Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) Now Supports the Fuji X10, But Sharpening Problematic

Adobe’s update today added support for RAW files from the Fuji X10 (see my previous discussion on Fuji’s failure to provide working Mac software for the X10).

The X10 consistent backfocus problem is itself problematic.

But setting aside focus, applying my usual ACR sharpening to the X10 files results in an absolutely hideous result as shown below. And this is at ISO 200!

The settings shown at right work great with the Fuji X100, but deliver the hideous results shown below with the X10.

Yes, sharpening can be dialed way down, but I’ve never had to do this with any other camera, and when dialed down, the results are not sharp.

Admittedly, different levels of sharpening can be appropriate for different images and different cameras (sensors), but this is the first time I’ve seen Adobe Camera RAW be unable to deliver satisfactory results at these settings (or any settings). A bug?

RAW Developer 1.9.3 does a far superior job.

Another unexplained discrepancy is that either ACR or RD 1.9.3 is silently correctly distortion. ACR lens correction is off (in fact not even supported for the X10), and there is no distortion correction setting in RD 1.9.3 that I can find. And yet the results are very different, with one of the images corrected for distortion!

Mouse over to compare, or click to see both side-by-side.

At ISO 800, the effect is pretty much the same.

Spike writes:

Just wanted you to know ... I have the Fuji X10 and I'm a diehard Lightroom user. I was thrilled when 3.6 came out and had support for X10 RAW. And I'm seeing the exact same issue with sharpening that you're getting with ACR. I move the sliders my usual amount and I get a totally unusable result. I hope there's a fix for this soon.