[DavidUK]

Ok, well this more or less follows on from my thread on shooting raw in the camera, lenses and equipment forum.. and is also kind of related to previous posting in here on CS2.

I've been using Rawshooter Essentials for the last day or so, and I'm considering shelling out for the premium version, I think it's around £60.

Can anyone give me a quick rundown on the benefits of the premium version?

[Steve]

RSP has everything that essentials has plus

RAW vs. RAW Comparison
Curves / Levels Support
Integrated Downloader
Personalized Appearance
Correction Tools (Vibrance, Color Balance, Hot Pixel / Pattern Noise Suppression)
FastBrowse
Image Formatting Toolbox (Horizon Straighten, Image Rotation, Cropping)
Magnifier
FastProof Mode
Batch Rename
Interpolation
Extended Color Support

Thats the basic headings, if you need any info on any specific tool, just shout.

HTH

[DavidUK]

Originally Posted by Steve

RSP has everything that essentials has plus

RAW vs. RAW Comparison
Curves / Levels Support
Integrated Downloader
Personalized Appearance
Correction Tools (Vibrance, Color Balance, Hot Pixel / Pattern Noise Suppression)
FastBrowse
Image Formatting Toolbox (Horizon Straighten, Image Rotation, Cropping)
Magnifier
FastProof Mode
Batch Rename
Interpolation
Extended Color Support

Thats the basic headings, if you need any info on any specific tool, just shout.

HTH

..do you think it's worth the investment? It's a site cheaper than PS that's for sure!

[Steve]

I use it pretty much exclusively now. It is by far the cheapest RAW convertion tool available, it also works extreamly well and is updated regularly. I used Essentials for a long time before though so knew the ins and outs pretty well. I missed things like curves at the raw level and this tool offers it.

My advice would be to use essentials to cut your teeth, then download the free trail of Premium and see if the benefits it offers are worth the cost to YOU.

If you have not got PS this certainly goes a great way to offering some of the most used functions a photographer would need at a fraction of the cost, don't be fooled though, PS does far more than ESssentials or Premium will ever do.

[DavidUK]

Originally Posted by Steve

I use it pretty much exclusively now. It is by far the cheapest RAW convertion tool available, it also works extreamly well and is updated regularly. I used Essentials for a long time before though so knew the ins and outs pretty well. I missed things like curves at the raw level and this tool offers it.

My advice would be to use essentials to cut your teeth, then download the free trail of Premium and see if the benefits it offers are worth the cost to YOU.

If you have not got PS this certainly goes a great way to offering some of the most used functions a photographer would need at a fraction of the cost, don't be fooled though, PS does far more than ESssentials or Premium will ever do.

...thanks for the advice Steve. I'll press on with Essentials for the time being. I do have PS7, but it is a borrowed copy .

I'm hoping that we will get some good weather at the weekend, so I can take a good few shots in RAW and see how I get on.

[Steve]

Just dug out a more detailed discription of what the differeces are for you.

RAW vs. RAW comparison

A DSLR encourages you to take a number of similar images, which causes a time delay during the editing stage of your workflow. The new RAW vs. RAW comparison tool removes this headache by allowing 2, 3 or 4 RAW images to be compared on the same screen in either vertical or horizontal format. Using the fully integrated zoom and navigation functions of RawShooter | premium 2006 all of the images can be magnified to 800% simultaneously for the ultimate in sharpness evaluation. Once the best image in the sequence has been identified it can be prioritised for further processing; the others can be marked for immediate deletion. Fully integrated with the dynamic preview and navigator, this fantastic new tool will greatly improve your workflow.

Curves / Levels support

Thanks to everyone who requested this on our support forums. Full curves / levels support has now been integrated into the product. Centrally located on the Corrections window, curves / levels support will allow sophisticated corrections to be made to the tonal and exposure range of the image in the same fashion that is possible on much more expensive editing programs. Several pre-defined curves are provided (linear and high / medium contrast), as is the ability to fix points to create and save your own custom “S” curve. Eyedroppers are also provided to allow an experienced user to specify both highlight and shadow points.

Integrated Downloader

Our fully integrated downloader will manage the download of your RAW files for you from an external card reader or a portable downloader / storage device to a chosen workstation directory. It will automatically flatten any number of directories (which are typically created on a portable downloader) to a single one (or preserve them if required) and will automatically create the high resolution files needed for preview and correction. This means that when you come back from a shoot, you can let RawShooter | premium 2006 do all the hard work in downloading and preparing your RAW files for editing. Options are provided for renaming too, complete with masks, and you can also specify whether to move the files from their original location or just copy them. A great new feature that will save you time and hassle.

Personalized Appearance

This great new tool allows you to save away a combination of corrections as a personalized appearance. One obvious example is to match the output of high saturation slide films, something which DSLRs have struggled to do, to date.

Sophisticated Correction Tools

Several powerful and intelligent new tools have been added to the RawShooter | premium 2006 workflow. Vibrance is an intelligent saturation tool that creates the visual impact (the “punch”) of high saturation slide films by applying saturation only to areas where it is needed. It gives the effect of a high saturation slide film. Colour Balance allows a colour caste to be applied to an image and produces the same effect as using a filter on a lens. The Hot Pixel / Pattern noise suppression tool has a dual purpose; the hot pixel suppression combats the effect seen by photographers who take long-exposures (landscape photographers for example). The pattern noise suppression assists those of you who have budget DSLRs or compacts to reduce the noise generated in your RAW images.

FastBrowse

A new option which allows RawShooter | premium 2006 to act as a browser for large numbers of RAW thumbnails without degrading the performance of the host PC. This feature is useful if file management operations such as move / copy need to be carried out on a large directory of RAW files using the powerful drag & drop capabilities of the user interface.

Image Formatting Toolbox

RawShooter | premium 2006 provides a great new toolbox to help you format your images. Got a horizon that is not as straight as you would like? Using the new horizon straighten tool this is a thing of the past, just one click and it will be straightened for you. The image rotation tool allows arbitrary rotation as required. The new CropTool allows cropping of an image either to set aspect ratios or completely freeform; you can also create and save your own aspect ratios and use an on-screen grid for composition. These tools are the most sophisticated to have ever been included in any RAW workflow application and are seamlessly integrated into the RawShooter | Premium 2006 application.

Magnifier

This new tool allows a small section of a selected image to be magnified on screen and works in the Slideshow and Dynamic Preview applications. This provides a simple, quick method of determining sharpness for a single image and can also be used to quickly assess the effect of corrections such as noise suppression and sharpening.

FastProof Mode

Made all your corrections and need to get images to clients / family / friends in a hurry? Simply use the amazing FastProof mode, either before or after colour correction, and create email sized JPEGs at blazing speed. You can specify output options such as size, dpi and sharpening preferences, then watch as RawShooter premium | 2006 creates them in the blink of an eye.

Batch Rename

This feature allows you to rename groups of RAW images either at the download stage or after editing. Options allow you to specify your own renaming format and a sequence number if required. This sequence number is updated with the last number in the renaming sequence and saved across product closure. When the batch rename feature is next used the new value of the sequence number is displayed, along with the format, thus saving you having to remember it.

Interpolation

If you are shooting for prints, or submitting to an agency, you will often need a larger image than your DSLR can actually produce. Using proprietary algorithms, RawShooter | premium2006 now provides the capability for re-sizing an image up to 300% of its default value. This allows even more capability to be performed at the RAW stage of a workflow, which results in images of the utmost quality.

Extended Colour Support

The colour profiles for several DSLRs have been fine tuned to provide even more accurate colour rendition and shadow detail.

Additional Camera RAW Support

Support for several new cameras has been added including the Canon EOS 5D and Canon EOS 1D II N.

Raw Workflow Guide

Written by professional photographer Andy Rouse, this guide takes you through a logical workflow to maximize your usage of RawShooter | premium 2006. This is in response to many requests from users who are new to RAW and need some guidance with the workflow and how to start using the product. Experienced users may also want to quickly view this document as it gives an overview of how all the new features fit into a typical workflow. The User Guide has also been completely updated and revised throughout.

Miscellaneous Features

In addition to the main features listed above, the following has been added to RawShooter | premium 2006:

Enhanced thumbnail appearance – you now have an option to display either the traditional RAW thumbnail view or one with basic EXIF information added (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, camera, focal length).
RGB Readout – allows you to get the RGB values at the exact cursor location.
EXIF display on dynamic preview screen.

A lot of those features you can do with other software, the difference is that having them all packaged into the first step of your workflow makes it very simple and very easy to work with you RAW files. The amount of time I have saved due to this program has been worth the cost alone for me.

HTH

[Arkady]

I've just spent a morning banging my head on the table trying to get my head around the Premium Trial Version.
I can't see it doing anything that CS2 doesn't already give me, including batch-processing - and since I'd choose to finish the processing in CS2 anyway, there seems little advantage in having it that I can see.
My workflow is well-established and takes only a couple of hours for each job (images for immediate transmission are dealt with straight away).
The stuff from Iraq amounted to 27Gb of RAW files and that lot only took me about four hours to sort out back in the UK. Not all files are converted, only the best of them and each are saved as full-size TIFFs and as smaller JPEGs for Print and Transmission, respectively.
Due to the nature of my work, no two images require the same degree of manipulation, so the batch process facility is pretty redundant anyway, unless I'm doing a Service Portrait of someone.

Since I already have CS2, I doubt I'll be getting the license for the Rawshooter program.

[Dave]

Think I'll stick to CS2 then

[Matty]

CS2 can be downloaded from Adobe in trial format, or coverdisks off camera mags, PM Arkady, he knows all the places you can download the trial....

[Steve]

http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp

Gives you a full list of ALL Adobe products that are available to try. The majority of them are fully functional but time limited.

[Arkady]

Those of you interested in coming along to my little Street Photo Masterclass (when I get it properly organised) will get a heads-up into how I do my workflow - not of much use to anyone other than News Photographers but you may find it interesting.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Arkady

... will get a heads-up into how I do my workflow - not of much use to anyone other than News Photographers but you may find it interesting.

On your tod you end up working one way , having no idea if it could be improved, so I would definitely want to see how the pro's do it .