So far, and I feel with little likelihood of changing at this stage, Capture 1 with ON1 No Noise as a very high ISO support element are my work flow foundations.
The other contestants in my “Love Island” of processing choices fell away for a variety of reasons;
Lightroom is just not good enough at the base level. Micro four thirds images can suffer from relatively more noise and LR’s “gritty” base processing only makes things worse. I feel it is a shame that so many reviews of M43 are done using Adobe processing, because it does the format no favours. To put this into perspective, I processed all my images up to last Christmas using Adobe and managed well enough (I still prefer the colours when all is going well), but avoided ISO 3200 or higher and sometimes could only resort to mono for a workable mage.
DXO was good, with possibly the best base image processing of all, but the high ISO work was sloooow and the overall workflow was not to my liking for high volume work. I dabbled with the idea of the “quick fix” version for pre-processing and stick with LR for further post, but again, the core image processing is not that much different to C1, with ON1 processing high ISO files much quicker.
ON1 RAW 2021 is not up to standard. The workflow is potentially ideal, but processing is a pain with a small operating panel, less than premium results (compared directly to C1) and the noise reduction is poor, unless you send the files into No Noise, which I already do from C1. The files are a little better than LR, so if it was a LR vs ON1 thing, then I would go with the cheaper and slightly better option, ON1 RAW. I have the 2022 version, but it does not at this stage to be any better (more work to be done).
These are the options so far, but I am keeping an open mind. If things change with some of the others, especially the work flow, I would possibly add them in or switch, but at this point, right now, C1 and just works and works well.
C1 has the ability to sharpen the slightly out of focus (which fell slightly backward of the desired point here), can add natural punch and three dimensionality and rarely does it look over done if you are careful. I also appreciate the comprehensive lens corrections, which may not be as good as DXO’s (not sure), but are a lot better than the LR ones, that don’t exist(in my dated version anyway (ironically the reason I switch to C1 in the first place).