Raw conversion fujifilm files in Darktable or another convertor

Processing
1

Hi all,
Is Darktable at this moment the best option to convert Raw files of Fujifilm XT-2. I mean on behalf of getting the best image quality? Or is it better to convert the fijifilm Raw-file first in an other Raw-converter? I process my images in Darktable.

2

I don’t know if it is the “best” option, but darktable handles fujifilm’s raw files very well :wink:

3

Spent quite a lot of time double checking at 200% my Fuji XT2 raws, and cross-checking the results with Lightroom. In the end I’m pretty happy with the way Darktable handles these Fuji raw files.

As default and to make things fast I use as demosaicing algorithm the Markesteijn-1 pass with no color smoothing, occasionally I may switch to Markesteijn-3 and also do a 5 times color averaging but honestly, I can see the difference at very high levels of magnification on screen but I doubt I will see differences when printed at normal sizes – I print max at A4 or ~8x10" size (*).

I guess VNG would also work just as fine for the target outputs that I have now, i.e. max 10x15cm or slightly larger photos for personal books.

Also don’t forget to apply noise reduction. After (again!) many attempts at following this and that advice found in this or other groups, I’ve realized that the best advice is the one given in the docs here: https://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/correction_group.html#denoise_profiled, a couple of profiled noise modules one for chroma and one for luminance noise, blended according to the recipe described in the docs. I will add noise reduction only at ISO>=800, below that I find these files are reasonably clean and if not I don’t mind a little bit of grain (in fact also for higher ISO images sometimes I would only remove the chroma noise).

(*) however, and to be perfectly clear, I haven’t done any comparison on prints. Something to do I guess.

note on the topic of noise reduction, you need to check this page, a masterpiece, collecting all sort of techniques to deal with NR: https://tomassobekphotography.co.nz/articles/reducing-noise-in-Darktable.php
Plus this video by @rawfiner that shows lots of tips and techniques using fuji raf files from an XT20 (I think): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMbbLyKqdLY

3 Likes
4

Darktable and RawTherapee use almost the same demosaic algorithms for xtrans.

Almost because

  1. DT and RT use the same intermediate colour conversion (YPbPr) for 1-pass xtrans demosaic

  2. DT uses YPbPr for 3-pass while RT uses CIELab as intermediate conversion

  3. RT has two additional xtrans demosaicers (1-pass + fast and 3-pass + fast) which give more pleasing results for flat regions (example)

Maybe also worth a look: Demosaicing | Photographs | Dan Torop