RAW open comparison

[Lundberg02]

i'm glad someone with a lot of DNG experience chimed in here. It's quite clear to me that you can't be sure what a DNG will look like in any given program. I don't know of any precise explanation of what ACR and PhotoLine do to a DNG that is so different from apps that claim to reproduce the underlying RAW file without modification. PS and PL appear to adding contrast and saturation, but most of it could be white balance, particularly because PL adds a slight cast. In my googling I ran across articles talking about white balance errors when opening DNGs, but I can't imagine PS or PL doing that. It seems to me that PS and PL are probably doing a close estimation of the real white balance and other apps are leaving the Von Kries as neutral. I should go back and look at the histograms very closely. All I was looking for at first was exposure and it appears that the EXR mode default is a half stop under.
I was hoping the Hubers would jump in with some technical interpretation.
If I could understand what is happening I might want to go with it, but for now I will use the SilkyPix app tailored for this camera because it corrects for the lens distortions without human intervention and does not mess with white balance or contrast and saturation. I still need to do perspective correction in another app, but I haven't decided which one is the easiest and/or most accurate yet.
You would think the DNG Converter app would have some explanatory material to describe what actually happens. I have CS5 PS which uses ACR 6.7 ACR has had my camera RAW since 6.4. I used DNG Converter 8.2 for the conversion. I am guessing that PhotoLine 17 and up use something very similar to ACR. The ColorPerfect web site claims that they use RAW conversion without any modification that Photoshop in particular might do, by using MakeTiff first and then using a set of RAW adjustment sliders on the resultant tiff. RAW is an extension of TIFF so I suppose that's legitimate.

[neilgcart]

If you want to know exactly what goes on inside a DNG file the full specification is here: http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/ ... .4.0.0.pdf.

I did a lot of comparisons shooting RAW + Jpg and then comparing the opened DNG to the out of camera RAW when first starting to look at DNG to establish what would work best in my workflow and what programs would give a consistent look with at least a starting point that was fairly close to the out of camera Jpg. This is why I have been using Lightroom to initially assign metadata and adjust my RAW images although some other RAW converters do give similar results. I have a Fuji X20 as a walk around camera and find a RAW image from this opened with Silkypix and the same image converted to DNG and opened in Lightroom are very similar. Opening a RAW image in Photoline and then opening the same image converted to a DNG give me the same result which is a very flat RAW image which would suggest no adjustment is applied upon opening the image. I can get the same result from Lightroom if I decide not to apply any initial adjustment to the image however by default Lightroom will apply a default profile to the image based upon the camera it was taken with and this will give me an image that looks closer to the out of camera Jpg.

What this shows is that you can obtain a level of consistency by you need to understand what each programme is doing with the RAW image and then decide what works best for you.

Neil

[bkh]

i'm glad someone with a lot of DNG experience chimed in here. It's quite clear to me that you can't be sure what a DNG will look like in any given program.

Not really – in theory, DNG files contain a full colour interpretation and thus should look the same (at least colour-wise) in any program which fully supports DNG. That's also the reason why you can use DNGs for cameras not supported in your version of ACR. In practice, I doubt that very many programs fully support the DNG standard – afaik, dcraw (which is the raw converter PL relies upon) has only limited DNG support (and that will only be active if you use the "Convert To sRGB" option).

I don't know of any precise explanation of what ACR and PhotoLine do to a DNG that is so different from apps that claim to reproduce the underlying RAW file without modification.

"Reproduction of a RAW file without modification" is a myth – cameras "see" colours differently from humans. Humans can distinguish colours which look identical to cameras, and viceversa (this is called metamerism and differs from camera to camera), so a raw converter has to make decisions (colour interpretations). DNG is the RAW file + Adobe's interpretation but without the camera manufacturer information which other raw converters may have used to make their owninterpretation. (DNG files often contain the original raw files as well, at the cost of twice the file size, so in theory other raw converters could just throw away the DNG and use the embedded RAW).

If you are pleased with Adobe's colour interpretation, or if you can create your own camera profiles, then DNG might be the right choice.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Martin Stricker]

dcraw (which is the raw converter PL relies upon) has only limited DNG support (and that will only be active if you use the "Convert To sRGB" option).

Why limited? I can see no difference in using the original Raw file compared to the DNG file. Besides you can also open DNGs without using convert to sRGB in PL. And the current PL version also supports convert to Adobe RGB and convert to Pro Photo RGB.

Martin

[bkh]

dcraw (which is the raw converter PL relies upon) has only limited DNG support (and that will only be active if you use the "Convert To sRGB" option).

Why limited?

Because the DNG format contains a lot of instructions how the file is to be processed: how to interpret the chosen colour temperature, apply the hue/saturation/value mapping, apply distortion or vignette correction, bad pixel correction … as far as I can see, neither dcraw nor PL do any of these.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Martin Stricker]

Because the DNG format contains a lot of instructions how the file is to be processed: how to interpret the chosen colour temperature, apply the hue/saturation/value mapping, apply distortion or vignette correction, bad pixel correction … as far as I can see, neither dcraw nor PL do any of these.

I don't think so. The color temperature is the same as the original raw and PL can read it. Hue/saturation should not be stored. The camera settings which are stored in original raws can't be read no matter if it's DNG or not. At the end there is no difference.

Martin

[bkh]

I don't think so. The color temperature is the same as the original raw and PL can read it. Hue/saturation should not be stored. The camera settings which are stored in original raws can't be read no matter if it's DNG or not. At the end there is no difference.

It's not a matter of opinion. Have a look at the format specification cited above. Everything else is what I'd call limited DNG support. What do you mean by "there is no difference?" I see a lot of differences in the sample image above where there should be no difference ideally.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Lundberg02]

Thank you , bkh. I think I've just been given TMI and will have to reread all this later. I just saw online that DxO 9 Standard Edition is on sale for 99 USD. I thought that that would be a great starting point for RAW, but it doesn't support my camera, probably never will. When I move up in camera capability, I'll look at it again. Fuji is making some moves this year that look interesting.
I'm thinking about taking my Nikon F2 out of the bag again and scanning its negs just to see what happens. Its 105 lens should be good for capturing paintings on the wall. I know, it's retro.

[Lundberg02]

What my five images show is that DNGs are not opened identically by apps that will open them. DxO, for instance, does not open DNGs.
PS and PL both apply some modifications to the RAW that resemble what the jpg would look like. The PS image is actually acceptable for the web but not what I would print on matte. The PL colorcast is not a good starting point but perhaps some preference can get rid of it. Mac Preview will not open my camera's RAW, but it opens the DNG without interpretation, so it must be reading the embedded RAW. This is a contradiction I find inexplicable.
According to bkh, Pl does not apply any mods to a DNG unless you tell it to, but I didn't tell it to unless that is the default.
I will accept Neilgcart's experience and decide whether I want to start with an interpreted DNG or not if I want to open RAWs from other cameras. I think I have to use the camera specific SilkyPix app for RAW from this camera because it has the lens correction builtin, thus eliminating one time consuming step in the workflow. I might try opening the DNG in SilkyPix just to see what happens.
There is really nothing wrong with "in camera jpg " look for Facebook or emails, but I think prints should look real unless exaggeration is the intent.

[Lundberg02]

Mac Preview is not opening the embedded RAW. The DNG Prefs were set not to embed. So it is just ignoring camera data that PS and PL do use. I have not gone back to PL as yet to see what settings might be acting.
I have now used DxO Perspective on the RAW file converted to tiff in SilkyPix, which removed lens distortion. It has a number of modes which will do everything you need. You can correct vertical, horizontal, both, both and rotate. You can correct the horizon angle separately, and you can crop. There is an adjustable grid overlay available. There is a loupe for accuracy in placement of the index points. This is a super tool. It took about five minutes to grasp and works beautifully.
In the App Store. Don't know if there's a Win version.
I tried the tools available in Preview on the SilkyPix tiff just as a preliminary check and it looks like I can easily get where I want to go with exposure, contrast, saturation, possibly a slight temperature tweak, and a little focus and sharpening. As you may remember, SilkyPix does not enhance. The image needs to be reshot for distance anyway, but I will nail down the enhancements first.
I am going to try all my RAW opening apps on the RAW and the DNG just to tabulate their behavior with DNG. This will take a while, I think I have about 75 imaging apps. Some of them are Win only and I will have to use VMWare Fusion. I also have Krita in Ubuntu and I believe it opens RAW, not sure about DNG.
I guess I should go ahead and buy AccuRaw for completeness.
FWIW, Apple uses their Core Image technology to open RAW in Preview and Aperture.

[Lundberg02]

I went through all my imaging apps and it breaks down as follows:
Apps that open the Fuji RAF with lens correction--ACDSee Pro 3, Big Aperture, Great Photo, Photo Glamor, Silky Pix, Xee
Apps that open the Fuji RAF without lens correction--Bridge, Elements, Gimp, Lightzone, Photoshop, PhotoLine, Intensify, Lyn, IFX Supreme, Paint Supreme, Preview, PTLens, RPP, Raw Converter, Rawker, Sprout FX, Accuraw Beta, Capture One Pro 7 Express
Apps that open the dng and/or tiff, jpg, png are too numerous to list here, but Aperture is among them
There are about a half dozen more that I already have which I will need to open in Windows XP in VMWare Fusion including PaintShop Pro X6, and Krita in Ubuntu in VMWare Fusion. Of course there are lots of Windows apps I don't have yet.
I was unable to open dcraw, not sure why, but Gimp uses it. There are about dozen others for Mac I don't have, including LightRoom.

[Lundberg02]

Now that I know I need to open my RAF files in Silky Pix and correct perspective in DxO Perspective before doing anything else. I can get back to reshooting my paintings. Shooting paintings in situ is an art form in itself. Lighting must be diffuse and you need to avoid both specular and mirror reflections from the surface of the painting, since oils and acrylics are quite reflective. You need to fill the image with the painting but leave room for rotation crop. The camera's automatic mode sets the shutter speed too slow and the the aperture too open, so you have to get old fashioned. Tripod is almost mandatory. Maximum resolution is needed to retain the texture of fabric matting. Some tutorials say the way to photograph paintings is to take them outside, lay them on the ground, and photograph them in sunlight, but that is just too big a deal and I'm sure it creates other problems.

I am surprised that many imaging apps have really bad UIs. You would think that that if the subject is seeing things the way they should be, that the app's designers would have some feel for human engineering. The idea that any imaging app would have white text on a black background is beyond belief, and medium grey on a black background is just insane. Forced cataloging is also nuts. Overly sensitive sliders, tiny fonts, pulldowns that are not obvious, dim highlighting, Help that does not clearly state right at the beginning what the app actually does, I could go on and on.

[Lundberg02]

I have been in discussions with onOne because their website has a page that says all onOne software supports these cameras and lists a large number of RAW shooters, my camera included, but Perfect Photo Suite 8 Public Beta 3 does not open the RAF files from my Fuji. They have tested the RAF I sent them and have escalated a ticket to investigate. I'm hoping that they just failed to port part of the list. They are quite prompt in replying, probably because the release is just days away, so I expect to hear from them tomorrow.

[Lundberg02]

onOne finally replied that they use MacOSX to open raw files (unlike many apps such as PhotoLine which use draw), and that Apple had dropped support for the Fujifilm Finepix F600EXR. That I think is not quite believable. What harm is there in retaining support for a camera once supported?
Reverting to my original concern, I found that I had not selected NONE for jpeg preview when I converted to dng, so of course PS and PL were showing an interpreted image. My bad. Stupid. I've learned a lot here and in the Cambridge in Color forum ( I strongly recommend joining it) since making my mistake, though, and consider being dumb an opportunity for education instead of a handicap.

[Lundberg02]

I have further learned that none of my apps that open my raw file with lens correction will save as Pro Photo 16 bit tiff. So I might as well use ACR, set the white balance and exposure, correct lens in Photoshop, perspective in DxO Perspective, and then do the rest of the edits in the simplest app to use. I am now struggling with the correct settings to print in Photoshop from Pro Photo to my six color inkjet which has a wider gamut than aRGB. I don't understand why "Photoshop manages colors" has device independent profiles for printing. I could select Pro Photo as the printer profile instead of my printer with matte paper. Is that reasonable? I'm going to try it if I can find a Pro Photo test image file. Maybe printing from PhotoLine is more understandable. Since you can't actually soft proof Pro Photo I guess I'll be using up some (for me) fairly expensive paper.
I have also learned that when an app "supports" your camera, it means one of three things: a) it doesn't support it, b) it opens it but doesn't read the camera lens data, or c) it opens it and reads the data but you can't save it in all its glory. I may go back to my Argus C3, soft focus and all.