LibRaw (RawDigger/FastRawViewer) Releases Beta of “SonyPixelShift2DNG”: Makes DNG file from 4 Pixel Shift Files FAST for Direct Use in ACR/Lightroom
Related: Adobe, Adobe Camera Raw, data compression, digital sensor, Eric B, exposure, FastRawViewer, histogram, LibRaw, Lightroom, pixel shift, PixelShift2DNG, RawDigger, software, Sony, Sony A7R, Sony A7R II, Sony A7R III, Sony mirrorless, Sony Pixel Shift, true-color sensor or image, workflow
See my Sony wish list and get Sony A7R III at B&H Photo.
See yesterday’s comments on the abysmal state of support by Sony for its own pixel shift functionality.
I’ve been testing SonyPixelShift2DNG by Libraw and it’s already very fast and highly usable. As far as I”m concerned, I have no more concerns about dealing with Sony pixel shift files*. The only significant limitation at present is that it does not do recursive processing (folders within folders)—but that will be added soon.
* Other than the issues inherent to pixel shift (checkerboarding) that make it useless for most outdoor photography e.g., wind causes all sorts of things to move including clouds, leaves, grass, trees plus moving water or people or animals. “Movement” includes any change whatsoever in lighting.
Furthermore, the developers of RawDigger and FastRawViewer and now SonyPixelShift2DNG are among the most skilled and most responsive developers out there—something wrong, it’s fixed the next day or at least very quickly. Gotta love that. They know what they are doing.
Download the beta of SonyPixelShiftt2DNG
BlogPost on LibRaw SonyPixelShift2DNG
In order to streamline the workflow with the raw shots taken in the new Pixel Shift Multi Shooting mode offered by the new Sony A7R-III camera, and provide a way to use popular RAW converters (Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom, Capture One, and some others) for processing these shots, we’ve developed the SonyPixelShift2DNG application, which converts Sony A7R-III shots taken in Pixel Shift mode to DNG, supported by most (but not all) programs that process RAW files.
SonyPixelShift2DNG performs the two following tasks:
- Combine 4 source ARW files taken in Pixel Shift Multi Shooting mode and save the result as a DNG;
- Convert the ARQ files resulting from Sony’s Imaging Edge Viewer software (so, already-combined quartets of ARW files) to DNG.
The resulting DNG files can later be processed in familiar applications like Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw, CaptureOne, Iridient Developer, Luminar, and others.
File sizes
Isn’t it absurd that Sony foists 4 separate 86.2 MB files on Sony shooters, but the LibRaw folks can package all four of those files with lossless compression into on 118.4 MB file (which is 37% larger than a single uncompressed Sony image).
It makes it obvious what a poor job Sony has done in its choices of recording options, not to mention the massive waste of storage space.
Eric B writes:
I am very appreciative of your featuring SonyPixelShift2DNG on your blog.
After your post yesterday, I downloaded and used the SonyPixelShift2DNG by Libraw and found it to be quite impressive. I have a new Sony A7RIII and enjoy photographing still life images and other non-moving things in nature (rocks and trees). The quality of the files is impressive and the pixel shift gives detail that I’d not ever seen in photo files. Now we need a way to easily and quickly combine focus stacking with pixel shifting.
I used both Nikon and Fuji's lossless compression and also cannot understand why Sony cannot come up with a lossless compression algorithm for A7RIII files. I am a former D800E user with a detour to Fuji X. I had tried the Sony pixelshift software and basically do not trust it. I do not have your level of sophistication to analyze software issues. I own Iridient Developer from my Fuji days and like the program. Brian has been quite responsive and helpful when I have had questions. The problem is that Iridient generates a much larger TIFF file.
I am hopeful that Libraw program will come out of beta soon. I’m quite happy to pay for such a useful piece of software.
DIGLLOYD: the beta is working fine for me. The only thing I want quickly is recursive traversal of folders and that is not far off. Then I want it to figure out where movement has occurred and insert non pixel shift data in that location, to avoid checkerboarding.
