NEWS: Pixmantec, creators of Raw Shooter Premium, bought out by Adobe

[shiato storm]

http://www.pixmantec.com/

shocking news and now leaves users of the RS/CE programs in some doubt as to where to go now. What 'pathway' does adobe invisage opening up to RSP users? no doubt it'll cost an arm and a leg regardless of what's on offer. What is odd is that adobe say its going to be incorporated in to their new lightroom program, but they're on beta3 right now, so is it a case of buying out the competition and sitting on the rights? seems a bit late to add in the RSP coding for raw files.
I personally hate Adobe's Camera Raw, its slow and doesn't have the usibility that RSE/RSP has. RSE/RSP is much much faster at making the changes and is quite memory light. Whilst I appreciate adobe's abilities in imaging this news smacks of microsoft (and other large corp.s) taking over the hard working and in many ways far superior little guys and bastardising the thing, rendering all customer support utterly useless and shafting anyone on the way.

I'm sure there must be other users of RSE/RSP out there, just wondering what they feel about it.

[noah]

i use RSP and it is definately a step up on adobe raw, more controls and easier to use. it is a shame that it's gone but i am waiting patiently to see what lightroom has to offer.

thankfully they have left the free version alone

[hoodmeister]

Read about this earlier today at Dpreview link.

They say there RawShooter Essentials will remain.

Personally, I don't like RawShooter, so won't be sorry to see it go - however, competition is always healthy. So ho hum.
Then again, integration can be advantageous. If the underlying elements of Rawshooter are integrated into Lightroom well, it could make a very tasty peice of software - from capture to print.

[shiato storm]

what I'm wondering is for existing RSE/RSP users, when you make an adjustment the changes are saved in a separate file as the raw file is preserved. will these adjustment files be readable by this new software? if not it means half our libraries can only be read (as processed) by one program and the rest another...now, the smart thinkers will realise this utterly destroys the 'easy workflow' schpeel touted by the adobe lightroom site. top stuff that, really well thought out if you can't access the ajustment files of the very program you assimilated you your own gain. nipples.

p.s. I use RSP and think its far superior to adobe camera raw...which stronrly suggests why it was bought out in the first place, it will sit in the new program - itself not a vast drain on memory - but as a whole I suspect this lightroom will be quite draining.

[hoodmeister]

Just have to wait and see on that one.

This is one of the underlying problems with RAW, though. What happens to those shots you took today, when in 15 years time the format is essentially different and support has all-but fizzled out for your antique files?

[shiato storm]

true true... *gets out the 1N and hunts for that batch of provia*...

[hoodmeister]

Oooo, quickly tapping into your superior film knowledge ~ What's a good all round, neutral colour neg. film?
At the moment I'm looking at using Fuji Reala 100.

[shiato storm]

reala is pretty good, one of the higher fidelity neg films, richer colours than the superia range. I got on quite well with superia 200 though. I tended to use fuji's more than the kodaks myself, but there's no harm in it. fuji's tend to be a little more saturated in the green/blue and kodaks in the red - so kodaks for portraits fuji's for landscapes.
for slide film, cant beat velvia 50 for landscapes, saturation is off the scale, its brilliant. I've not tried 100 (busy playing with the 1d ) but its meant to be just as rich. Provia 100 is a good 'every day' slide film and 400 is its bigger brother - good grain structure at higher asa. or iso - which ever you like. kodak's kodachrome range (i'm not up to speed on it all) think there's an elinchrome/elitechrome-somthing? there's a 100iso which is highly rated in the kodak range - i'll hvave to check its name. a good alternative to the - discontinued - velvia 50 is the 64asa by kodak. perhaps not as rich in colour but can be tweeked to come out nice.

edit: its kodak ektachrome 100 and the 'E' series...at 100 and 200 asa

one thing I want to try at some point is cross processing...can do it pretty easily in PS with an adjustment layer or two tweekings.

Unfortunately, none of the major photo companies (Fuji, Kodak, and Agfa) do any of their own cross-process testing, so photographers are on their own to figure it out through trial and error - mostly error. In general, cross-processing will increase contrast, blow out highlights, and create some incredibly rich - if not realistic - colors.

so, bit of experimentation needed. but essentially you process a negative film as a slide and a slide as a negative...chemical-wise.

[Hans Voralberg]

Dont like RS, for some reason it just desaturate my Olympus RAW files :|. CaptureOne got the colour much more accurate.