Lightroom4 vs. Phocus

[Bill L.]

Hi All,

As you can see in my other post, Phocus is giving me problems.  Any thoughts on Lightroom 4 for H3DII-39 raw file conversion, etc, now that I see that it works with Hasselblad?  My wife uses LR3 for her Canon gear - I haven't really used it.  Is it any better/worse for handling Hasselblad files?

Thanks!
Bill

[Greg]

Bill,

Recently I downloaded Lightroom 4 Beta, and it definitely has a learning curve for me to work though.  For me, Phocus was easier to learn and had a smoother work flow.  I am going to purchase Lightroom 4 and will probably use it since it works well with Hasselblad fff files.  And as much as I would like to ditch Photoshop, it looks like it will remain useful for certain things Phocus or Lightroom cannot do.  In my opinion Phocus handles Hasselblad superbly, and I am told Lightroom 4 is equally good since Hasselblad shared their handling of RAW files with them.  My wish is for Phocus to be able to handle anything photo related so that it is the only photo software I need.  But that day will be a long time coming; if at all.

Greg

[Bill L.]

I've been hesitant about Lightroom since I wind up doing a lot in PS anyway, but may have to give LR a try.

Thanks!
Bill

[bzb]

Lightroom 4 is (as Lightroom 3) still not state of the art, when you compare the details in a picture developed by Phocus.
And Lightroom 4 is very sluggish! http://forums.adobe.com/message/4268045 It's a bummer...   

[Bill L.]

Interesting about the moire in the lightroom processed image.  I'm getting my files transferred to my new machine - now that I have Phocus and Lightroom on the same machine, I'll have to do some comparisons.

Bill

[Stonemonkey]

Perhaps I'm just slow, but what is the advantage to using Lightroom at all? I shoot 80% tethered so I just open a folder with the job name and another inside that one with the same name with a _RAW as the capture destination, so when I go to process the images I just save the TIFF files to the first folder with the job name. Now everything is organized with TIFF files in one folder and the FFF files in a subfolder.

When I download from a CF card I do exactly the same thing. When using my Canon I have the same workflow but I use Bridge.

So what is it that Lightroom is doing that is so useful?

Brian R.

[rem]

bzb, I prefer really Phocus for critical work and I made the same test with hair. But I can really not say that Phocus is better then LR (without using the Moiree slider)(in my test).
rem

[ghoonk]

Whoa. I've been shooting long exposures for Earth Hour, and guess what - when I load the images in Phocus, Phocus cleans up all the long exposure noise. LR4 on the other hand, retains that noise, not sure why. Clearly, moving forward, for long exposures, I'll be importing them into Phocus and then exporting them as TIFFs (I exported the .3FF as DNG and still got noise, bad one too)

[stephanbruehl]

Be aware that LR does not support lens corrections when the HTS adapter is used. See the corresponding comment:

http://www.hasselbladbulletin.com/uk/feb-2012/tips-tricks/hasselblad-files-in-lightroom.aspx

A mixed workflow doesn't seem appropriate to me and since I use the HTS quite often, I certainly will stay with Phocus and forget about LR.

Stephan

[ghoonk]

Good point, and thanks for the link. I was manually doing corrections in LR4 up till then. Looks like my new workflow will start with Phocus, then export to TIFF and finish up (and cataloging) in LR4

[Mats E]

Lightroom 4 is (as Lightroom 3) still not state of the art, when you compare the details in a picture developed by Phocus.
And Lightroom 4 is very sluggish! http://forums.adobe.com/message/4268045 It's a bummer...   

That is my understanding too based on some sources closely related to Hasselblad. It should more be seen as an additional option for those that with other gears are used to the work flow of LR.

Mats

[andreleon]

Good point, and thanks for the link. I was manually doing corrections in LR4 up till then. Looks like my new workflow will start with Phocus, then export to TIFF and finish up (and cataloging) in LR4

Hi all, I also wished to export the Phocus TiIFFs to LR4 for the same reasons ; but this needs at least 90min.importing  in LR4.1. It's unbearable .

[Marc Gysin]

Anybody already tried the new tether plug-in for Lightroom® 4? http://www.hasselblad.com/adobe-bundle-tethered

[Douglas Fairbank @ Classic V]

Yes it works very well. Phocus remains the best dedicated software to work with Hasselblad raw files and provides Live View and Multishot.

[martinnz]

It seems about 3*speed to upload om my Imac. I am staying  with Phocus