Tag: Sigma Photo Pro

Sigma Photo Pro: an analysis of high speed settings
Speed is a constantly recurring topic when it comes to Sigma Photo Pro. By their very nature the photo files of Sigma cameras are large and algorithms used for their processing complex. Therefore it is hardly a surprise that one needs a lot of memory and a fast processor if one doesn’t want to spend ...

Sigma sd Quattro RAW development: what’s better, SPP or Lightroom?
I’ve tinkered with Sigma sd Quattro’s DNG support for quite some time now. On paper it’s great to have the option to develop Sigma RAWs in other programs. But what can you expect if you shoot DNGs with your sd Quattro and subsequently develop them in Lightroom? Is it silly to expect an equivalent output ...

Do you use the shadows and highlights sliders in SPP?
The best known quote by Socrates “I know that I know nothing” describes my attitude to Sigma Photo Pro very well. Just when I think that I know the RAW converter by heart, I discover something totally new. 😉 For instance, I haven’t paid any attention to the sliders “shadows” and “highlights” for a very ...

X3F Tools: a cumbersome but very effective X3F-to-DNG converter
The X3F-to-DNG converter which was developed under the codename “Kalpanika” has now been released as “X3F Tools 0.53”. As far as I understood it, it was originally planned to make Kalpanika into a full-fledged RAW converter. This task was now abandoned as, according to the four-men-strong programming-team, there was no way to get rich with ...

SPP 6.2.1 vs 6.3: is it possible to tease out more sharpness of the X3Fs with the newest version?
I was curious when Sigma launched SPP 6.3 and the change log claimed that the algorithm had been improved to make the Quattro X3Fs even sharper. Since optimising the RAW converter usually only improves the image quality a tiny bit, I was not expecting to see a huge difference when comparing 6.3 and 6.2.1. I ...

Optimizing color processing in SPP
In the past few days I have tried to further optimize my SPP 6.2 color processing workflow, I introduced in this blog entry. What I particularly like about those settings is that they deliver reproducible results for photos taken in sunny conditions, cloudy skies and light shadows and that the colors appear very vibrant. In ...

SPP 6.X.X: Color Mode „Portrait“
With the 6th version of SPP additional color modes were introduced. Currently Sigma’s RAW converter has 10 of these modes, whereby some of them – like “Sunset Red” and “Cinema” – are somewhat gimmicky. With the Merrills and SPP 5.X.X „neutral“ was, or rather still is, the color mode of my choice. With the Quattro ...

Foveon Workflow: How to Get More out of Color Photos?
As the Foveon differs greatly from the market-dominating Bayer sensor, you need to approach your photo-editing differently. On the one hand, this is because of the Foveon’s sharpness and sensitivity for bokeh fringing, on the other hand, only Sigma’s own RAW-converter, Sigma Photo Pro (SPP), is compatible with the raw data of the Merrill-Foveon. By ...