The final release of Iridient Developer 3.0 is available for download now here.
This major update contains many new features and significant improvements throughout the application. Some of the key new features introduced in version 3 inlude:
– Multiple new RAW processing (demosaic) algorithms for both Bayer and X-Trans sensors from super high detail to smoother, lower artifact rendering styles plus monochrome specific RAW conversions.
– Two great new sharpening methods, Iridient Reveal and High Pass, have been added to the already highly regarded sharpening routines. Iridient Reveal in beta form has already been getting rave reviews and combines some of the best aspects of several of my previous methods including aspects of both traditional edge contrast enhancement techniques and deconvolution.
– New options for adjusting overall tonality including an adaptive “Fill Light” style exposure adjustment and pixel neighborhood adaptive Highlights and Shadows adjustments.
– New Clarity adjustment for enhancing mid-tone contrast and reducing haze. This adjustment includes a number of variants for targeting different styles from a crisp, landscape type effect to softer, more portrait suited styles.
– New noise reduction methods provide much better results when combined with some of the new sharpening methods, especially when using very strong sharpening. At high levels some color smearing has been reduced while providing comparable or even better overall color noise reduction than the previous v2 methods. The new Luminance Grain Smoothness adjustment provides much better retention of overall image sharpness than the previous Luminance Smoothing method while being even more effective at reducing critical noise. Depending on specific adjustments used and image content, the new noise reduction can also be up to twice as fast as the previous v2 methods.
– Several all new monochrome mixer conversion methods which can radically reduce noise and provide even better image detail especially when using strong red biased filter type presets. Several options including direct access to low level RAW linear data as well as more perceptual, color managed mixing styles.
– Two new monochrome toning methods including Split Toning and Mono Tone plus many presets for common toning styles such as Sepia, Cyanotype, Platinum and more.
– New support for saving presets (or settings subsets) to disk which makes applying only specific adjustments, such as only sharpening, to images much easier. Also adds the ability to organize the Settings popup menu by sub-folders for grouping commonly used presets together.
– New dialog for copying/pasting settings subsets which makes choosing multiple adjustment options much easier than before when there was only a limited set of subsets available for selection by menu item.
– Greatly improved preview window approximation of various “Detail” processing stages (clarity, sharpening, noise reduction) when displaying at small scale sizes.
– Significant improvements have been made to many existing processing methods and controls as well including Brightness, Saturation, Contrast and Tone Curves.
– Greatly simplified color management setup and configuration. Still features all the low level color management control of prior versions (and more), but now much easier to configure for the most common use cases.
31 Responses
I absolutely love the results Iridient pulls out of the X-trans sensor. This is the kind of quality X-photographers want to see in their work. Demosaïcing, colors, control of sharpness, highlights, noise… everything is perfectly managed, as it should be. The only issue is… in a native sense, we don’t want this kind of sidekick – it just doesn’t belong to a standard workflow. It is acceptable for someone making occasional pictures. Adobe: are we really looking into a complete darkness when we ask for this kind of performance straight out of the box?
I really could not agree more…
Reading so many (good) things about Iridient, it makes me even more sad that this is a MAC only application.
And it’s not the only good related to Mac. PC’s are for secretaries, accountants and engineers, not for photographers ;-).
As it happens I am an engineer AND an accountant (double degree). So am I definitely lost for the cause of photography then ?
And I’m an engineer sometimes feeling like a secretary since all interesting work is leaving my part of the world in a hurry now. But I left for all my photography & video-work Windows & co a very long time ago and never looked back. It was major relief I would say, and it still is.
Question for you. I have a mac mini II not really seeing any action do you reckon it could be powerful enough to do photo stuff ? As a developer I needed a mac for some testing is it worth upgrading to the latest OS and trying ?
The core of OS X is Unix. Until a few years ago you didn’t notice the same kind of performance differences between versions compared to Windows -though I must say, since Mavericks I find the start-up process slower on older hardware and I feel there is a substantial influence on the overall performance. That being said, in the sideline I have for testing & printing purposes still a 2008 MacPro running (on Mountain Lion, with 12GB of very expensive memory, a decent machine though only quite a few application upgrade/version restrictions starts killing me) and an even older 2007 iMac with Yosemite…doing reasonably but image-processing on NEF & RAF files is slow on this last one. I’m not so sure about specialties like development environments, but normally the upgrade of OS X is quite seamless – if there is mission critical stuff & configuration on it – I’d always ensure myself of making a very decent image of the original configuration (… and I really wouldn’t rely on Time Machine for this).
thanks – I may give it a go then.
Cheers
I wonder just how much demand there is for a Windows/Linux version for Iridient Developer. Maybe the Iridient’s CEO can open a kickstarter project for creating a windows version, and create such a version in case there is demand.
My understanding, and I may be wrong, is that it is a one man show. If that is the case then unless that kickstarter is enough to hire someone for a year or so it won’t happen.
I guess you’re right, on both accounts. And for this type of project you need to hire a senior developer with a broad set of skills; We’re talking a fair amount of $$/€€/££ (pick your poison).
Adobe should just hire this guy to fix Lightroom. I don’t have a Mac but I did try Iridient in a Virtual Machine and it does work very well. I find that Capture One and Photo Ninja also give pretty good results though, and even Lightroom. It sucks because now I’m juggling between 4 editors depending on the photo.
If Lightroom costs $140 why would this cost $100?
Because Adobe doesn’t care about Fuji ?
Why not? He can charge whatever he wants. And it may be something called pricing to the market.
Because it does a significantly better job at pulling details out of X-Trans files.
Because writing software – and quality software – is a slow and arduous task, requiring skill and patience and deserves an honest retribution. As simple as that
Adobe seems to treat Lightroom as a loss leader. It’s cheap in part because they expect to eventually sell you on Photoshop CC as well, or the whole Creative Cloud. Capture One Pro is perhaps a more apples-to-apples comparison, since they occupy a smaller market niche like Iridient does. C1P costs $299, against which $99 for a RAW developer without asset management looks pretty consistent. Ultimately any price boils down to “What is the value to you?” anyway.
you have to ask why LR cost 140! not why iridient cost 100!.
LR is in use by milion peoples…and each version doesn’t introduce much options. and..doesn’t make a perfect job with raf file.
I usually use LR….but Iridient works better with file raf…
Lightroom only costs what it does today after Apple slashed the price of Aperture. With Aperture no longer being developed, it will be interesting to see if they hike the price back up to what it used to be… doubtful but possible.
Adobe just doesn’t care about Fuji Xtrans sensor. It makes sense cause it’s a really small niche market. What doesn’t make sense is that Fuji has no solution for the problem.
Admin- you missed Iridient 3.0 supports the OMD EM5 MKII high res shots RAWS!
I’ve been a longtime Nikon shooter until last year, when I switched over to a Fuji XT1. I’ve been using ACR to convert my RAF files. For those who have experience using both ACR and Iridient, is it worth the money to switch over to Iridient?
They have a demo time period you can use. That’s what I recommend.
I just tried ACR and CaptureOne vs Iridient, I didn’t want to like Iridient because I’m so used to my work flow with either Bridge or C-One but i have to admit right out of the box, the files look better, are sharper, and much more pleasing color when what i could get out of C-One or ACR. C-One is better then ACR. I hadn’t realize how bad ACR was…
Hmm I don’t want to buy it because its just one more step but I really do think the files look sooo much better… ahhhhhh
I’m going to sleep on it but most likely wind up buying it 🙁
Honestly if you crank the detail slider to 100 in Lightroom and shoot with sharp glass with good contrast, there isn’t /that/ much difference most of the time. I find I do get the odd shot that Lightroom really struggles with though, so YMMV. Personally I’m happy to use both, Lightroom is fine for 90% of my shots, Iridient is great for the rest.
Nikon shooter here too (d800). I don’t know about early LR problems, been with Fuji for 2 months. In latest LR I don’t see any problems with sharpness and detail.
Oh dear. Just when I thought that a white lipped fad was over!
for me Iridient remains the best software to read RAF and I like very much this version! good job Iridient!!
If you read carefully what has been written:
1- Fuji gave software manufacturers all the required information. Adobe is slow at adapting. (they invest comparatively to Iridient far far less in development) What has been new and exciting in LR for the last few releases ? What new algorithm have been tried and delivered … not that many.
2- There are many solutions both Free/Open source and paying
3- I would dispute the “niche” market, but that’s besides the point; As a software company when you start ignoring niche markets, you’re not sending a good sign