Iridient Digital is expanding their transformer product to as many camera manufacturers as possible from their origin which is tightly tied to Fujifilm’s X-Tran sensor. You can read more about what this product does below, but many Fujifilm photographer swear by Iridient Digital’s processing algorithms.
Iridient S-Transformer is a utility that can be used to convert Sony ARW and ARQ images to DNG format using Iridient Digital’s high quality RAW processing algorithms. Much of the core RAW processing, sharpening, noise reduction and lens corrections featured in this program are shared with Iridient Developer a more full-featured RAW processor that is available only for macOS.
The Iridient RAW processing routines have been in active development for over 14 years for use in Iridient Developer and have been optimized and refined over the years for the best possible image quality. Iridient Developer is widely regarded as one of the highest quality RAW processors available.
This program converts Sony’s proprietary ARW and ARQ image data to the openly specified DNG image format. The DNG format was created and is publicly documented by Adobe. They have detailed information regarding the format on their website here:
Adobe DNG informationThe key RAW processing stages that can be applied by Iridient S-Transformer during conversion to DNG include:
- Interpolation or demosaic processing. This transforms the camera sensor’s Bayer color filter information or associated pixel shift frames to produce a full color RGB image. This processing is always applied by Iridient S-Transformer and cannot be disabled or undone. There are two interpolation options, one for a more detailed rendering and a second smoother, lower artifact version. The algorithms are identical to the latest “detail+” and “smooth” options in Iridient Developer 3.2.2.
- Sharpening. Iridient S-Transformer features advanced sharpening based on the very highly regarded “Iridient Reveal” sharpening algorithms featured in Iridient Developer. Sharpening is optional and can be adjusted (low/med/high) or disabled.
- Automatic lens corrections for distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting. Corrections are based on native Sony lens information specified in their ARW metadata. The lens correction stage is optional and lens correction information can also be passed on through DNG opcode metadata and left to later processing stages or ignored altogether. The lens correction processing in Iridient S-Transformer uses the same high quality resampling algorithms as Iridient Developer.
- Color and luminance noise reduction. The noise reduction processing in Iridient S-Transformer shares much in common with the latest noise reduction available in Iridient Developer and is specifically optimized for RAW image processing. Noise reduction is optional and can be adjusted (low/med/high) or disabled.
Iridient S-Transformer 1.0 beta 2 — Sony ARW/ARQ to DNG processing for macOS and Windows:
http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/stransformer_download.html