SilkyPix Developer Studio 3.x is a Camera RAW conversion application that compares favourably to the more “professional” sounding RAW applications such as Capture One, Adobe Camera RAW 4.x and even Aperture 2. SilkyPix Developer Studio is a Japanese effort that contains a number of innovations leading to more accurate conversions and better (read: less noise) detail in low-light photographs.

SilkyPix Developer Studio 3.x has an easy-to-use interface. Once you know where all the features, buttons and icons are for, and where you can find them, it’s a great application with some very nifty features. For example, there is a Fine Color adjustment feature. It is comparable to Aperture’s or Lightroom’s extensive Saturation controls, but it’s even easier to use. It contains a disc with colour sections that you can drag towards a more saturated or less saturated area, but also towards the adjacent colours.

Visual Image Correction or by Numbers

This --and other features-- create an environment in which you can visually (calibrated monitor!) or by numbers (histogram) tune the photo to your needs. Another example of the innovative and effective use of technology is where you sharpen your image in SilkyPix Developer Studio 3.x. In two settings, emphatic sharp and exaggerate sharp, the “Pure Detail” algorithm is used. This algorithm is unique to SilkyPix and delivers excellent results.

Unfortunately, SilkyPix Developer Studio suffers from a manual that is badly translated into English, and from interface element labels that are sometimes downright confusing. The two sharpness settings quoted above are good examples. Another example is the term “Cloakroom” for a feature that resembles Aperture’s Lift and Stamp feature.

The result is that you need to brace yourself for a day decrypting the manual’s English, and then another day to get comfortable with the interface labels. If the application was only good and not excellent, most people would probably not bother and buy another program instead. However, the truth is that SilkyPix Developer Studio 3.x spits out such good results, even with high ISO, low light images, you can’t just ignore it.

A good way to get acquainted with the program in a more or less effective way is to download the manual written by John Nevill in 2007. Apparently, mister Nevill took it upon himself to rewrite the whole thing in readable English. In my opinion, the first thing you should do when trying out SilkyPix Developer Studio is downloading the SilkyPix Developer Studio 3.0 manual.

SilkyPix Developer Studio 3.x gets excellent results, due to its proprietary technologies such as Pure Detail and its specialised noise filter system. It also comes with a complete toolbox, including lens corrections and perspective corrections. As we already saw in the short review of the Sony Alpha 700 high-ISO RAW conversion run through some seven applications, SilkyPix Developer Studio came out as one of the very best.