My Workflow for X-Trans RAW Processing

I was using Lightroom since its first iteration and it worked well with all my cameras and files. Until I acquired Fujifilm X-Pro1. I quickly realized that ACR demosaicing (Lightroom's raw de-coding engine, same as in CS/Photoshop) is not the best choice for x-trans raw files.
There are much better raw converters on the market, but Lightroom is still, arguably, the best digital asset management system. I was asking myself, how can I combine the power of LR asset management with the best demosaicing algorithms? After spending hours of testing of various configurations I finally came up with the workflow that works well for me and my x-trans raw files. I am using it for 4 months now and feel comfortable to share with you.

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I will illustrate my workflow using LR+Iridient Developer integration, albeit the same integration works well with Capture One Express,  Aperture or Photo Ninja. As the matter of fact I have all of them and they all are integrated into the same workflow.
Here is my setup and step by step instructions.

Lightroom 4.4 (ACR7.4) vs. Capture One Express 7.1.1 vs. Aperture 4.05 (X-Trans)

Hi All,

As usually I do not pretend that my test is a scientific research. I was looking for a Fujifilm X-Pro 1 raw file converter  that works for me and would like to share my findings. I excluded supplied RFC (SilkyPix) from this comparison simply because I don't  like its interface and hardly can imaging using it in the future. But don't  get me wrong, RFC is very capable raw converter.    

I leveraged Raw Photo Processor 4.7.0 (excellent free raw converter) to see how much details Aperture can resolve.
For test purposes I used my own files and raw files available from DPReview and Ryan Williams (Respective Owners, thank you and let me know if you would like to remove them from this review)

The file above was processed (with some adjustment) with three different engines  but results look very similar. Why? 

My two Lightroom 4.4 presets for X-Trans CMOS

Last week Adobe released Lightroom 4.4 with enhanced support for Fujifilm X-Trans CMOS. This upgrade was result of joint Fujifilm and Adobe efforts, you can read the full story here.

With this release Adobe significantly improved demosaicing algorithm to address previous so called "water colour" and "colour bleeding" issues with X-trans CMOS raw files, albeit not 100% but they were reduced to a negligible level.

Great news. But  I was disappointed to see that default output looked somewhat soft and dull. Sure I spent time working on sharpening and colour adjustments to make X-Pro 1 raw files look to my liking.