Lightroom vs Silkypix

Ive been trying out silkypix 4, first the non pro version and now the pro version and like it a lot for its simplicity.

I was just about to buy the pro version but have got a copy of lightroom 3 given to me so ive been trying to fathom that out as its not going to cost me anything.

I like it but am really strugling to make my pictures look as good as the silkypix images especially in the colour department. (i like the simple silkypix memory colour 1 and 2 where appropriate but cant reproduce this in lightroom)

am i missing something simple in lightrooms controls or presets?

Thanks
Rich

I mainly use this preset collection for developing RAW (unfortunately both of the download links require registration). Not sure if it works with Lightroom 3 - I got Lightroom 2 for free (Amazon Prime) which is the reason I use it!

I do not think you're missing anything.
Silkypix is extra special when it comes to what the engineers put into the handling of color development. Without color curves, I don't believe you can reproduce the effect in LR. (LR has tonal curves, but it cannot separate the color channels which is what likely need to attempt to duplicate what SilkyPix is doing.)

LightRoom has some nice features I wish SilkyPix would have added, but I don't think LR can do pure RAW processing quite as nicely. (LR3 is well worth the cost for the new noise reduction, if that is needed a lot and of course to catalog your photo library. Otherwise I prefer SilkyPix's rendering of RAW images).

I would have stayed with SilkyPix if they had any sort of cross-platform licensing. Had to move from Windows to Mac which meant I had to buy another full license. Sadly they lost me as a customer due to their inflexible pricing model... and not long before SP4 came out; a guaranteed upgrade sale. erg...

You are right about Silkypix licensing policies. I remember having a certain amount of hassle involving numerous emails when I bought a new computer and wanted to transfer my copy of Silkypix from the old machine to the new one and that was from a Windows XP to Windows Vista os. That was when I was dealing with the USA distributor. My last upgrade was with the British website and that went through smoothly.

I recently moved to Mac on Silkypix and there was absolutely no problem at all - with the UK company
One big plus point for Silkypix is that you can purchase extra licenses for up to three computers at a very minimal charge (and they can be a mix of Win & Mac too!). That's cool

Matt

There are 2 option to control colours in lightroom.

One is the camera calibration which is the general tool and then you've a tool under the curve tool with 3 different options to change the colour.

The thing I can suggest is to use the pentax profile under the camera calibration tool, it gives better colours I believe than the adobe standard profile. You can of course see what the other profiles do, taste differs after all.

Yeah, sadly neither of those options give quite the same result as SilkyPix's color options like the memory1 and memory2 which I used to use quite a bit. These were supposedly based on some scientific research done on how most people remember colors, and how those colors should be adjusted to get to that state. Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me, but I liked the results regardless.

If I recall correctly, one adjusted the reds a bit and the other the blues, but not globally. You can adjust colors in LR, but only across the entire luminosity scale. I believe to get what SilkyPix does you need to adjust the colors differently across highlight, midtones and shadow curves which LR does not supply.



As far as licensing... I may need to check on the licensing from the US supplier again. If they would allow a upgrade (probably too late now) or multi-OS/Multi computer license that would be great. My laptop is a Windows machine.

Yes that's right, Lightroom only offers HSL controls, hue, saturation and luminance.

do adobe not provide any presets of there own?

is the silkypix license linked to your machine then?

i often just reformat and reinstall my os and dont want to have to mess around contacting silkypix each time to get a new code?

No. And second, and third, licenses are a mere £29 each from the UK (that's for the Pro version too)

Far less messing around than Photoshop and its activation

Definite thumbs up for the John at UK Silkypix
Matt

No problem moving SilkyPix to another machine. At least no technical trouble. I moved it to my laptop after I got the Mac to replace my desktop.

Have to Agree... Adobe is worse with licensing.
They do kindly allow to install the both LR and PS software on more than one machine as long as you only have as many in use at one time as you have licenses. For LightRoom this may be across both Windows and Mac.

For PhotoShop, in order to switch platforms you have to call them, be harassed about why you want to switch to another platform, make promises that you will destroy old copies and that you will take all necessary steps to ensure the old copy is non-retrievable, print and sign a form that has to be physically mailed to them (preferably signed in human blood, although it does not need to be your own). On top of it all they charge you some insulting amount (maybe $20) to transfer the license. This is for a $600 product!
I think somewhere in the legaleese they reserved the right to take your right testicle if you so much as recall using the software on the old machine.

SilkyPix wasn't much better in the end, but at least they were blunt and just said "NO". Hopefully they've changed since then, or maybe it was just a US thing. erg...

Yes under presets in the left window under the little preview image in the develop tab.
You can also very fast make your own presets if you want.