Customer Reviews

Silkypix Developer Studio V3

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have a Sony A700 and have been using mostly Adobe products-- Lightroom and CS3. While they are quite capable software I have never been happy with the color produced converting raw-- Sony ARW files. I have never received an answer from the techs at adobe why my pix are always slightly overexposed with noticable color shifts as compared to the software provided by Sony--and yes my monitor is color corrected. The color shifts are most noticable on sunsets and portraits. It is really time consuming to be always tweaking colors and exposures for every pix taken. I only shoot Sony so I am not aware if this affects Nikon and Canon products. This software really produces truly superior results for converting ARW (Sony)raw files. Colors are right on and don't know how or why but pix seem to have consistently better detail than those that are converted on Adobe-- occasionally vastly better. My gut feeling is that Adobe wrote some really bad raw conversion software for Sony products and gets away with it Adobe products are so popular. I took some of my best photos and compared results with every raw converter I could find. It is truly remarkable how different the results are. If you shoot with Sony products this software is well worth the money and probably worth your time for Nikon and Canon products to test a free 30 trial. It also work perfect on Vista....

I have not tried Silkypix DS3 (not the latest version) but have tried the latest Silkypix DS4 and Pro. I have a Pentax editing program written by Silkypix that came with my camera and was looking to upgrade. I have used Photoshop for many years and have tried many other photo editors as well. Upon trying the latest Silklypix versions, I was at first surprised that Silkypix bears little resemblance to my Pentax software that their name is on. I then discovered that even the retail Silkypix versions are pretty limited in their editing functions. For example, I never did find a way to copy a portion of one image and paste it into another image. Pretty basic stuff. I did like the ability to save editing parameters and reuse them on other photos as well as some of the batch features. Also, they have the best image cropping feature that I have seen anywhere. But you have to pay an extra $100 just to get a spot editing tool in the Pro version. The show stopper for me was when I edited a few photos using Gimp (the free download GNU photo editor) and Silkypix. I was consistently able to produce better results with Gimp. Gimp doesn't do raw files, however. Still, the .jpg edits with Gimp were superior to the raw versions of the same photos edited with Silkypix. I can do any raw edits that I need with my Pentax software. Bottom line, I decided Silkypix wasn't worth the price for my needs. I was expecting more features. Recommend you try the free trial download on the Silkypix website (shortcutinc dot com) to see if it meets your needs.

I haven't used this version.. yet.

I bought a Panosonic camera in the past that came with a 2.o version.

At first RAW was a mystery to me, I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about until I used Silkypix. Using my computer for a digital dark room is a real joy now. Shooting in RAW gives you the ability to manipulate all kinds of things like noise removal, color corrections etc. I tend to forget to check my horizon and end up with photos that are slightly off angle. This software lets you EASILY correct that.

This version works with practically every camera you can think of where the "free version" that comes with Panosonic cameras only works with their brand.

The nearly $150 price is a bit higher than Photoshop Elements but the ease of use makes this well worth the extra money. No more hunting for actions like with other software because it's all right there on your desktop and real simple to use.

I can't say enough good things about Silkypix!!!