. And lightroom is so familiar. So very, very familiar.

[dosdan]

SilkyPix 6 can open a K-3 raw HDR file (3 bracketted raw files within a bundle), but it doesn't handle it any differently from a single exposure raw file, apparently ignoring the other 2 exposures. At least Ricoh DCU 5 allows you to separately save each raw from within the bundle, so you can then open each of them and process them separately.

What will be needed is a proper HDR program that takes advantage of this type of file.

On a similar theme, I don't know well SP6 handles the K-3's Multi-AWB files. I know DCraw-based engines like RawTherapee have no special code to handle the multi-zonal WB in this type of file.

I'll have to perform a test.

Dan.