3200 ISO Raw developers comparison

[Orio]

I compare here the 3200 ISO file handling performance of three different Raw developers (Adobe Lightroom, Capture One Pro, Bibble Pro),
all in their Windows version, all in their latest release.
I hope that this comparison will be useful for many.

This is the file in the whole image aspect (this is the Lightroom version, I don't present all three versions as it would be redundant,
we're not going to inspect at this size, this whole image only serves as a comparison term to evaluate the enlargement).
It was taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the Contax Distagon 2.8/35 AE version, wide open.
The subject is my young striped cat Camillo:



Let's start inspecting at 100% size. This is the best performance that I could get out of Lightroom 3.3.
On the side of it, you can also see the uncorrected version (=with all noise reduction parameters zeroed):



As you can see, Lightroom 3.3 did a decent job overall.
I could not remove all luminance noise without compromising the sharpness too much,
so I found a compromise balance that left some (in my opinion) acceptable luminance noise remains without punishing sharpness too much.
Chroma noise was all eliminated in the small scale; there remains some in the large scale, that I could not eradicate, noticeable in the flat window surface.
The colours are well preserved and I don't notice any significant colour loss in the image.

Now let's move to Capture One Pro 6:



Capture One Pro 6 does a coarse job with luminance noise.
This is the best that I could obtain using the two parameters of Luminance noise and Surface.
As you can see, the luminance noise removal has left some ugly looking coarse noise background, that actually looks like some blurred JPG artifacts.
I could not get any better result than this with luminance noise.
With chroma noise C1Pro 6 did a somehow better job, although not perfect (there are spots here and there where the chroma noise stayed).
The colours in the image are more or less preserved.
But the worse aspect of the C1Pro rendering is the sharpness, that looks really coarse. Like if the photo had a lower resolution than it actually has.
I am unsure if this depends on the noise removal actions, or if it's a resolution limitation of the software itself (which would be quite a serious problem). I need to make tests about that.

Now let's move over to Bibble Pro 5.1.1 :



I have to first say, that I own Noise Ninja Professional paid-for version.
So my Bibble Pro automatically features that instead of the Basic version that comes free with the program.
Unfortunately, differently from the older version of Bibble, I don't seem to be able to call up the Basic version, so I had to work with the Pro version of Noise Ninja,
which might "drug" the test as it would use features unavalable with the Basic version.
Anyway, looking at the pictures, you can see that Noise Ninja Pro does an excellent work with the luminance noise. It removes it very effectively, without compromising the sharpness too much.
I have to say that to sharpen the image, I used the Unsharp Mask of Noise Ninja Pro instead of the Sharpening tool of Bibble...
well, since I had to use Ninja Pro anyway, I thought better to use it to it's best.
The unsharp mask of Ninja Pro does a much better sharpening job than Bibble's own Sharpening tool: it does sharpen enough, without reintroducing luminance noise.
Bibble's own sharpening tool, instead, could perhaps sharpen more, but it introduced back some noise. So I dumped it.
The happiness with the luminance noise fades however quickly when it comes to chroma noise.
Here Ninja Pro does a bad preservation job: it does remove the chroma noise, but it kills some significant colours in the process.
Just check Camillo's nose tip: the "brick red" colour it has, is completely removed by the chroma noise reduction.
I played around with the parameters quite some time, but I was not able to avoid the problem: to preserve the nose colour, I had to leave almost all the chroma noise in.

In conclusion: if you need to do quality work with high ISO files, I would leave Capture One Pro 6 alone.
It does not seem to be able to do a professional quality work. At least, not at the quality standard that I expect.
If you own Bibble 5.1.1 Pro and Noise Ninja Pro, you will get excellent result with luminance noise,
but your work may be harmed by the chroma noise reduction, which can kill some of the colours in your image.
That will depend surely on what image. There might be images that will end up unaffected, and others that will be damaged.
Overall, I'd say that Lightroom 3.3 might be the better option.
It will do an overall decent job, although it does not reach perfection neither with the Luma nor with the Chroma noise.
But it preserves the colours better than the other two software, and keeps an acceptable sharpness to the image.
_

[greg]

Thank you, I'll stick with Lightroom.

[stingOM]

Thanks for the detailed NR review Orio! Could you show us what is you exact settings for the NR in LR?

Whilst I don't have all the SW you have, I would second LR ability to make the best "harmonised" NR.

Nikon D2H ISO 6400


I could not believe that I was able to use ISO 6400 on this old 4MP camera! Granted I pushed the "black" setting a little further to mask the banding.

[Orio]

[stingOM]

[edz]

Thanks for the comparison Orio!

stingOM: I found this webpage helpful for understanding the sharpening parameters in Lightroom 3:

http://ishootshows.com/2010/08/31/tutorial-sharpening-with-adobe-lightroom/

[Orio]

[Esox lucius]

I opened a D3 ISO 3600 file and I tried comparing Adobe Lightroom 3, Nikon Capture NX 2, Hasselblad Phocus 2.5 and Bibble 5.1 - unconclusively. No matter how I choose a) leave settings as is or b) same processing on all, I get completely different results in color. Frustrating when software does something I did not request it to do.

Preliminary results seem to support my 1-year back experience: Adobe Camera RAW is plain awfully bad with Nikon (D3) RAW files, Bibble is not much better. CNX2 and Hasselblad Phocus 2.5 produced clearly best results (though Phocus must do some contrast/sharpening even when set off, because I see difference I have not set myself). I will return with more time and example photos, now that I have a possibility to (for some while) process the same RAW file with 4 different converters.

[LucisPictor]

Thanks for that interesting comparison, Orio.
I agree that LR is the winner.

Some time ago I also compared some developers and came up with that conclusion:

- ACR was the easiest to handle.
- RawShooter generated some surprisingly good results.
- Bibble was a really good allrounder.
- Capture One was great but complicated.
- Nikon Capture NX was excellent with Nikon RAW (What a surprise! )

But I have used old versions of those programs and thus my list is not of good use any more.

[patrickh]

Orio

Thanks for the comparisons. Try Wavelet Noise plugin on Bibble - I find it better than NN



patrickh

[Orio]

[Scheimpflug]

This was a really interesting comparison, Orio, especially with how unpleasant the Capture One Pro result came out. Thanks for sharing your results.

Would it be possible to also share the raw file? It would be interesting to compare your results with a few other raw converters...

[kds315*]

Thanks Orio, very intersting and helpful. I use Bibble since years and
I guess I stay with it...

[patrickh]

@Orio

I believe the upgrade is free, but there are some purchase date restrictions. You can email them at support@bibblelabs.com

The plugins currently available for bibble 5 are virtually all free, and so are great value for money. My favourites are the wavelets and the bez series. and I use the z-Perspector adjustment plugin for correcting aberrations of perspective.


patrickh