One of the things that I was not prepared for when I switched to Fuji from Nikon was that my trusty image editor, Adobe Lightroom, sucks at demosaicing Fuji RAF (RAW) files. I did plenty of research with regard to system capabilities versus other camera platforms, and lens availability and performance versus other manufacturers, but somehow missed all of the online content out there on the dreaded “worm artifacts”, until I sat smiling on my couch one evening, just after ordering my new Fujis, and I came across this:

Say what?…. Smile erased.

It is true, Sharpening, and processing for that matter, Fuji RAF files is not as easy or straightforward as sharpening Nikon NEF files in most available post-processors, especially Lightroom.

This realization led me down a path of experimentation and asking Fuji shooters that I know and respect for their feedback. Here is what I have learned (and now, it is not a perfect solution, but I’ll get to that).

First, the process outlined in the video above, of opening each image in Adobe Photoshop and doing sharpening there before finishing in Lightroom, is not a workflow that I could personally stomach for editing assignments with lots of images. Yes, you could set up and run an action that could hit your images BTS, but to be honest, after I processed some of my images in this why, I still observed the wormy artifacts (though they were tremendously diminished). Quick note here, the artifacts seem to be the result of over-sharpening applied at the default level, since they can be replicated by manually over-sharpening virtually any RAW file by any manufacturer.

A bit of my background, I began in digital processing using Adobe tools, but found the original version  of Lightroom lacking and Photoshop too slow for big groups of images, so I converted over to Apple’s Aperture which was a super happy medium for me. Enough of the “heavy-lifting” adjustments to do what I needed for my processing, and great, non-destructive content management for my file archiving. Unfortunately, like most great Apple software, they eventually stopped supporting it, and the platform that they moved to was too consumer-level to be a viable solution. At this point, I shopped around, Adobe had moved or was moving to the subscription model, which after buying stand-alone for years, I was not stoked to sign up for. I landed on Macphun’s (now Skylum) Intensify Pro, and related suite of software. There was a lot of promise in what this company would eventually be able to accomplish, and it had most of what I needed for processing. Unfortunately, this software was also obsoleted by newer offerings from the manufacturer, with no free upgrade paths (the product was initially marketed to continually evolve and ever-offer more). One thing about Adobe that attracted my back was that it had always been there, during all of my experiments with other platforms, and had constantly been evolving and improving (why it is the industry standard).

So, now that I was back at Adobe, here is what I was not willing to do: 1. I was not willing to adopt to using another third-party software that promised no longevity (so Iridient was out for me- yes, I realize that they are perhaps the best software at the moment for preserving details in RAF files, but they also interpret color strangely and inaccurately, and honestly, who knows how long they’ll be around before being acquired or otherwise); 2. I refused to blow another boatload of cash on another existing platform (Capture One’s stand alone is perhaps the best all-in-one software for Fuji, which would be attractive IF I were starting from ground zero and not already invested in a workflow and image archiving system).

Here is something else that I learned about the worms, they are in any file coming into Lightroom from a Fuji cam (JPEGS included). However, if the file is converted to another format, TIFF, DNG, JPEG, etc., before being imported to LR, the worms are not an issue. That’s the crux of my post there, and you can probably figure out a solution that works for you based on this. In the video above, it is not Photoshop that reduces the worm issue, it is actually that the file is being converted to a TIFF that does it. I did notice that having an editor perform sharpening prior to that conversion made for sharper images than just converting blank and uploading to LR.

My solution is:

1. Upload the RAF files into LR using whatever cataloguing you normally do.
2. Create a folder marked “To Process” and drag the images that you want to edit into that folder.
3. Right click an image inside the “To Process” folder and select “open in finder”.
4. From there, drag all images in the folder to the editor that you will use to perform file preparation for later finishing in LR.
5. Save all edits back to the “To Process” folder.
6. Right click again in LR to select “synchronize”. Poof! All of your new TIFFS are ready to finish polishing in LR.
7. Move to correct folder for cataloging, and delete the now empty “To Process” folder.

Enter my cast:

Capture One Express for FujiFilm is a free download available through PhaseOne’s site, and is essentially a scaled down version of the flagship software. It does enable sharpening however, and I must say, it is blazing fast with these files (muuuucch faster than any of the other software I’ve tested, including LR). If you are considering a whole new processor, this would be a good way to test the waters, and it works well for the process I’ve outlined too. That said, Capture One does not eliminate the worm problem, it is still visible in those files, even under light sharpening, though very workable versus what straight LR does. A downside for me however, is that color is inaccurate on C1 (over saturated and a bit too warm in the image above). Still, if I have a truly monster load of images to go through, I might consider still using this platform because of its speed.

Capture One processed photo crop at 100% (note: the photograph is not the sharpest images around, but fine for the purpose of point out what how these editors perform. None of the images have any corrections applied beyond sharpening.). Settings are Sharpening=200, Radius=.08, Threshold=0.

Lightroom is the most convenient program (if you already have it), and of course is also the root of the problem. Compare the worminess of the image below to the one above. Also, notice that the image is way flat colorwise.

Ewww. Settings are Sharpening=45 (just over what LR defaulted to), Radius=1, Detail=26 (just over default).

SilkyPix is the free software FujiFilm provides as a download for processing RAF files (RAW Studio is another software that FujiFilm offers, but it is essentially a standalone film simulation converter that spits out JPEGS only- SilkyPix offers the film simulations too). Yes, SilkyPix is slow, and yes, it is quirky, but its batch feature is intuitive and includes the option to convert to “TIFF for photo retouching”, which is great. It also appears to remember your last settings, and that can speed up workflow. However, the batch process takes A WHILE, so do like I do and get your images going and then go get something else done before coming back to edit. Color in this image is accurate, and what I would consider an appropriate point to start from.

Notice how much cleaner the out of focus area and eye is, than in the two images above. Sharpening can be adjusted further to taste. Compare to the image below to see what adding some additional sharpening in LR does. Settings are “normal sharp” in editing module, and unsharp mask=25, Radius=.8, Thresh=0 in the batch console.

Lightroom can provide all of the finishing touches on top of the TIFF file that SilkyPix spit out. There is enough latitude in these TIFFs for some pretty drastic exposure adjustments (though of course not as much as straight RAW would be). If you can get your original shots somewhere in the ballpark, you can still apply all of the edits that you need for digital or print output (note my settings underneath the picture below to see how I handle sharpening at this stage).

Settings are Sharpening=2, Radius=1, Detail=53 (I’m still experimenting with the right setting here; could go higher on the detail slider and/or combine with contrast/clarity adjustments for a more dramatic effect). Nonetheless, it is a cleaner image than either the Capture One or straight Lightroom image, and color is just as accurate as straight out of the SilkyPix file.

Hope this has helped you think about how you process your RAF files. My goal here is to essentially settle on a workable solution to get me through until Fuji or Lightroom does something different to improve the compatibility of these systems. Feel free to leave a comment with any solutions you’ve found!

One final thing to keep in mind however, is that the TIFF files that each of these programs spit out are considerably larger than the original RAF files coming out of your camera, something like 137mb vs. 34mb, so either shoot conservatively or be ready to expand your drive storage.