RAW to DNG question

[victorwol]

Hi! just some doubts about this. When I process using the RAW to DNG, are you using Adobe DNG converter to demosaic or debayer? My images are already DNG coming from a Pentax 645Z, so if you use the Adobe DNG to convert or demosiac as it says on your website explanation, how is that you are able to keep it RAW? Or you use the Adobe converter just to show the results?

Thanks

[victorwol]

and another question, given that in a RAW file there is a lot more information on the shadows that what we can see, like for example from my Pentax 645Z I can easily pull 5 stops up win LR and have a pretty clean image from something that was deep black, is there really better chances for Helicon to actually see all this information and do a correct stacking of the shadows? which is impossible today when processing for an already rasterized tiff file? Makes sense my question?

Thanks

[Stas Yatsenko]

DNG is, in fact, RAW. It preserves all the data from the original file. And, of course, this data is used during focus stacking.
Yes, we use the Adobe DNG converter to demosaic, that's the only conversion the images undergo during RAW-in-DNG-out processing.

[victorwol]

The reason why I ask this is because I have observed that the software is not recognizing correctly the z-depth of some parts that are buried under black in the RAW, but there is enough information in the RAW for the software to actually detect the Z-Depth if is actually looking at the data deep in the shadows. So what is the software looking at when detects the Z-Depth? the real RAW data? or the demosaiced version where the shadows are clipped? Same with the highlights, there can be an area that looks 100% white on the demosaiced tiff but have plenty of information to work with in the real RAW... makes sense?

[Stas Yatsenko]

If your raw file is already DNG, then conversion from RAW to DNG with Adobe DNG is just skipped.

Helicon Focus works with real raw data, linear values from the sensor as they stored in RAW file. The program may indeed have difficulties in dark areas because it detects difference in brightness which is very small there. I would appreciate if you send us a stack with such a problem, we will see how this can be fixed.

[victorwol]

I already emailed you last night the dropbox information. But I can send you another stack which have really dark parts if you want, but with lots of information on the shadows. I'm not receiving emails from your company, and they are not trapped into the spam folder, I checked already, even on the spam detector of the ISP, I just simply not getting anything. I just tried to recover my activation code twice and nothing, no email received.

[Stas Yatsenko]

Thanks for your samples. We will check it.

We just sent to your email your activation code.

[victorwol]

Thanks! unfortunately, I'm not receiving emails from your domain, at all, no notification, or from you, nothing. And is not going to the spam folder, not even to the ISP spam folder, they are just not arriving.

[Stas Yatsenko]

This is strange.

[victorwol]

yes it is... I got your email from your personal email.... would you let me know if you downloaded the files so I clear the dropbox folder.

Thanks

[Stas Yatsenko]

Yes, we downloaded the files, thank you. We will check it.