What is Raw Power ?
In short, Raw Power is something like an IDE for Apple's raw engine that's built into the operating system.
Some years ago, Apple decided for unknown reasons to kill the stupendous Aperture, one of the best ever image processing programs. Not so much for having tons of features, whistles and bells, but for having a superb IDE and some extremely well-made things like easy integration with Automator, a powerful DAM (image organizer) with one of the most powerful search engines ever.
Although declared dead, it could still run Aperture on all MacOS versions including OSX 11.x aka Big Sur. Depending on the OS version some tricks are needed to overcome Apple's efforts to stop people from using it. With the ARM-based Macs, Apple finally killed Aperture at least on non-Intel Macs.
Raw Power came from the former Aperture designers to fill a gap left by the new (and very limited) Apple Photos, more like a mobile phone photo organizer with very basic image adjustment capability, not even close to what Aperture was capable.
The program has evolved a lot since its debut and now offers a very comprehensive set of features for raw and JPEG image adjustments. Ok, some cool features are missing, but Raw Power is not Aperture, it's a different proposition, a simple, fast and affordable that has LOTS of the so missed features from Aperture.
What Raw Power is Not
RP (from now) is not an editor in the sense of add or change elements of the image using brushes, layers and such things. According to Gentlemen Coders blog, local adjustments are planned but they don't have a date yet.
For example, you won't see the classic clone-stamp, erasers, healing tools or anything like this in RP, neither local adjustments like the sophisticated blur and polarizing effect tools (they use brushes).
Without local adjustments, it's clear that you cannot select regions of the image to apply specific adjustments there. So, no "magic wand", no cut and paste neither anything like this.
So, why use it ?
I can give you a huge list, but I'll talk about my experience because each person has different needs and expectations.
It would be great to have a single program to make everything, but as you now, the jack of all trades, master of none is a universal truth. I prefer to use separate programs and I don't use any subscription-based one.
For example, my choices are DxO PhotoLab for Bayer type sensors and Capture One for Fuji X-Trans ones. They are excellent and do an amazing job for all sorts of adjustments, but they aren't exactley cheap. For image management, I use Photo Supreme and when I need something for EDITION, I go for Affinity Photo.
But sometimes I need just something quick and fast for raw conversion and image adjustments and that's when RP shines. It's simple yet powerful, elegant, very, very fast and affordable. I don't know any paid software that does what RP does without costing a lot more. Ok, there are some ass-kicking freeware powerhouses like RawTherapee, but I rarely like to use an atomic bomb to kill an ant...
RP can be fully integrated with Apple Photos, Affinity Photo and Photo Supreme and this is great.
Actually, the combination of Raw Power + Photo Supreme + Affinity Photo may solve almost all the needs I can think of. And if you have a really tricky image there are always DxO, C1, etc.
Ok, what Raw Power can do so well ?
It's a long list...
It can handle hundreds of cameras raw files (it uses Apple's raw engine) and the conversion is quite good, even for oddballs like the X-Trans matrix from Fuji.
1 - The basic RAW processing tools can boost, adjust levels, details, Moiré, sharpen and some noise reduction operations. It can also handle lens distortion as well.
2 - Crop / Straighten in a very easy way. Foolproof.
3 - It can use LUTs, excellent for film simulation and other effects.
4 - Extensive color control, with the basic saturation, vibrancy, color mixer, white balance and HSL adjustments.
5 - Curves and histogram (levels) operations. The levels control is perfect. Add to this, highlights and shadow compensation. Simple but well implemented.
6 - A basic perspective control.
7 - The "enhance" control groups clarity, deepen and lighten sliders. It's simple but very effective.
8 - Lens corrections
9 - Show hot/cold pixels (clipping)
10 - Batch processing
The two other features are less obvious, but I love them and they are the principal reason that I missed so much Aperture.
The first one is the "sharpen" slider: It's just one slider, but it uses some complex algorithm. It's not just a normal sharp or a traditional unsharp mask. It operates just on luminance, so it doesn't sharpen the color noise.
The second one is the "Auto Enhance". For me this is the crown jewel. It changes the histogram / curves in a very non-linear way and also can do the auto white balance. Sometimes it gives jaw-dropping results. It works by analyzing the histogram, auto white balance and other advanced techniques to prevent blown out highlights and correct under and over exposure. It also compensates color and other parameters.
What else ?
Well, it has a decent image browser, capable of assigning star rates and basic flags and tags and a decent filtering system (not close to what Aperture has but still very usable)
I don't expect it to have an extremely sophisticated denoise or sharpening. I think it's not the scope of RP to have everything. It's meant to be simple and easy to use, so if you need something more powerful in these domains, it makes sense to search for the proper tool.
What I would like to see in RP some day ?
Let's not over complicate.
1 - A slider-type look before/after tool, but I'm ok with the "M" key...
2 - That wonderful TINT control from Aperture (1)
3 - An Aperture-style magnifier !
4 - Aperture's light table
(1) Partially done with the new split toning tool (version 3.3)
Verdict
If you want a simple yet powerful and affordable raw converter for Mac, you can't go wrong with Raw Power from Gentlemen Coders. Too bad it's just for Mac =)
It extends A LOT Apple Photos capabilities and may be a very desirable addition, if you have a Mac and don't want to spend a fortune in raw processing programs.
