Proprietary RAW Converters
A New Perspective on First Party RAW Editors for Connoisseurs and Professionals
In general, RAW converters provided by camera manufacturers have a bad reputation.
The common belief is that they are clunky to use, slow, lack “professional” features and that the results from them are not on par with third party software.
But is that really true?
Let’s challenge these preconceived notions a bit.
To put the bottom line up front: Most brand-specific RAW converters are actually powerful, professional processing tools and deserve close consideration.
They can give results that are either hard or even impossible to replicate with regular, commercially available software.
This article will explore the main benefits that these converters bring, how they make you rethink your whole photographic workflow and why this will help you to spend less time in front of the editing software and save you a lot of money on top of that.
But let’s go back to the very basics of digital imaging first.
About RAW & JPEG
Professional digital cameras today are able to produce at least two types of image data. A RAW and a JPEG.
RAW files are the most neutral starting point in digital photography, but they are far from being just raw sensor data. Depending on the camera model, more or less processing is applied to the file before it is saved to the memory card.
An in-camera JPEG is created by processing the RAW file according to the camera manufacturer’s specifications, applying user-adjustable settings like color profiles, sharpening, noise reduction and more.
It is this RAW conversion that creates what is often referred to as “Canon colors”, “Fuji look”, “Olympus JPEGs” and so on.
When using a generic RAW-converter, the manufacturer-specific processing is eliminated from the equation – and that is very unfortunate.
The Signature Look
The JPEG engine of each camera manufacturer is much more than just a RAW conversion algorithm.
It encompasses the unique philosophy of each brand when it comes to the almost magical process of creating a digital image.
It is infused with the knowledge of generations of engineers striving to bridge the gap between technical perfection and hard-to-grasp qualities like color rendition and tonal transitions.
Rather than trying to eliminate the camera- and manufacturer-specific look, I’d argue it should be embraced instead. Quite some photographers shoot only JPEGs because of that.
In my opinion, this is not advisable, as valuable data stored in the RAW file is lost, severely limiting the post processing options.
Just imagine in the analog days picking up only the prints from the lab and trashing the negatives – that’s exactly what happens if you shoot JPEG only.
By utilizing the manufacturer’s RAW converter, you get the best of both worlds. The recorded RAW file can be edited exactly as intended by the manufacturer.
This encompasses critical steps like demosaicing, definition of tonal values, color interpretation, sharpening, image noise treatment and the application of lens corrections.
Most importantly, when exposure adjustments are made, the full knowledge of the manufacturer about the whole image creation process comes to bear: The look, the tonal values and the colors are preserved in the best possible way.
Replicating all of these aspects in third-party software is practically impossible.
The RAW Converters
Every camera manufacturer, except Leica, offers a more or less tailor-made RAW converter.
They can be divided in roughly two categories: in-house and SILKYPIX-based software. Fujifilm is the only manufacturer with two RAW-converters – one in each category.
In-House Developed
Here is a list of RAW-converters which were developed by the manufacturers in-house or at least the developer was not made public:
Hasselblad PHOCUS
Phase One Capture One
Canon Digital Photo Professional
Nikon NX Studio
OM System OM Workspace
Sigma Photo Pro
Sony Imaging Edge Desktop
Fujifilm X RAW STUDIO
SILKYPIX – Based
SILKYPIX is a professional, very capable RAW-converter developed by Ichikawa Soft Laboratory in Japan. This is a very important name in the Japanese camera industry, although they fly somewhat under the radar.
Many manufacturers provide adapted, more or less heavily trimmed-down versions of SILKYPIX for developing their specific RAW-files.
The grade of adaption varies. Some of the converters are almost indistinguishable from SILKYPIX, others are completely different in terms of user interface and functions.
Panasonic Silkypix SE
Fujifilm RAW FILE CONVERTER EX
Pentax Digital Camera Utility 5 (heavily adapted)
RAW Converters – A Closer Look
All manufacturer-specific RAW-converters provide the necessary editing parameters to replicate the in-camera JPEG output.
In terms of additional features and overall user experience, the different RAW converters can vary quite a bit. And it is fair to state that they are not all created equal and might take some time getting used to.
Let’s look at two examples to illustrate that.
Nikon - NX Studio
Replaced the SILKYPIX-based Nikon Capture NX and View NX in 2021. Potentially still SILKYPIX-based.
+ Full-featured, professional RAW converter.
+ Area-based white balance picker.
+ 4 Curves L/R/G/B.
+ Fast editing and preview.
o Rudimentary image management (albums).
Verdict: Nikon NX Studio is one of those brand-specific RAW converters that can be used for a professional workflow without any caveats.
The lack of a proper digital asset management has to be taken into account – a very common trait of all proprietary RAW converters except Capture One of course.
OM System – OM Workspace
OM Workspace is the heir of the long-standing line of Olympus proprietary RAW converters.
+ Full-featured, professional RAW converter.
+ Extensive features to “unlock” the JPEG engine.
o Rudimentary image management (collections).
- Relatively slow preview of adjustments (fast GPU needed).
Verdict: Being a proprietary software, OM Workspace is very different compared to common RAW converters. Once you get used to it, Workspace can be used for professional work without any problems, giving you extensive control over one of the best RAW conversion engines ever created.
The Workflow
In order to have a frustration-free experience with brand-specific RAW converters, you have to re-think your photographic workflow.
Instead of doing all editing steps in the RAW converter, which seems to be a very common trend nowadays, you should just focus on the RAW conversion process.
The following steps should always be performed in the proprietary converter:
1) Selection of the proprietary color profile and adjusting all profile-specific settings. This usually includes contrast, saturation and sharpness.
2) Adjustment the exposure.
3) Setting of the white balance.
4) Applying lens corrections.
5) Noise Reduction.
The result of the conversion process should then be passed on to a dedicated photo editor like Affinity Photo.
A 16-bit TIFF is recommended, if additional color grading will be applied. This ensures that all tonal nuances are available for you to work with.
Every time only slight retouching and cropping is needed, an 8-bit JPEG can suffice.
Let me illustrate one additional major benefit:
If you like the results of the brand-specific processing, you can transfer most settings to the in-camera JPEG processing.
This means you can accurately preview the final look on location, even when you shoot only RAW as I recommended earlier.
Those settings are then also stored in the RAW file and are recognized by the brand-specific RAW-file converter.
Then, only minor adjustments are needed in post production.
This can greatly speed up the workflow and allows you to show the client almost-finished results during the shoot.
By refining these presets over time, the output of your camera can be turned into your very own signature look that requires only minimal post processing.
Another great side effect:
This will increase long-term satisfaction and create a unique connection with your equipment, as you will learn to love the specific look that only this camera-RAW converter combination will produce.
A word of warning: Marketing departments trying to sell you new cameras won’t like that, believe me.
Conclusion
If you research old digital camera reviews from the early 2000s, you will notice that the quality of the JPEG output was always a very important aspect.
With the rise of third party RAW converters and powerful computers, the importance of color science was more and more neglected. In the reviews, metrics like megapixel, ISO performance and auto focus points took over.
This development led, however, to a growing overhead in terms of RAW development. An ever growing number of functions and options in third party software did, in my opinion, only accomplished two things:
It added superfluous post processing steps and it gave us the wrong idea that everything can be done with the RAW file, regardless of camera sensor, image processing pipeline and shooting circumstances.
By utilizing the camera manufacturer’s RAW converter, you can take back control and start focusing on photography itself.
Much like when working with film, the importance of capturing the scene properly will become more obvious and this will make the resulting images drastically better.
On top of that, the various picture styles are like an extensive, free library of actually useful presets.
Those are not glorified slider adjustments conjured up by some random person on the internet, but sophisticated processing algorithms designed by generations of engineers and scientists working for your specific camera brand.
And the best part is – all of this is free of charge and if done correctly, a huge time saver.
