IDC 3.2 direct Link

[lightdreamer]

Hello folks,

I found this direct link:

http://di.update.sony.net/SIDS/IDS32_Installer1004a.exe

In my german system it is german language and version is 3.2.00.15160

Have fun
lightdreamer

[KevinBarrett]

Do you know for what system this software is intended?

[lightdreamer]

I installed it under Windows 7.

For the MAC Version others have found you hva to replace the .EXE by .Dmg

BG lightdreamer

[Dr. Harout]

I have already downloaded and installed. But can't say if it's better than other softs.

[Lonnie Utah]

excuse my ignorance, but what does it do?

[David Kilpatrick]

The full installation gives you a browser not unlike Bridge, but also similar in some ways to Lightroom in that you can save Collections, and a Collection can contain many different sources of files. Image Data Lightbox does not copy the files, it leaves them in their original locations, and it does not build huge databases of thumbnails and previews either. So it's fairly neat and light in operation, but has no cache to speeds things up. You can also turn on viewing raw only, or raw and JPEG, which is great if you have folders with mixed originals.

IDL actually gives a really great fullscreen (or nearly) preview on screens up to 1080p resolution with current Sony cameras - very fast, very sharp and good colour.

From IDL, you open IDC (Image Data Converter) to process raw files. It is much faster than, for example, DxO Optics Pro and saves files very cleanly and quickly. It has one excellent function, Highlight Colour Distortion Reduction, which leverages inside info about channel clipping levels and blooming - it can largely remove purple fringes from over bright highlight edges (these are often caused by a specific type of channel clipping behaviour where a very bright zone blurs to a very dark one - twigs against the sky effect).

It doesn't have everything as a converter and Canon DPP is more feature-laden. But IDC has far better colour management and a better interface.

David

[alphaomega]

David Kilpatrick wrote:

It has one excellent function, Highlight Colour Distortion Reduction, which leverages inside info about channel clipping levels and blooming - it can largely remove purple fringes from over bright highlight edges (these are often caused by a specific type of channel clipping behaviour where a very bright zone blurs to a very dark one - twigs against the sky effect).

I can't believe it. Sony have finally discovered that IDC requires CR removal. I cannot wait to download tomorrow and try out this function. I wonder if it is as effective as ACR. Time will show. Progress at last.
Thanks for pointing that out David. For my purposes IDC was a non starter because of the lack of CR removal. Unfortunately the CZ16-80 is prolific in that area.

[David Kilpatrick]

It's not CA removal - if you have done a lot of file conversion, you will know that purple fringes are sometimes not connected with CA, and can't be removed by CA correction. The fix in ACR is to use very strong Chroma NR and whatever amount of CA correction seems to tackle the worst purple fringes best.

CA happens all the time, purple fringes (on highlight/shadow edges) only happen when the conditions create them. IDC 3.2 using Advanced Highlight Colour Distortion Reduction helps remove them.

acrpurple.jpg (73.83 KiB) Viewed 5968 times

Adobe Camera Raw - Highlight Fringe removal on, Chroma NR at 50

purple-removedIDC3.jpg (76.21 KiB) Viewed 5968 times

IDC 3.0, with Advanced HCDR turned on

purple-removedIDC3p2.jpg (65.96 KiB) Viewed 5968 times

IDC 3.2, with the same

I think that although the differences are subtle, the new IDC completely wipes the floor with ACR 5.6 for ISO 2500 (in this case) A900 file conversion and also does a very good job taming this fringe.

David

[bfitzgerald]

Well I downloaded it and gave it a bash. Yes it's better in particular the colour noise problems are much improved. However luminance NR still isn't great and they didn't bother to add a few other bits that could and should really be there esp proper sharpening for one.

I think LR3 beta 2 will be the new benchmark for low light shooters it seems Adobe really have taken on-board the complaints about dodgy high ISO NR. I am seriously impressed with some of the results I am getting. ISO 3200 is no longer a fear to tread region on my cameras now. There is a huge improvement and full control over how you want the results and balance with noise and noise reduction. And much better colour noise control which esp was a problem A200 wise low kelvins.

I'd skip IDC as a freebie it's still not really even passable has limited functionality and delivers mediocre results. Time to scrap this one and start from scratch, either that or simply get a deal going with a real software developer and bundle that with your cameras.

[harvey]

I'd skip IDC as a freebie it's still not really even passable has limited functionality and delivers mediocre results. Time to scrap this one and start from scratch, either that or simply get a deal going with a real software developer and bundle that with your cameras.

I downloaded the Sony software to my netbook (because I did not want to
use my extra Lightroom license for something with a tiny screen) and to be
honest the software is an embarrassment and I did not use it a second
time.

Harvey

[alphaomega]

Thanks David for your explanation

It's not CA removal - if you have done a lot of file conversion, you will know that purple fringes are sometimes not connected with CA, and can't be removed by CA correction. The fix in ACR is to use very strong Chroma NR and whatever amount of CA correction seems to tackle the worst purple fringes best.

CA happens all the time, purple fringes (on highlight/shadow edges) only happen when the conditions create them. IDC 3.2 using Advanced Highlight Colour Distortion Reduction helps remove them.

In the rush earlier it did not really dawn on me you were talking about purple fringing only. I "converted" that to colour fringing in the rush presumably as I have been waiting for Sony to add CA removal to IDC. Sorry that they have not done that yet. The 16-80 is susceptible to CA or colour fringing. I have found both red/green and blue/yellow. So IDC is still not much use and ACR is better than PS for CA removal in my humble opinion.
Frankly I am totally at a loss to understand why Sony are still to address the colour fringing question in their proprietary RAW converter. Maybe they think that serious users will use ACR or LR anyway for their RAW work so why bother for the ex P&S shooters???

[Bruce Oudekerk]

It has one excellent function, Highlight Colour Distortion Reduction, which leverages inside info about channel clipping levels and blooming - it can largely remove purple fringes from over bright highlight edges (these are often caused by a specific type of channel clipping behaviour where a very bright zone blurs to a very dark one - twigs against the sky effect).
David

Last November, when I bought my a850, I was looking for a knock-about lens and decided on the old Minolta 28-135. At the time I did some test shots comparing it to my 70-300G and the big thing I noticed was the propensity of the 28-135 to exhibit purple fringing compared to the 70-300G. At the time I didn’t know what that phenomenon was although I had seen it in the past occasionally but hadn’t paid it much attention. The a850 resolution was forcing additional scrutiny I suppose. At any rate, with others help, I figured out what I was seeing and I found some, more or less, acceptable workarounds.

David says that the new IDC addresses this ‘purple fringing’ when using ‘Advanced Highlight color distortion reduction’ so I revisited the issue and dug up some old test shots from the 28-135 and compared conversions…IDC 3.2 to ACR 4.6 (converted from DNG).


Unfortunately, and as usual for me, it creates more questions than it answers. Because there was a LOT of sky, this RAW image was deliberately excessively exposed +2.0 EV. In ACR 4.6, I exposure compensated -1EV and in IDC turned the brightness down –EV, which might or might not be the same thing. But whatever, even though the color temp and hue are both default in both programs, the sky color is grossly different. There is also a huge difference in the purple fringing, just like David said. Playing with color parameters in IDC to make the sky look more like what came out of ACR tends to exacerbate the purple fringing.

Anyone have any comments? Be gentle

Bruce

[redsim74]

Hi Bruce,

I think you fell into the same trap as alphaomega and are confusing purple fringing with chromatic abberration. What you're seeing is CA rather than PF, which IDC won't fix - but ACR should quite easily (if you're running it through Photoshop).

I'm fighting with about three hundred shots taken with an old Panasonic FZ5 (a PF machine) at a recent concert, most exhibiting the tell tale glow in places.

[Bruce Oudekerk]

Hi Bruce,

I think you fell into the same trap as alphaomega and are confusing purple fringing with chromatic abberration. What you're seeing is CA rather than PF, which IDC won't fix - but ACR should quite easily (if you're running it through Photoshop).

I'm fighting with about three hundred shots taken with an old Panasonic FZ5 (a PF machine) at a recent concert, most exhibiting the tell tale glow in places.

Traditional CA, or Chromatic Aberration, usually is, or I believe is, a ghostlike layer of a single color that is displaced diagonally from a high contrast edge. It’s caused by intense light rays that are not focusing at the same point but should be. This is because that light is made up of various frequencies and they are bending differently as they pass though the elements of the lens…much like a prism effect. ACR takes care of most CA nicely. My understanding is that it usually takes place off center in an image around areas of high contrast and some lenses exhibit it far more readily than others. My wife’s digital elph, my Sony 18-250 at the long end and my Beercan at around 200mm exhibit classic CA. That isn’t what we are seeing in my example, I don’t think. And don’t be confused by the slight over sharpening halo that I often fall prey to. What I see here in the ACR section of the photo is a bluish ghost image directly on top of the slender branches. Almost like a bluish blooming of the image, which it actually may well be. I’m pretty sure this is classic 'purple fringing'. One source that I’d read suggested that purple fringing was a form of CA but that it took place at the receptor sites on the camera sensor…not primarily at the lens level and that is why some lenses exhibit this on digital cameras and not of film. I have no idea if this theory has any basis in fact. At any rate…that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Of course if you look in Wikipedia, under CA, there is an example VERY similar if not identical, to what I’m experiencing <SIGH> From Wikipedia under “Purple fringing”:

“The term purple fringe used to describe one aspect of chromatic aberration dates back to at least 1833”

I know there are different types of CA…maybe this is just a different manifestation of it but, whatever, ACR doesn’t work on it and IDC does.

Bruce

[redsim74]

I wish I had an image to hand of what I would call PF, I'll have to wait till I get home for that. Maybe what I'm used to seeing is just an extreme form of your example.

I'm interested to know either way.