Adobe revisits X-Trans demosaicing; expands camera support in Camera Raw, Lightroom release candidates

If you're shooting with a Fujifilm X-Trans-based camera, or a recent model that's not yet supported by Photoshop Camera Raw or Lightroom, there's good news from Adobe today. New release candidate versions of both applications aim to improve the quality of X-Trans demosaicing, and also add support for nine new cameras from Canon, Casio, Fujifilm, Hasselblad, Leica, Nikon and Pentax -- and to squash a number of bugs. A simultaneous release candidate of DNG Converter 7.4 allows raw images from these same cameras to be converted to Adobe's more open raw format.

In full, the list of cameras newly -- or better -- supported by all three release candidates includes:

• Canon EOS-1D C

• Casio Exilim EX-ZR700

• Fujifilm X100s

• Fujifilm X20

• Hasselblad Lunar

• Leica M

• Nikon 1 V3

• Nikon 1 S1

• Pentax MX-1

• Fujifilm X-Pro1 (improved algorithms)

• Fujifilm X-E1 (improved algorithms)

• Fujifilm X100S (improved algorithms)

• Fujifilm X20 (improved algorithms)

 

Adobe says its new release candidates improve support for cameras based on the Fujifilm X-Trans image sensor, such as the Fuji X100S.

The Adobe Camera Raw 7.4 release candidate also adds nine more profiles that allow correction of various lens defects. Adobe lists the followiung newly supported lenses:

Six bugs are fixed in the new release, which can be downloaded here. According to Adobe, the bugs fixed include:

• The grayscale visualization associated with Noise Reduction Luminance was visible after mouse release. This occurred when positive Clarity was present.

• The command/control + A “select all” keyboard shortcut did not select all photos.

• Modifying the brush size using the Right-click + Drag method did not increase or decrease the brush size by the desired amount.

• The crop overlay tool resized incorrectly when used in conjunction with the “Constrain to Crop” checkbox in the Lens Correction panel.

• Hovering the mouse over a local adjustment pin would turn off the desired mask.

• Horizontal artifacts occasionally appeared in DNG files.Improved interactive performance at intermediate zoom levels (e.g., 33% and 66%).

Lightroom 4.4 Release Candidate, meanwhile, squashes 11 bugs, of which two are applicable only on the Windows platform, and one on the Mac:

• The crop overlay tool resized incorrectly when used in conjunction with the “Constrain to Crop” checkbox in the Lens Correction panel.

• Background graphics were not correctly rendered within the Book Module.

• The supplied lens profile for the Sony RX-1 did not contain vignette information.

• Previews of photos in portrait orientation were blurry when viewed in the filmstrip in the Develop module. (Mac only)

• Stack badges displayed the wrong count when creating new stack that included a preexisting stack.

• The Filter scrollbar within the Library module was not rendering properly.

• Auto-tone was not working properly when used in conjunction with the Exposure adjustment slider. (Win only)

• The Black&White button was not creating a History state within the Develop module. (Win only)

• RGB color readouts were specified in the Adobe RGB colorspace rather than the ProPhoto linear colorspace. This occurred when working in Soft Proofing within the Develop module.

• Adding a page behaved inconsistently in the Book module depending on the method used to add a page.

• The state of the “Remove Chromatic Aberrations” checkbox within the Lens Correction was not persistent between sessions of Lightroom.

The Lightroom 4.4 Release Candidate download can also be found on the Adobe Labs website.