RAW conversions issues with CS4

I am sorry if this has been debated before but I did a quick search and I can't find anything regarding this particular issue.
I just stumbled upon this by chance while opening raw files with CS4 and noticed that it softens slightly the images when converted to jpg. I played with the settings but can't find anything that would allow me to convert from RAW to jpg without the image suffering that minute but still noticeable softening. How did I notice this? Because I usually open all my images with FastStone initially, courtesy of some very kind members who steered me towards this method, and suddenly with this particular image when I open 100% in FastStone the difference is astounding compared to the CS4 RAW editor.

Whether the CS4 is just applying Noise reduction or anything else I am nto aware. I pulled the sharpening pointers and the luminance all to "0", tried "Image Settings", Camera Raw Defaults... etc from the small drop down menu, but still I can see the big difference on this particular image.

Am I missing something here? I haven't tried another RAW converter but I will go and try Silkipix now and see if the jpg image ends up the same as the CS4, but certainly the FastStone image has the absolute crispier image when opened there.

Any help please would be much appreciated

Thanks

Amin

Raw data has no sharpening applied, it is left to the converter to apply whatever setting it has as a default, or your own choice, unless you use the Pentax PhotoLab software which reads the camera setting and applies it to the conversion, unless, again, you choose to apply a different setting. Some converters do read the camera setting and apply their own interpretation.

If you are using Faststone and are viewing the embedded JPEG (fast) instead of converting each Raw shot (very slow), then the sharpness is whatever you set as your default on the camera.

Faststone can convert Raw images or display an image converted with it's own (very basic) Raw converter based upon DCRaw, you can choose what it does in the setting menu (F12), Raw tab.

Some folk prefer to do all sharpening at the Raw conversion stage, others prefer to apply no sharpening and do that as the last stage in post processing, some a bit of both. It depends very much upon your workflow and the destination/size of the final image.

There are many discussions on the topic of sharpening, both on the web and in books. Have fun and good luck!