ACR conversion problem - Jagged Diagonals

I'm very happy with Bridge / ACR / Photoshop for the most part. I really like the workflow and have few complaints.

My only complaint is that thin diagonal lines get rendered as "jaggies". Basically, 2x2 blocks of dark. Nothing I do seems to fix this problem.

Here I will post two images from my Sony RX100 to show the problem, one rendered by ACR, the other by RawTherapee. I have zoomed in to 400%, but it is still very clear at 100%, where ACR images always look "stair-stepped":
I know sharpening is not the same between the two files, but I still get the same effect from ACR on diagonal lines, no matter what I do with the "sharpening" or "detail" sliders, radius etc.

Any ideas what I can do to make ACR do a better job demosaicing diagonal lines?

I get this same result with my Sony dSLRs, dSLTs and my Sony RX100. As you can see, the RawTherapee results are just far superior on diagonal lines, which I have a lot of as I do a lot of landscape photography in the forests of the Southeast. I don't want to switch to RawTherapee as the app is hard to use, but if I can't get better results from ACR I'm going to have to consider alternative RAW converters.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Have you tried bringing the file into Photoshop as a smart object and applying the sharpening in there using a duplicated layer and the 'blend if' sliders after you apply the sharpening to only sharpen the mid tones. The trick is to turn off the under layers before going to blend if so that you can see what parts of the images are being blended out and to then use the ALT key and the cursor to split the slider triangle to feather the selection.

I too have tested raw therapee. I agree it is hard to use. I have also observed it makes a better result in fine detail and lower noise than ACR on Canon raw files, and does significantly better at shadow detail. It does have a lot of potential. I have delivered prints to galleries derived from raw therapee conversions. It needs more lens profiles. Maybe there is a clear user guide somewhere?

One thing you might try is the free Sony version of Capture One:
http://www.phaseone.com/Downloads/Mater ... -Sony.aspx

Also check out your PMs, I sent you a message about this right after you posted this thread that you haven't picked up.

Thanks EJ!

I did download C1 and plan to give it a whirl when I have the chance. Been absolutely crazy busy this week with work and other stuff, along with some spring photography.

Kim,

I've tried everything WRT changing sharpening. Even with sharpening turned down as low as possible, the demosaic still messes up too many diagonals. Not every sharp diagonal line, but many of them. For example, the twig in the upper right heading out of the frame towards the top right corner isn't really showing any significant artifacting.

I did manage to find indications online that Adobe knows about this problem in the demosaic and that it's on the bug list.

Roger,

I agree that RawTherapee does some pretty amazing conversions. Just not sure if I can manage without the ACR workflow. Will try C1 again (been a year or so) and see if I can tolerate the C1 workflow better than RawTherapee, and if C1 gives good results.

I filter a few thousand and process a couple hundred images a month between my daughter and I (she is a wildlife photographer) and I don't think I can tolerate anything with a slow workflow. Right now I am using Bridge and ACR (and tweaking in photoshop when needed).