P: DNG Converter: Enable JPG conversion

> You may spend a lot of time to test the quality of the editor and compare with ACR/Lightroom. >

Which anyone with a lot of software probably ought to do before investing in more. Here I'm speaking to people who in all likelihood, do already own CR/LR and use it. They may, like me, own a considerable amount of other software. I still finally decided AI Clear and AI Gigapixel were worth the sale price I was getting, and I have enjoyed having them do some of the work so I spend my time on what else needs doing.

I was responding to Andrew's post that this didn't equal raw, which, believe it or not, might in fact capture a number of people who don't yet want to have to do as much processing as one does with raw, beginning simply with evaluating the potential of the raw image, when JPEG already looks so much better to them. They have been told there is a "raw advantage," and will want to have something that Topaz quite honestly says isn't really raw, but their claim is that it approaches raw for dynamic range.

I know quite a few people who like photography, but not post. I find nothing wrong with their quest for this kind of software since they are being quite honest about not wanting to do the extra work of starting from raw, or, like me, don't always have the choice in what they get to work with. If their camera is their phone, far be it from me to say they shouldn't be creating the best art they can with it. Some highly creative people do phenomenally well, in fact. But I don't want them to be fooled by marketing, which, in any company, present company not excepted, tends to go beyond the real, which in many instances really is praiseworthy on its own merits.

However, you'll note that I DID say this could appeal as a quick start to a better JPEG for further editing, without going overboard in its corrections (something quite easy to do with noise and artifact reduction software, not to mention detail sharpening), and I didn't say no one should buy it. I went so far as to emphasize that this is really a version 1, and a version 2 or 3 might be enough to convince me it's faster to work with than the basic JPEG I've got.

I think it's fair to critique software, and especially if you admit that these are your  subjective tests on your images, that you don't know everything that's happening, and to say whether or not what you see is or is not significantly better enough for you to want it.

I'm having to assume that the reason why you say the workflow itself is desirable, even if it does nothing but put JPEG into a DNG wrapper, is the ability to open that JPEG in a raw editor? Not all raw editors make that possible. Otherwise, to me, the advantage lies in what they do to the JPEG to make it more malleable to further edits, so Topaz is on the right track there, as I see it. If there's a lot more they're doing that I can't see, then when I can see the results of it, I'm all in.

And if that's what you all want Adobe to do, so you don't have to buy Topaz, that does make some sense to me. A good start is a good start. But whether or not it's cost-effective for Adobe to do that, I couldn't say. They'll not be charging $100 retail for each copy.  '-}

Doesn't LR batch convert to JPEG to DNG? NOT that there is a reason to do so; it's still JPEG data.

To Christen Gillespie,
What the competiting sofware offers is twofold.
1 - a batch conversion from jpeg to DNG (the subject of this discussion)
2 - a parametric editor doing the same as what Lightroom or ACR can do when opening jpegs.

You may spend a lot of time to test the quality of the editor and compare with ACR/Lightroom. That has already been done in other forums, but I don't care. I am not sure that the software will be successful (same price as Elements)?
The subject of this discussion is only a matter of workflow. Editing from jpeg is what it is, even in ACR and Lightroom. I don't expect the "AI" feature of the competitors to do better.

I'm simply commenting on the post about competition and how bogus the claims are.

Andrew, do you really believe that anyone asking for the feature in this discussion think hat it's converting a jpeg to raw?
Yes, it's bocus marketing, but it performs what some users are asking for.
Why do you refuse to understand that they simply ask for a batch conversion process to DNG? 
You don't need it. Lightroom users don't need it. Ok.
That seems so easy for Adobe technically. You can batch "Save" or rather "wrap" jpegs into a DNG container from ACR, even in the basic Elements version, agreed?
Maybe Adobe has strong marketing reasons not to do it, but why would the feature bother you?

From my tests, I have to agree. They do seem to have very slightly, in some images, increased the ease with which you might edit the shadows in one pass (and not really getting as far down as into shadow "recovery,") but that's purely subjective in my edits between traditional edits and leaving it to AI. Mainly I've tested using a variety of  phone images, as they say that's the target.

I've not seen anything in Highlight Recovery that was any improvement over using CR. I'd need someone like you, Andrew, with the tools and know-how, to make a serious analysis of what, if anything, is happening to make it somewhat easier to work with the shadow areas. Perhaps combining noise reduction with edge protection and fine detail contrast being added, so when you lighten the shadows, you have a better starting point? There's definitely noise reduction and sharpening taking place when running the filter, and none of it excessive in my tests, if I do nothing else but compare it to the original.

If I use identical moves between 2 copies, I can quickly get a bit more out of the converted JPEG in just a very small percentage of instances. BUT, and for me, it's been a big "but," in most instances I've tried, I can get just as much or more out of the original JPEG with somewhat different moves, maybe at the small expense of more effort and thought involved.

And in all cases, I'm not seeing what I expect to see if this is anything like a "raw" image. Obviously, images that are posted on their FB page can't show exactly before and afters that would convince me, so I have to go by my own images, which I can look at close up and personal, and since that's what I'd be using this on. . . I do shoot raw + JPEG, so I can also easily compare using CR on my good camera's JPEG, AI JPEG to Raw, and the raw file itself. Even using a very high ISO image that was noisy, AI JPEG to Raw is no raw file when it comes  to shadow recovery. Nor was I able to get a better result than using CR with the original JPEG. My camera is considerably better than an iPhone 6 or 7<G>, but I'm not converting those JPEGs to raw, that's certain.

Since I get a lot of rather bad, and many not so bad, iPhone JPEGs given to me, I was curious if anything here did enough to make it worth it, but so far, no. I suppose for quite a few people, getting a phone JPEG quickly into a working condition that's helpful with later edits might be worth it. 10-12 images isn't much of a test. I'm willing to keep trying to see if there's enough of an advantage to whatever it is their algorithms are doing to justify the expense, but so far, I'm just not buying it.  I do enjoy a number of their products, but I think I'll wait and see what future updates to it bring in the way of ease when working with substandard phone JPEGs.

No they have not and no, a JPEG cannot be converted to a raw. Utterly bogus marketing BS!

Well, a competitor has just issued a "JPEG to RAW AI" image conversion software.
That's life.

Needs to be done! Support Gunther's amazing software! he's took days off our work loads!

yes needs to be done