P: (PS, Elements, LR) should support Fuji's new CMOS EXR Sensor

Report · Apr 13, 2011

I would like to see Fuji's newest CMOS-EXR sensors supported in ACR so that Photoshop, Elements and Lightroom are all available to die-hard Adobe users. I've tested the new F550EXR extensively and the new sensor is a winner. The RAW files are amazing for a compact with a 1/2" sensor. See http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com for my articles (31 and counting.)

But my all-Adobe work flow is seriously hampered by Fuji's RAW being forced through its proprietary converter first before I move it to ACR6 and then CS5. It's messy and the results, in my opinion, are inferior to what they would be if I could go directly to ACR6 first and then to CS5 Elements 9 or Lightroom 3. As a long time all Adobe user, I and a lot of others would deeply appreciate support for this wonderful new sensor.

Image is not available

Report · Apr 13, 2011

Must admit I've never heard of the camera. Is there something other than its newness that means ACR/LR doesn't support it?

Report · Apr 13, 2011

I'm not sure. The previous generation of the CCD EXR sensors was never supported, despite appearing in one of Fuji's bridge cameras.

The community there has been complaining about that for a long time, so there is a presumption that there is a reason why ACR6 never added that camera. It is quite complex by the way -- the sensors have co-located pixel pairs with like colors, the sensor is split by pixel pairs, with dynamic range extension accomplished by different exposures. Thus, the white and black point sliders would be working with data from each half of the sensor with the blend between the two changing, perhaps using the contrast slider. And there is the high resolution mode where all pixels get the same exposure with no binning. The high SNR mode gets the same exposure but bins the pixels equally. So you see why we have presumed that Adobe simply did not want to bother.

Regardless of the reason, the newer CMOS sensors are looking really good and we are sure hoping that Adobe will take a look.

I have separately asked Fuji to consider writing to a DNG wrapper with a reasonable demosaicing of the sensor into a standard Bayer matrix. I seriously doubt that they would do that, though, since the RAW image would no longer be RAW.

Report · Apr 13, 2011

We really need this!

Report · Apr 13, 2011

Yes, we need this. Silkypix has support for this RAW-format and is bundled with the camera, but I prefer to have all my workflow in the Adobe toolset.

Report · Apr 14, 2011

I have just received the camera today and the first thing was to try RAW. I did not know it is not supported in Adobe Bridge. Disappointed, the main reason I bought this camera rather than the Lumix TZ 20 is that the Fuji 550 EXR can shoot in RAW, and I want to use the Adobe RAW converter, same as for the files from my Canon 5D2. I hope this will happen soon!

Report · Apr 14, 2011

Daniel, please press the like button to increase the idea's ranking and notice-ability. Thanks.

Report · Apr 14, 2011

For the F550EXR and other Fujifilm RAW files, I'd like to consolidate workflow within Adobe's products, but specifically going forward, the F550. I use LR3 and PSE9.

Report · Apr 14, 2011

Adobe support the the EXR cams and show Silkypix what a good raw is like!

Report · Apr 16, 2011

Note: A number of people have noticed that Fuji are, in fact, writing some sort of pseudo-RAW instead of pure RAW. Meaning that, although they fire the two halves of the sensor for every shot, they often write only a half-sized (12MB) RAW image instead of a full sized (24MB) image.

This tells us that, under some circumstances, Fuji is performing some internal processing, which alleviates ACR form performing that processing (which would require extra knowledge of the sensor's many modes.)

So it would seem that, when the RAW image is 24MB, it can be treated as a complete image with 16 million individual pixels. And when it is 12MB, the same thing applies, but for 8 million pixels. The binning in SN mode writes a 12MB image and the blended modes -- DR200 and above when shot at M size -- do it too.

This is excellent news in my opinion, as it makes Adobe's task much less onerous. Hint hint 🙂

Report · Apr 16, 2011

Further thoughts: How good is this sensor?

Well, I was at a Bruce Cockburn concert last night and I can tell you that this sensor is magnificent. At 3200 ISO, I got shots that look like 800 with other compact cams ... in fact, some Panny cams look much worse at 800 ISO. I am able to pull decent detail in Silkypix, but after using it a lot I can just about swear that ACR would give me much better outputs. It's just so much easier to control.

The following image contains crops from an image shot from over 50 feet at full zoom at 3200 ISO with the F550EXR ...

Image is not available

Report · Apr 16, 2011

The fact that Silkypix support the newer EXR cams but NOT the s1002exr tell me something!

Report · Apr 18, 2011

That's an example of extreme post processing, not the sensor itself. You can see this easily by converting to LAB, then look at the channels: L is detailed but noisy, but A and B are complete blurs (looks like a median filter)

Report · Apr 18, 2011

Why, thanks Chris. It's not every day that I get called a liar ... it's kind of exhilarating 🙂

http://letkeman.net/Photos/invisiblep...

Have a look at the original jpeg from which the top line of crops were taken ... I think you will find the image quality essentially identical, except of course for the fact that the crop image was saved by Adobe CS5 and thus anything that has changed will have come from there. I presume that you are able to discount changes made by Adobe's own software.

I suppose that you have indirectly figured out how Fuji creates such nice looking high ISO images.

Report · Apr 18, 2011

I'm not saying that you mislead us - but that your camera or camera software applied a LOT of post processing to get that image. Yeah, lots of camera makers apply excessive chroma blurring to make their high-iso images look better at first glance.

Report · Apr 18, 2011

So are you saying that their high ISO images look bad at second glance? Because the term "extreme post processing" has a critical tone to it.

I really don't understand the nature of your point. Are you saying that Adobe should *not* support this idea because Fuji smooth the A and B channels?

Or are you saying that they *should* support it because Fuji uses "extreme post processing"?

I can't fathom any reason why the nature of their rather decent jpegs (for a 1/2" sensor) should affect the fact that we want to use Adobe tools on their RAW outputs.

Report · Apr 18, 2011

I didn't say anything at all about Adobe support - where did you get any of that?. Stop trying to read other things into what I write, and just read what I write.

All I said was that your example that claimed to show a great sensor did not show that, and did show extreme post processing (which could be used to hide many sensor problems). We won't know more until we get unadulterated RAW images from that camera.

Report · Apr 18, 2011

My apologies. I did not realize that my implying that the sensor was any good had offended you so.

If you feel like playing with the RAW format, here is the RAW that matches the JPEG above. Since it was shot in M4:3 with the DR400 setting, it is half sized and thus quite likely to have already had the blend performed between sensor halves.

http://letkeman.net/Photos/invisiblep...

Report · Apr 20, 2011

I would love to see ACR support the Fuji's latest RAW files. I would then most likely switch from my current photo editing software to Photoshop, Elements or Lightroom and be a happy camper.

Report · Apr 21, 2011

Fujifilm has a very popular line of new cameras such as the HS20. Please prioritize ACR for the HS 20 and related Fujifilm cameras.

________________________________________________________________________________________ Fuji HS50EXR, Samsung S9+. Nikon Coolpix P950. Just transitioned from PSE and PE 9 to 2021

Report · Apr 21, 2011

Onward and upward. Today Fujifilm. Tomorrow HelloKittyCam!

Report · Apr 25, 2011

I haven't bought an Adobe product since CS2 but I will buy Lightroom for this.

Report · Apr 26, 2011

I`m waiting the ACR support for RAF files so after that I can use the CS to make my job more usefull.
This issue is on Adobe hands to make our life easyer.

Report · Apr 26, 2011

The Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 Update includes support for a number of additional Fuji proprietary raw file formats:

FinePix S200 EXR
FinePix F550 EXR
FinePix HS20 EXR
FinePix X100

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...

Regards,
Tom Hogarty
Lightroom, Camera Raw and DNG Product Manager

Report · Apr 26, 2011

That is GREAT news, Tom.

Thank you!

Report · Apr 26, 2011

Tom, I'm sure I speak for a lot of Fuji / Adobe users when I say THANKS! You have made our year. Maybe our decade 🙂