Iridient upgrades its powerful raw image processor for Mac OS, supports new cameras

Regular readers will be familiar with Iridient Raw Developer, a raw image processor for the Mac OS operating system that we've mentioned many times over the years. Released way back in 2004, the software has just undergone its first major update in a long while, and along with it comes a brand-new name. The app is now known as Iridient Developer 2, and in addition to including raw support for a whole raft of new camera models, it also brings quite a few worthwhile new features.

Key among the additions is a new user interface with support for high-res Retina displays. Iridient Developer 2 includes a new thumbnail browser design that allows live updates, and supports both touch zoom and scroll, as well as the new full-screen controls provided by Mac OS 10.7 Lion. Preview display quality has been improved, and on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or later, supports deep color dithering. The code is also compatible with Apple's Gatekeeper security, part of Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion. Performance on multi-core Intel processors has also been increased using Apple's Grand Central Dispatch technology, among other performance tweaks.

 

Iridient Developer 2 automatically corrects chromatic aberration, distortion, and vignetting. You can tune distortion and red/cyan or blue/yellow transverse chromatic aberration correction.

The Iridient Developer 2 app also enables distortion and chromatic aberration lens corrections using embedded data from certain Olympus cameras, DNG raw files and LCP lens correction profiles, and the corrections can be applied automatically or manually. For Sigma's SD1, DP1 Merrill and DP2 Merrill, metadata describing lens-induced color shift is now better taken into account during processing. Lens distance and other metadata is also better parsed by the latest release, and some newer lenses have additional name information.

Keyboard controls for LAB color adjustments have also been revisited, and now offer smaller and larger step sizes by using option or shift-option key combos. Iridient also says that a bug preventing loading of converted Fujifilm X-Pro1 images in DNG format has been fixed, although out-of-camera RAF and DNG files are not currently supported.

 

Adjusting curves in Iridient Developer 2.

Iridient Developer 2 newly supports high dynamic range image formats such as OpenEXR and Radiance, and the company says its creation can now handle "most all standard, non-RAW, image formats including JPEG, TIFF, PNG and more." Other handy new features include star ratings, and pass-thru of IPTC, XMP and EXIF v2.3 metadata.

Default ICC color profiles for many cameras -- unfortunately, there's not an exact list available -- have been tweaked for better results. The latest release also supports raw files from a healthy selection of new camera models, as follows:

• Canon

  • EOS 6D

  • EOS Rebel T4i (EOS 650D, Kiss X6i)

  • EOS M

  • PowerShot S110

  • PowerShot G15

  • PowerShot SX50 HS

• Fujifilm

  • FinePix F800EXR

  • XF1

• Leica

  • D-Lux 6

  • S (Typ 006)

  • V-Lux 4

• Nikon

  • D600

  • D5200

  • Coolpix P7700

  • 1 J2

  • 1 V2

• Olympus

  • PEN E-PL5

  • PEN E-PM2

  • Stylus XZ-2 iHS

• Panasonic

  • Lumix DMC-G5

  • Lumix DMC-GH3

  • Lumix DMC-LX7

  • Lumix DMC-FZ200

• Pentax

  • K-5 II

  • K-5 IIs

  • K-30

  • Q10

• Samsung

  • EX2F

  • NX20

  • NX210

  • NX1000

• Sigma

  • DP1 Merrill

  • DP2 Merrill

• Sony

  • Cyber-shot DSC-RX1

  • Alpha NEX-5R

  • Alpha NEX-6

  • Alpha SLT-A99

Available immediately, Iridient Developer 2 is priced at US$75. Customers purchasing three to nine copies get volume pricing of US$65 per copy, while those purchasing 10 or more copies will pay US$55 per copy. Like its predecessor, Iridient Developer 2 is a Mac OS X-only app. A free demo is available that is not feature- or time-limited, but overlays a watermark on all processed images. More details on the Iridient website!

 

Converting images to black and white using Iridient Developer 2's channel mixer.