The Tool I’ve Been Waiting for to Process Sony Pixel Shift Files: FastRawViewer/RawDigger Developers Release Beta of 'SonyPixelShift2DNG'
See my Sony wish list and get Sony A7R III at B&H Photo.
Sony’s pixel shift files from the A7R III have been of near-zero value to me: I cannot waste hours playing with inefficient poorly designed toy software that regularly crashes and then in the end produces an idiotic result (an uncompressed proprietary file).
The godawful experience of what Sony provides for its pixel shift functionality in its toy software (Sony Edit and Sony Viewer) make me chuckle (in a frustrated sort of way) at the utter incompetence not just of implementation, but of the absence of a conceptual faculty at Sony. Concrete-bound thinking in camera design (just look at the menu system for starters) locked into a body with terrific individual features, but with no conceptual integration.
That is Sony seems to be unable to conceive of workflow, usability, or of the existing photography market and how photographers work, particularly high-end and pro. That Sony would ship a terrific electronic grab bag camera with garbage computer software and no in-camera support for anything useful for pixel shift we might that a shift sandwich, so to speak.
So... within a few days we will see a new tool that does it all right (compressed lossless DNG from the 4 original files) and does it all incredibly fast. This tool is already a must-have problem solver for me—the only decent tool for Sony pixel shift as yet, period.
The beta version has some limitations (like not doing folders recursively), but is very fast and works great.
Basically, this solution does what I suggested to Adobe what they do—but they have not done it, at least not yet. Stay tuned.
Example from DNG
Below, this image was processed from DNG in Adobe Camera Raw. It is an ideal example for pixel shift—or is it? There are serious limitations even in a scene like this, with a mix of excellence and artifacts.
Sony A7R III Pixel Shift Examples, Good and Bad Processed from DNG in Adobe Camera Raw