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Digital cameras are more popular than ever and if you own one the chances are that you will have used or at least read about the RAW format especially as most new digital cameras now support this format along with more traditional formats like JPEG or TIFF. Much has been written about the advantages of RAW and so I won't spend any time explaining these benefits or how RAW works and instead will just summarise with the fact that with RAW you can unleash the full potential of your camera and retain maximum control over your photos from adjusting exposure and white balance etc after you have taken the photo to working with vastly greater tonal ranges and greater creative control over colour balances and the like.
In recent years RAW has become the format to use amongst both pleasure and professional photographers but unlike JPEG or TIFF, RAW generally isn't immediately viewable without the use of a dedicated RAW editor and as such a whole host of companies are now competing to offer the photographer the definitive RAW editor each offering the core set of controls but also many offer a few other controls to tempt the photographer into buying their program and, of course, all profess to producing the best results. So which RAW editor is the best?
In this article I am going to compare four of the biggest and most popular RAW editors to see how each one compares, these being:
Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) - Free part of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements
ACR is a plugin that now comes with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and as such is one of the most popular RAW editors around. For the purposes of this test I used the version of ACR that comes with Photoshop CS2 and Elements 4. It should be noted that Photoshop CS3 will use a new version of ACR that adds more controls making it more like Lightroom.
ACR allows you to adjust the following parameters:
White Balance, Tint, Exposure, Shadows, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness, Luminance Smoothing, Colour Noise Reduction, Chromatic Aberration correction for Red/Cyan Fringe and Blue Yellow Fringe, Vignetting Amount and Midpoint controls, apply your own Town Curve and the ability to create your own camera profile with controls for Shadow Tint, Red Hue, Red Saturation, Green Hue, Green Saturation, Blue Hue and Blue Saturation.
Aperture 1.5 - £219
Apple's Aperture is a relative newcomer on the block and has been designed specifically for the professional photographer.
Aperture allows you to adjust the following parameters:
Boost, Sharpening with Intensity and Edges parameters, Chroma Blur, Auto Noise Compensation, Exposure, Saturation, Brightness, Contrast, Tint with separate Black, White and Gray controls, Levels, Highlights and Shadows with Radius, Colour Correction, High Tonal Width, Mid Contrast, Low Tonal Width, White Balance, Tint, Colour with Hue, Saturation, Luminance and Range parameters. You can also crop, straighten and perform red eye correction and spot and patch correction.
Capture One Pro 3.7.6 - £338 Pro Edition / £67 LE Edition
Capture One proved very popular with many professional and amateur photographers when it launched and is now available in two versions, LE and Pro. Both versions use the same engine with the Pro version offering more workflow options aimed at professional photographers.
Capture One Pro allows you to adjust the following parameters:
Colour Temperature, Tint, Colour Balance Correction with Hue and Saturation parameters, Levels with Exposure Compensation, Contrast Compensation and Saturation Parameters, Tone Curves, Sharpening with Amount and Threshold parameters, Noise Reduction with Noise Suppression, Banding Suppression and Colour Noise Suppression parameters. You can also crop photos and convert photos to black & white and other effects using a series of presets.
Lightroom 1.0 - £170 (expected RRP)
Lightroom is Adobe's latest and greatest RAW editor that was launched as direct competition for Apple's Aperture. Unlike ACR, Lightroom is not a plugin for Photoshop but a separate program in it's own right with many new features.
Lightroom allows you to adjust the following parameters:
Colour Temperature, Tint, Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness, Contrast, Vibrance, Saturation, Tone Curve with Highlights, Lights, Darks, Shadows parameters, Hue, Saturation and Luminance Mixers with separate Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple, Magenta parameters for each, Split Toning with Hue, Saturation and Balance parameters for Highlights and Shadows, Sharpening, Noise Reduction with Luminance and Colour parameters, Chromatic Aberration correction for Red/Cyan Fringe and Blue Yellow Fringe, Vignetting Amount and Midpoint controls, the ability to create your own camera profile with controls for Shadow Tint, Red Hue, Red Saturation, Green Hue, Green Saturation, Blue Hue and Blue Saturation. You can also Crop, Remove Red Eye and Remove Spots.
It is important to note that ACR and Capture One are very different from Lightroom and Aperture as they are almost solely RAW editors whilst Lightroom and Aperture are RAW Editors, file management, slideshow generators, presentation and selection programs all rolled into one therefore a direct comparison between all four programs is neither fair or possible. So for the purposes of this article I will simply be comparing how well each program can process the same RAW file. The photo in question is processed twice, once without any processing enhancements just reproducing it as it was shot in cameras so no exposure, tonal or sharpening changes. The second process was to adjust the photos exposure, white balance, brightness to the same settings, apply a S shaped curve to boost the midtones and then sharpen the image.
So to begin with here is the same photo from each program as shot without any processing.
Flat process from Adobe Camera RAW. This particular shot was under exposed by about 1/3rd of a stop and ACR seems to have processed this quite accurately but the colours appear to be a washed out and very drab and lacks any clarity or definition
Flat process from Apple's Aperture. Again, like ACR this flat process shows that this shot was under exposed by about 1/3rd a stop but unlike ACR, Aperture has reproduced the photo more accurately with slightly deeper and richer colours and with more detail in the feathers.
Flat process from Capture One. Capture One has by far produced the best and most accurate flat response compared to how the image was shot accurately showing the 1/3rd stop under exposure but with richer and more vibrant colours than the other programs and with more fine detail in the feathers.
Flat Process from Lightroom. Lightoom has produced the darkest, most under exposed image out of all four programs at what turns out to be more like 3/4 of a stop under exposed and although the colours are not as washed out as with ACR they lack the punch of both Aperture and Capture one. In terms of detail there does not appear to be much difference between Lightroom and ACR.
Summary: By far the best flat response and that most acurately represented what was captured in camera was from Capture One with Aperture a close second. In a distant third place was Lightroom whilst bringing up the rear was ACR with a very poor result. I was very much dissapointed with the result from Lightroom as it was only marginally better than that from ACR and at an RRP of £170 I would expect a much better performance over the free ACR plugin.
The next images are all processed using as near to the same settings as was possible for exposure and other tonal adjustments and also applying an S shaped curve and sharpening.
Processed with ACR. The results from ACR show an improvement over it's flat results but still are far off that acheived by the competition. Detail is still being lost in the feathers and the sharpening setting in ACR doesn't really seem to make that much of a difference. As for the colours, these are now the least natural and tonal detail has been lost in the red breast feathers and, if anything, the image now looks slightly over exposed even though it's only been corrected by 1/3rd of a stop.
Processed with Apple's Aperture. Aperture has again produced very pleasing results, tonally the image is warmer and richer than that produced by ACR and has also produced the deepest and nicest looking grean background which really helps make the Robin stand out. Aperture's sharpening unlike ACR and Lightroom does seem to make more of a difference and that, along with better control over the tones has retained details in the breast feathers.
Processed with Capture One. Capture One again produces excellent results producing an image that packs plenty of punch and is very sharp. Like Aperture, Capture One has created a warm, rich feel to the colours producing slightly deeper red breast feathers compared to the other programs but hasn't, in this instance, produced the nice deep green background of Aperture - instead producing a slightly brighter brown/green one that's half way between that of Aperture and that created in ACR and Lightroom. Capture One by far has the best sharpening action of all the programs on test here. With all the other programs when you sharpen your image you almost have to set it to full before you see any real difference and then have to back it off to avoid that halo of over sharpend images but with Capture One even the slightest adjust is instantly noticeable and it's clearly not only more powerful but more accurate than all the other programs combined.
Processed With Lightroom. The difference between ACR and Lightroom when performing a flat process was fairly minimal but in this example the difference is more pronounced. However, yet again, Lightroom fails to deliver compared to the other programs on test here. Although the colours are warm they feel quite muted and again detail in the feathers has been lost leaving you wondering if there is £170 of difference between these images and those produced by ACR.
The Results: For me the best result was produced by Aperture with Capture One a very, very close second. Again Lightroom was a distant third with ACR bringing up the rear but is that the end of the story? Before declaring a 'winner' you also have to factor in usability and price.
Aperture may produce great images but it is a truly mammoth program, not just a RAW editor and of course Apple do like to do things Apple's way which can make it feel a bit overly complicated if you are used to the interfaces of programs like Photoshop for example. At £219 is it worth buying Aperture if you only need the RAW processing capabilities?
Lightroom on the other hand, although performing badly in the image stakes, is a joy to use and very intuitive, in truth you would not have to read the manual in order to use it which certainly couldn't really be said of Aperture. ACR is also very simple to use but perhaps that's to be expected from the most basic editor on test here, what it lacks in image quality it makes up for in ease of use and price but is that enough? At £170 the fact that it produces images only slightly better than can be produced for free with ACR is hugely dissapointing especially when you consider that Adobe released Lightroom to directly compete with Aperture.
Capture One is deceptively basic and initially you may spend some time looking for more parameters to adjust but don't let the simple interface fool you because even though it may not have as many controls as almost all of the other programs tested here the controls it does have make as big or as small a difference as you may want and give you all the control you need. At £67 Capture One LE is by far the cheapest RAW editor out of the three 'paid for' programs and is arguably the best RAW Editor out there as it produces significantly better images than ACR and Lightroom and, with a little more tweaking, can also produce images just as good as Aperture. Capture One Pro on the other hand at £338 is the most expensive program on test and although the Pro Edition offers more features in terms of improved workflow these improvments are not as good as those that are in both Aperture and Lightroom which are also cheaper.
ACR can't be beat on price and the results it produces aren't bad, they just aren't as good as they could be. If you are only producing images for yourself do you need to pay ou for better software? Only you can decide that but if you want to get the most from your photos than you are going to have to put your hands into your pockets, the question is do you just want a RAW editor or do you also want advanced file management and presentation software too.
So which RAW editor should you buy?
If you only need a RAW editor than the choice is simple, it has to be Capture One LE.
If you need a RAW editor but also want advanced file managment and have a Mac, buy Aperture
The problem comes if you need a RAW editor and advanced file managment and have a PC because there doesn't appear to be one program that is good at everything. The obvious choice would have to be Lightroom as it's second only to Aperture on file managment but I would honestly struggle to recommend it's RAW processing abiliites over any of the programs tested here, even ACR due to it's price. If your budget can stretch to it than it might be best to buy Capture One Pro LE for RAW processing and then buy Lightroom for file managment but that's hardly ideal and pretty much defeats the original purpose of Lightroom. It's such a shame that Lightroom does not perform RAW conversions as well as it should because of all the programs I've tested here I found it by far the easiest and most enjoyable to use and although I'm not saying that you can't produce nice looking images with it, to do so requires more time and effort than with Capture One which with just a few very basic tweaks was instantly able to produce noticeably superior results.
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