Digital Camera Utilty 4 Tutorial

I'm not into point scoring I'm trying to put right misinformation that's claimed in forums from people who don't know what they are talking about.

The problem is that other people read this stuff and get the wrong picture.


You said:

"The Adobe Camera Raw plugin does not have anything like the range of fine adjustment options that are available in PCU4 - especially in the Shadows and highlights corrections,"

"And there is nothing in ACR for Saturation that comes anywhere near the 'Fine Colour' colour wheel controls in PCU4. I believe we can definately produce a more 'finished' output from PCU4. "


That is just, with respect, completely wrong.


That is also completely erroneous. The claim of a more finished output it totally wrong.

Firstly ACR is not something purely designed to then load the image into something else like Lightroom. ACR is the develop module in Lightroom. i.e it's used to produce the finished output.

So no you're not producing a more finished product in PCU4.

In fact from what I can see ( and I've downloaded PCU4 so I can check - I'll install in a minute ) from Peter's list above. ACR can actually do MORE than PCU4

And although what constitutes a more finished output depends entirely on the requirements of each image being worked on, given ACR is more capable than PCU4 then it's likely to be able to to produce more or a range of Finished Images than PCU4 is.

Fascinating as all the above discussion may be I should like to remind people of the TITLE of this thread and WHY I posted it in the first place !

I asked for HELP using PDCU4......ONLY PDCU4... I did NOT post it as a discussion between the merits of PDCU vs other software.

However, if people wish to make comparisons with various Adobe software I should like to point out that PDCU4 has one ENORMOUS advantage....
it comes FREE with your Pentax DSLR.

There must be many people like me who do not wish to spend 'loads o money' on software, however wonderful they may be? All we want is something that 'does the job' efficiently with results that WE are happy with.

Professional photographers will want, and NEED, to get the very best results and expenditure on the 'tools of the trade' are a neccessity. However, for 'enthusiastic amateurs' like myself there are limits. 'Horses for courses' as they say !

As far as I can see, PDCU4 is a very powerful program and when you know how to use it can probably do most of what I, and many others, need ? If I would wish to go further with various 'Art' effects then there are many other low cost programs that will do that with the jpeg files.

So can I please make the plea to 'get back on track' and answer the question that I posted ?

Thanks

Peter

I think a Google search could be way forward for you, or checking out the Pentax website.

Many people, myself included, don't even load the Pentax software, because we have other things already in place. It depends upon your workflow. This means that experience in using it may be limited.

However, I agree that not everyone want to or can invest in other software, so the programs provided by Pentax will no doubt do the processing needed very well.

Fair enough Peter, in my inital post I made some points about the PCU4 program and made favourable comparisons to the most commonly used alternative. Smeggy doesn't believe I know what I'm talking about and wants to correct these things. I think this is useful if it opens up points made and expands the information about the functionality and workflow processes of the different options.

I have said what I think is reasonable in relation to the output possibilities of the progams, and others can consider that and judge on their own.

I don't believe we judge potential for a 'finished output' purely on range of functions and features alone. In this respect my main point was that ACR acts as the RAW conversion part of the process, and the user then has the option to 'open' the image into PS or Lightroom, or 'save' the adjusted RAW parameters in order to reopen in ACR and continue where you left off in future.

Considering that PCU4 does offer the option of outputting a JPEG or 16bit TIFF as well as providing computer implementation of the in camera custom parameters (which are designed to allow the output of a high quality JPEG from the camera, ie a 'finished output'), then my claim that PCU4 can produce a more finished output than ACR hardly appears unreasonable, and I think I could claim to know at least something of what I am talking about.

I'm not sure sure what features in ACR, Smeggy, you believe are more refined or advanced or extensive for the shadow or highlight adjustments, or specific colour control, but to look at the highlights alone, in PCU4 unider the Highlight Adjustment tab we find sliders to adjust the emphasis placed on restoring either saturation, hue or brightness details, and any mixture of these to differing degrees, depending on the requirements of the subject (eg you might want to retain brightness detail primarily in cloud highlights, but prefer Saturation details on highlighs in foliage or a flower petal).

I've referred to the Colour Fine Tune wheel before, but it very versatile and can either increase or decrease any colour individually or pull a colour towards it neighbouring tones to any fine degree, and the combinations or adjacent sliders on the wheel wheel provides fine tuning to any part of the colour spectrum in between.

I think it would now be courteous to return to the OP's request.

Many thanks, John.

In regards to your other posting I DID do a Google search before posting the question here but was surprised to find nothing ? Whilst YouTube has lots of tutorials videos on a range of photographic topics no one appears to have done anything on PDCU ? Even Pentax themselves don't offer any help - not even with a User Manual, which is why I had to resort to making one myself !

What I DID find on Google was that people like the Silkypix software and pointed me towards the full version of theirs. However, that also costs a similar amount to PhotoShop (full version) !

In desparation I therefore turned to this dedicated Pentax forum but have been surprised that only Nigel appears to use it as choice ?

Meanwhile, I'm resorting to the 'prod & poke' self-teach method (and having fun !)

But then again, as you have often said here, it's often best to just stick with the jpegs straight out of the K-r as these often don't need more than a small bit of 'tweaking' !
(And I can do all that in the excellent and simple to use free software that came with my ***** S90 !)

Thanks again

Peter