As some of you are aware, the Panasonic LX3 ships with Silkypix, whereas its Leica D-LUX 4 sibling ships with Capture One. (C1) As of yet, there are no third party RAW processing applications which support the RAW files from these two cameras. Interestingly, C1 does not yet appear to support the LX3 files, despite the fact that they are generally believed to be identical to the D-LUX 4 files.

An interesting user review of the LX3 has been posted by mabelsound (John) over at Rangefinderforum.com (link). The author observed that Silkypix RAW conversions offered no improvement over in-camera JPEGs, so he went a step further and processed using RawDrop and dcraw. Here's the scene he used as an example:



Here's a 100% crop from the in-camera JPEG:



This is the processed result of the dcraw conversion:



While some of the difference is attributable to sharpening, there is definitely more detail in the dcraw conversion, which was not the case with Silkypix conversions. John went on to add the following:

This experiment caused me to realize, as well, that the lens suffers from tremendous barrel distortion--you need to go to +15 in Photoshop to fix it. The JPEG engine does this automatically, and so, interestingly, does SilkyPix. What I'm waiting for, of course, is for Adobe to add the camera to ACR, and I'm hoping the profile will include a lens correction but will NOT obliterate the nice RAW detail. Time will tell.

Others have similarly processed LX3 RAW files using dcraw or Raw Photo Processor have corroborated that the true "raw" data reveals quite a bit of barrel distortion as well as a significant amount of purple fringing. This makes one wonder whether other third party RAW support is lagging because Panasonic is pressuring developers to address these lens shortcomings automatically, perhaps even in a concealed fashion. A provocative thread in the Adobe Lightroom support forum seems to suggest this. The following comments are excerpted from that thread, where Thomas Knoll and Eric Chan are both representing Adobe:

Eric Chan - 5:30am Oct 2, 08 PST (#14 of 25):
There is no support currently, official or unofficial, in CR 4.6 RC or LR 2.1 RC. This is regrettable, but an unfortunate consequence of the current situation. We hope to have this fully resolved soon. (Sorry, no, I cannot specify an exact date.)

No need to tell us that other raw converters already support the LX3. Believe me, we are fully aware of it. There is a very specific reason that CR / LR doesn't yet support the LX3. If you would like an explanation, please ask Panasonic.

I. Room - 5:34pm Oct 8, 08 PST (#18 of 25):
Eric, does the delay in supporting the LX3 have anything to do with Panasonic wanting Adobe to incorporate correction for barrel distortion? I have converted some RW2's with dcraw and was surprised at how much correction is happening both in the in-camera jpeg engine, and in SilkyPix as well (which, unfortunately, is hugely inferior to your products).

Thomas Knoll - 4:53am Oct 9, 08 PST (#19 of 25):
No comment...

I. Room - 5:48am Oct 9, 08 PST (#20 of 25):
I will take that as a yes... ;-)

Eric Chan - 6:52am Oct 9, 08 PST (#21 of 25):
Very interesting observation.

I'm interested to learn how C1 handles the D-LUX 4 files. Is there a resolution gain over the in-camera JPEGs? Are distortion and color fringing automatically addressed without option? It would be unfortunate if all the popular third party RAW applications were to impose mandatory corrections for distortion and color fringing. Such corrections require a loss of data, which in my opinion ought to be left as a decision for the photographer. After all, RAW is all about flexibility.

Addendum: I've exchanged emails with Brian Griffith, lead engineer of Raw Developer (Iridient Digital), regarding the lack of Adobe support for the LX3. He wrote that "neither Leica nor Panasonic, at least that I'm aware of, has ever pressured myself or other developers regarding support (or non-support) of their cameras" and was generally of the opinion that nothing sinister is afoot. I still think it's possible that Panasonic is trying to get Adobe in particular to implement non-elective correction of barrel distortion, but that is pure speculation based on the Adobe forum comments quoted above.