post-processing your Olympus photos

introduction

as with any camera you should NOT be post-processing jpeg files as image quality will deteriorate
you should be editing RAW files and on Olympus cameras these have the file extension of .ORF
in general, it is a good plan to use one main editing tool and then learn to master it so you can get the most out of it, if like me you do not need to add layers to your images and do clever Photoshop tricks, then Adobe Lightroom may be just what you need
NB. as a general rule sharpening should be applied last

Olympus jpeg colours are renown as arguably the nicest of all the camera manufacturers, so when shooting RAW it is a pity to lose this

the most reliable option to retain the Olympus jpeg colours when post-processing raw files is to start with Olympus Viewer and then use it to export to 16bit TIFF files
these VERY LARGE TIFF files (88Mb for 16mp and 118Mb for 20mp images) can then be further processed in:
- Adobe Lightroom
- Adobe Photoshop
- or practically any other image editing tool
the problems with this approach can be:
- need to use 2 software packages
- more time consuming
- need to create very large 16 bit TIFF files which take up space
- Olympus Viewer, by default uses your camera settings at time of shooting for the TIFF conversion, so you have to manually check each of the image parameters such as Picture Style before exporting (or you can create a batch setting file)
- some feel there is loss of highlight and shadow detail and generally a loss of fine detail which is compressed into “sharpness”
  - Olympus Viewer does seem to smudge fine detail during export to TIFF even with NR set to LOW or OFF, particularly in areas that are just out of focus

by default, Lightroom processes the Olympus RAW files to an image that looks rather flat and lacking the pop of Olympus jpegs
need LR6 to read ORF files from Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II
your first step to address this could be one of the following options in the Develop module:
- change the Camera Profile from Adobe Default to one of the other options such as Camera Portrait or Camera Vivid for example
- use a preset for the camera such as
  - Archgeolab Olympus E-M5 preset - check the version at bottom of thread without the sharpening applied
- create your own preset and apply it

an almost essential software for editing your RAW or jpeg images non-destructively
unlike Olympus software, can be used on other cameras
unfortunately, you need to upgrade the software if you buy a newly released camera
do not need Lens Correction Profiles for Micro Four Thirds system and their dedicated lenses as the RAW file contains this data and Lightroom will automatically read it. ¹⁾
in 2017, LR6 costs $AU186 or you can go down the CC subscription route and also get Photoshop CC

essentially the raw converter included with Photoshop or Lightroom but without the further editing options
many use this to process RAW files and export as camera-independent DNG format raw files although some suggest DNG conversion may lose some image information/detail although this is not confirmed
some suggest it may give more dynamic range than LR but it is not clear how this would be the case

v9 has support for most camera and lens profiles and many find this to be a good pure raw convertor that focuses on optical corrections and minimal effort to get to a pleasing looking image
perhaps has the better noise reduction although perhaps lacking artistic feel

lacks of automatic lens profiling
arguably has the best demosaicing on the market and seems to give sharper, more detailed images than does Olympus Viewer but you don't get the “Olympus colours”
noise reduction not class leading?

¹⁾