Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: dwdallam on March 21, 2008, 02:21:12 am
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What is clarity in ACR 4.4?
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What is clarity in ACR 4.4?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183147\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It's something like UnsharpMask Filter with a very large radius
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It's something like UnsharpMask Filter with a very large radius
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183150\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Why do they put shit like that in the RAW converter?
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1- I don't mean to be a prude, but gratuitous swearing isn't appropriate here.
2 - Because it's a fantastic tool, and also the more that you can be non-destructively in the raw converter the better your images. I happen to think that Clarity can be one of the most useful tools in Lightroom (and Cameras Raw for that matter).
If you don't like a tool, don't use it.
Michael
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I agree. I would like to see something like Nikon's Upoint in the RAW converter.
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Why put it in the raw converter? Because it saves me from having to run every single image through Photoshop for local contrast enhancement. If you don't want to use the Clarity slider, don't.
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Why do they put s*&t like that in the RAW converter?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=183163\")
Its IN the converter because the job of a Raw converter is to go from scene referred colorimetry (Raw) to output referred rendered pixels!!! Its yet another useful rendering control.
If you have to ask such questions, you're the perfect candidate to read this:
[a href=\"http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/prophotographer/pdfs/pscs3_renderprint.pdf]http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/p...renderprint.pdf[/url]
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It's something like UnsharpMask Filter with a very large radius
Or, see Andrew's description here (post #5):
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=78965 (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=78965)
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Why do they put shit like that in the RAW converter?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183163\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Because Thomas Knoll knows a whole lot more about raw processing than you do?
(I'm just asking...cause it seems you need to learn a whole a lot about a variety of thing)
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I needed a chuckle this afternoon. This thread was just the ticket. (http://chat.anncoulter.com/phpBB2//images/smiles/035.gif)
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The information I like best here was:
1. Don't use the "S" word.
2. If you don't like a tool, don't use it.
3. You don't know as much as Thomas Knoll.
Got a pretty good laugh out of me in a juvenile sort of way.
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So this tool is a Local Contrast Enhancement for ACR and Lightroom, and doesn't "really" sharpen the image, even though it appears that way? So it's a one step LCE tool?
The reason I'm asking about sharpening is that I was under the impression sharpening was what you do last in processing--after resizing and whatever else you want or need to do to the image. I think that is why in the last ACR book I read, which was Bruce Fraser's Real World ACR (but like CS I think), the author I believe said don't use sharpening in ACR, but wait till you get to PS instead.
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The world has changed over the past few years with advancements in tools like Camera Raw and Lightroom. If you are taking the path of doing virtual / non-destructive image editing in the raw converter then you want to do as there as possible and as little as possible in Photoshop.
Sharpening needs to done at least twice, once as input sharpening (which all digital images need to one extent or another) and the second time as output sharpening, which varies depending on the device, ie: web or print, glossy or matte, etc.
So doing input sharpening in the raw converter makes sense and then doing your output sharpening in Photoshop (if that's where you print from).
The sharpening tool in Lightroom is very powerful. If you want a highly automated sharpening workflow look at Photokit Sharpener, an automation plug-in for Photoshop. With this you want to turn sharpening off in Lightroom.
Many choices. There is no one correct path. And yes, Vibrance is a form of local contrast enhancement, similar to sharpening, but not the same. Worth experimenting with.
Michael
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Many choices. There is no one correct path. And yes, Vibrance is a form of local contrast enhancement, similar to sharpening, but not the same. Worth experimenting with.
Michael
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183456\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I assume that's meant to be "Clarity" rather than "Vibrance" but it does lead me to ask what "Vibrance" is, vs "Saturation" as I see they do similar things - without *quite* being the same.
Thanks
Charly
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I assume that's meant to be "Clarity" rather than "Vibrance" but it does lead me to ask what "Vibrance" is, vs "Saturation" as I see they do similar things - without *quite* being the same.
Thanks
Charly
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183460\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Vibrance is a kind of selective saturation. It saturates less "already saturated" colors and more unsaturated colors. In addition, it preserves skin tones.
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Sorry, I meant clarity (too much vino last night).
Vibrance is a form of Saturation but which holds back on increasing saturation on things that are alrady saturated, so as to wok more strongly on colours which are less saturated. It also has protection for skin tones.
Michael
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Gosh, it seems like a Camera Raw tutorial video would be just the ticket.
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So this tool is a Local Contrast Enhancement for ACR and Lightroom, and doesn't "really" sharpen the image, even though it appears that way? [{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=183431\")
Local contrast enhancement is not sharpening - the confusion is understandable, as LCE has often been made with sharpening tools (used outside the manual's recommendations), but it's as far as using a screwdriver to drive screws on one hand, and to open beer cans on the other hand.
As said, it would be a pity not to make LCE, which is only a tone correction, in a raw processor.
And talking about sharpening, did you read [a href=\"http://www.creativepro.com/article/out-of-gamut-thoughts-on-a-sharpening-workflow]this article by Bruce Fraser[/url]? It explains well (and I've heard it did define) the input/output sharpening concepts of which Michael wrote about.
The sharpening tool in Lightroom is very powerful.
If I may add a little something : the input sharpening is remarkable indeed. For creative or output sharpening in LR, we all put a great hope in LR2.0!
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Gosh, it seems like a Camera Raw tutorial video would be just the ticket.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183484\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
On the editing bench.
Michael
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The reason I'm asking about sharpening is that I was under the impression sharpening was what you do last in processing--after resizing and whatever else you want or need to do to the image. I think that is why in the last ACR book I read, which was Bruce Fraser's Real World ACR (but like CS I think), the author I believe said don't use sharpening in ACR, but wait till you get to PS instead.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183431\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Actually, Bruce didn't use Camera Raw's sharpening because before CR 4.1, it was a crude & blunt instrument. Which is why Adobe hired Bruce to consult with them about improving it. CR 4.1 embodies pretty much all the principles of PhotoKit Sharpener's Capture Sharpening and is arguably better (although requiring a bit more fiddling to nail the needed results).
But you are also mixing up the don't sharpen in Camera Raw with the old school thought to only sharpen at the end of a process. As other have stated, the ideal method is to use a sharpening workflow with the only end stage sharpening being output sharpening once the image is in its final size & resolution and the method of output is known.
In the grand scheme of things, Thomas Knoll, the primary author of Camera Raw, wants Camera Raw to be the best raw processor out there. As a result, Camera Raw has grown considerably since it's early functions and capability. Rather than fight the concepts and the logic of why things are the way they are, it behooves users to actually learn to be fluent in the use of the varied functionalities so they can take full advantage of what is now possible in Camera Raw.
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Actually, Bruce didn't use Camera Raw's sharpening because before CR 4.1, it was a crude & blunt instrument. Which is why Adobe hired Bruce to consult with them about improving it. CR 4.1 embodies pretty much all the principles of PhotoKit Sharpener's Capture Sharpening and is arguably better (although requiring a bit more fiddling to nail the needed results).
But you are also mixing up the don't sharpen in Camera Raw with the old school thought to only sharpen at the end of a process. As other have stated, the ideal method is to use a sharpening workflow with the only end stage sharpening being output sharpening once the image is in its final size & resolution and the method of output is known.
In the grand scheme of things, Thomas Knoll, the primary author of Camera Raw, wants Camera Raw to be the best raw processor out there. As a result, Camera Raw has grown considerably since it's early functions and capability. Rather than fight the concepts and the logic of why things are the way they are, it behooves users to actually learn to be fluent in the use of the varied functionalities so they can take full advantage of what is now possible in Camera Raw.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183507\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I'll learn them. I'm just having some problems finding up to the minute explanations of the functions. I know that's just a matter of lag time between production and people getting around to explaining it.
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Local contrast enhancement is not sharpening - the confusion is understandable, as LCE has often been made with sharpening tools (used outside the manual's recommendations), but it's as far as using a screwdriver to drive screws on one hand, and to open beer cans on the other hand.
As said, it would be a pity not to make LCE, which is only a tone correction, in a raw processor.
And talking about sharpening, did you read this article by Bruce Fraser (http://www.creativepro.com/article/out-of-gamut-thoughts-on-a-sharpening-workflow)? It explains well (and I've heard it did define) the input/output sharpening concepts of which Michael wrote about.
The sharpening tool in Lightroom is very powerful.
If I may add a little something : the input sharpening is remarkable indeed. For creative or output sharpening in LR, we all put a great hope in LR2.0!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183495\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Nope, I didn't know that article existed. However, it is dated 2003, and I'm wondering if that is still "the way" to do it. Incidentally, that's pretty much how I was doing it from intuition, but with a variation on the first step--and I'm not saying I'm doing it correctly. 1. Initially sharpen the entire image if necessary using a very fine tuned sharpening approach that fits the iamge itself--after it's resized. 2. Sharpen specific areas, like the tried and true example, the eyes, if needed. 3. Sharpen the entire image for output/printing if needed. This is just what my raw logical ability told me to do, but like I said, never read any article putting it in those three steps.
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Hi,
the idea is that capture sharpening would compensate for what is lost in capture. This would compensate for:
1) Lens MTF
2) MTF of the anti aliasing filter
3) MTF of the sampling process
Ideally the capture sharpening would give an ideal image as a start of creative work. To do that correctly you would need to know the 'transfer function' or 'point spread function' of the lens/sensor system involved. this should be done as early in the process as possible.
The next step is content related sharpening. Here you can use unsharp masking on eyelashes and so on.
Finally you would sharpen for output. You would modify edge contrast to compensate for loss of contrast during printing. To put it simple:
1) Try to make an optimal capture.
2) Improve details as needed.
3) Increase edge contrast to compensate the expected loss of edge contrast in printing. This is depending on the size of your print and the technique used.
Best regards
Erik
Actually, Bruce didn't use Camera Raw's sharpening because before CR 4.1, it was a crude & blunt instrument. Which is why Adobe hired Bruce to consult with them about improving it. CR 4.1 embodies pretty much all the principles of PhotoKit Sharpener's Capture Sharpening and is arguably better (although requiring a bit more fiddling to nail the needed results).
But you are also mixing up the don't sharpen in Camera Raw with the old school thought to only sharpen at the end of a process. As other have stated, the ideal method is to use a sharpening workflow with the only end stage sharpening being output sharpening once the image is in its final size & resolution and the method of output is known.
In the grand scheme of things, Thomas Knoll, the primary author of Camera Raw, wants Camera Raw to be the best raw processor out there. As a result, Camera Raw has grown considerably since it's early functions and capability. Rather than fight the concepts and the logic of why things are the way they are, it behooves users to actually learn to be fluent in the use of the varied functionalities so they can take full advantage of what is now possible in Camera Raw.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183507\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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Actually, Bruce didn't use Camera Raw's sharpening because before CR 4.1, it was a crude & blunt instrument. Which is why Adobe hired Bruce to consult with them about improving it. CR 4.1 embodies pretty much all the principles of PhotoKit Sharpener's Capture Sharpening and is arguably better (although requiring a bit more fiddling to nail the needed results).
But you are also mixing up the don't sharpen in Camera Raw with the old school thought to only sharpen at the end of a process. As other have stated, the ideal method is to use a sharpening workflow with the only end stage sharpening being output sharpening once the image is in its final size & resolution and the method of output is known.
In the grand scheme of things, Thomas Knoll, the primary author of Camera Raw, wants Camera Raw to be the best raw processor out there. As a result, Camera Raw has grown considerably since it's early functions and capability. Rather than fight the concepts and the logic of why things are the way they are, it behooves users to actually learn to be fluent in the use of the varied functionalities so they can take full advantage of what is now possible in Camera Raw.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183507\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
You said:
1. ". . . the old school thought to only sharpen at the end of a process."
2. " . . . the ideal method is to use a sharpening workflow with the only end stage sharpening being output sharpening once the image is in its final size & resolution and the method of output is known.
Can you explain the difference between those two comments please?
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OK I have a question now that comes up since we've hit all over the park on this one:
What is the function of clarity?
For example, is it a (1) sharpening tool, (2) a contrast tool, or (3) alien technology that escapes definition, (4) none of the above?
I think we got off on sharpening, which is also an important topic, maybe even more so than Clarity?
However, uh, Clarity?
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Can you explain the difference between those two comments please?
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A sharpening workflow (ala Fraser, even if it's based on an article from 2003) means you do capture sharpening in the beginning after major tone and color adjustments, you do creative sharpening for effect during the imaging process and the final, output sharpening is only done at the end of the process once you know the final output resolution and output type.
Read Bruce's article to better understand a sharpening workflow and read this article for more about Camera Raw 4.1+ [a href=\"http://photoshopnews.com/2007/05/31/about-camera-raw-41/]About Camera Raw 4.1[/url]. Alternatively you can wait for the Camera Raw video tutorial from Michael and I or go out and get Real World Camera Raw for Photoshop CS3 now. Available from Amazon here Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (http://photoshopnews.com/2007/05/31/about-camera-raw-41/)
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What is the function of clarity?
To make your images look better (or not). Seriously, its a creative rendering control. Its roots date to techniques to produce a similar Midtone contrast boost in Photoshop.
At one time during the beta, it was called Punch, a more photocentric yet also violent sounding description of the rendering.
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Apparently some of the confusion in this thread---which originally wasn't about sharpening at all---is coming from the misconception that unsharp masking (USM for short) was the same as sharpening. It's not.
Unsharp masking can be used to the effect of sharpening. It can be used to other effects as well ... for example, to the effect of local contrast enhancement. And that's what "Clarity" in Adobe Camera Raw does. It all depends on the parameters of the unsharp-masking procedure. Large amount and small radius = sharpening; small amount and large radius = local contrast enhancement. The latter is also known as the hiraloam technique---high radius, low amount ... a phrase coined by Dan Margulis, as far as I know.
By the way, this doesn't necessarily mean "Clarity" in ACR was exactly hiraloam USM and nothing else ... instead, it also might be some clever variation thereof. I don't know. Maybe someone else knows ...?
-- Olaf
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The latter is also known as the hiraloam technique---high radius, low amount ... a phrase coined by Dan Margulis, as far as I know.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=183567\")
The idea of using a small amount/large radius in reduced amounts in USM has been around since Biedny & Monroy's Photoshop book back in the early 1990's.
The phrase hiraloam may have been made up by Margulis but it ain't his technique...Michael Reichmann and Mac Holbert of Nash Editions have been advocating it for several years. Michael called it [a href=\"http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast-enhancement.shtml]Local Contrast Anhancement[/url] and Mac called it Mid-Tone Contrast Adjustment. Both of which are far more useful names (and techniques).
Thomas' implementation is a hybrid of the two (Mike & Mac) and is based upon a 100 radius blur and using an overlay blend while rolling off the highlights and shadows to concentrate the effect in the mid-tones.
The fact that Margulis has written about it is incidental (and the name: "hiraloam" is goofy/stupid).
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In the grand scheme of things, Thomas Knoll, the primary author of Camera Raw, wants Camera Raw to be the best raw processor out there. As a result, Camera Raw has grown considerably since it's early functions and capability. Rather than fight the concepts and the logic of why things are the way they are, it behooves users to actually learn to be fluent in the use of the varied functionalities so they can take full advantage of what is now possible in Camera Raw.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183507\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Yes, and Adobe also seems to fight tooth and nail against ANY possibility of external camera calibration (input matrices) being accessible to users of ACR or Lightroom. Exactly why I cannot input a matrix into either of these pieces of software is something I fail to understand - or does Adobe seems to subscribe to the "Nanny knows best" school of thought.
When a piece of software does not offer crucial functionality - calibrated color in this case - I turn to the alternatives.
Edmund
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Yes, and Adobe also seems to fight tooth and nail against ANY possibility of external camera calibration (input matrices) being accessible to users of ACR or Lightroom. Exactly why I cannot input a matrix into either of these pieces of software is something I fail to understand - or does Adobe seems to subscribe to the "Nanny knows best" school of thought.
Simple question before we go too OT. Are you saying that the current sets of rendering controls do not allow you to produce a desired rendering from the Raw? On some or all images?
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Simple question before we go too OT. Are you saying that the current sets of rendering controls do not allow you to produce a desired rendering from the Raw? On some or all images?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183590\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Naw, he's pissed cause he can't sell camera profiles to people using Camera Raw/Lightroom...
:~)
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A sharpening workflow (ala Fraser, even if it's based on an article from 2003) means you do capture sharpening in the beginning after major tone and color adjustments, you do creative sharpening for effect during the imaging process and the final, output sharpening is only done at the end of the process once you know the final output resolution and output type.
Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (http://photoshopnews.com/2007/05/31/about-camera-raw-41/)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183560\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Should noise reduction in ACR 4.4 be performed befor or after input sharpening.
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The idea of using a small amount/large radius in reduced amounts in USM has been around since Biedny & Monroy's Photoshop book back in the early 1990's.
The phrase hiraloam may have been made up by Margulis but it ain't his technique...Michael Reichmann and Mac Holbert of Nash Editions have been advocating it for several years. Michael called it Local Contrast Anhancement (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast-enhancement.shtml) and Mac called it Mid-Tone Contrast Adjustment. Both of which are far more useful names (and techniques).
Thomas' implementation is a hybrid of the two (Mike & Mac) and is based upon a 100 radius blur and using an overlay blend while rolling off the highlights and shadows to concentrate the effect in the mid-tones.
The fact that Margulis has written about it is incidental (and the name: "hiraloam" is goofy/stupid).
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=183568\")
Jeff,
Indeed.
But my take on the history of the techniques is a bit different (unless I'm missing a piece - not impossible). From what I've read and have been doing, there would appear to be two basic approaches: one uses USM, the other does not. The one using USM, according to Michael's article which you linked is credited there to Thomas, but looks like an earlier version of Thomas's approach because it doesn't use the overlay mode - from what I mention next, that bit would appear to come from Mac Holbert's design. Now, John Paul Caponigro is also a player in this field, but the technique he describes here: [a href=\"http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/downloads/technique/documents/HighPassContrast.pdf]JPC High Pass[/url] doesn't use USM - it uses a stamp layer in overlay mode at opacity 20% with the shadows and highlights masked using Blend If, and runs a High Pass filter at radius 50 & Desaturates. J-P credits this approach to Mac Holbert. Each of them creates a slightly different effect. It's handy to make Actions of both. I find myself making more use of the Action from J-P's workflow, because it has a lot of ex-post flex to adjust the effect to taste. But both work fine and are very useful. The one caution I would recommend to users of either approach is that when it comes to output sharpening of images with that effect implemented, one does need a bit of extra care to not over-sharpen - the image can become too "brittle".
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Naw, he's pissed cause he can't sell camera profiles to people using Camera Raw/Lightroom...
:~)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183593\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
No, I'm pissed because if my lighting happens to be spiky, or my camera happens to be a strange sample, or, or, or, I cannot just compute a matrix and tell LR or ACR to honor that and be done.
This is not a software difficulty, it's a conscious decision by Adobe not to allow the user to input a matrix. And also ***not honoring whatever matrix is already there in the Raw file's tags***.
It's not a technical issue, all the hooks are already there. ACR and LR use a matrix, but it's always their own (interpolated) matrix -except maybe when reading DNG. The rest of the world would like to be able to mandate the use of a different matrix.
And yes, incidentally, this closed door policy does lock out third party camera calibration tools, and color consultants.
This issue keeps cropping up again and again in the small world of camera color management. I raised it with Thomas at Photokina, asking for profiles - no luck. I raised it with Manish at CIC in Albuquerque, asking for matrix input on the behalf of Xrite; it was again raised at the ICC meeting in Munich last month. It will probably again surface at the meeting in June if the camera guys decide to write their preferred matrix into the TIFF/EP files. It's a political problem with Adobe intent on keeping their system locked down and the rest of the world wanting it opened a bit.
There are increasingly color management technologies that could be brought to bear on Raw color fidelity in much the same way as spectros and printer linearisation can be brought to bear on print color. Various camera calibration technologies have been published or demonstrated, the latest of which is Dietmar Wueller's spectral response measurement device which was described to the ICC digital photo workgroup in Munich. But nobody can get these things to the user employing ACR and Lightroom because of the lockdown.
Oh, and by the way - hint, hint, I'd be delighted to talk in person to anyone ...
Edmund
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Look what I started. Shame on me
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Look what I started. Shame on me
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183618\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Why shame on you? What did you start? You asked a simple, legitimate question and got a slew of answers and some piffy debate. What else is new?
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Yes, and Adobe also seems to fight tooth and nail against ANY possibility of external camera calibration (input matrices) being accessible to users of ACR or Lightroom. Exactly why I cannot input a matrix into either of these pieces of software is something I fail to understand - or does Adobe seems to subscribe to the "Nanny knows best" school of thought.
When a piece of software does not offer crucial functionality - calibrated color in this case - I turn to the alternatives.
Edmund
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183576\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I thought that this was what the Calibrate Tab in ACR/LR were for. Utilizing something like the Thomas Fors or Rags Gardner script you can, so to speak, calibrate you camera to ACR/LR.
From the Rags Gardner site:
"...is a script for Adobe Photoshop that can be used to calibrate a camera's color response in an Adobe Camera Raw / Lightroom workflow. It performs the calibration based on the standardized colors of the GretagMacBeth ColorChecker target. It is based on Thomas Fors' ACR Calibrator script, which was the first automatic implementation of a calibration procedure suggested by Bruce Fraser."
Since each and every camera can be different, Adobe has, by putting in the Calibrate Tab, a way for calibrating each camera. If they were fighting tooth and nail against it, they simply could have left it out. I'm sure that Mr. Fraser had a strong hand in making sure that this was available in ACR/LR and is explained in all three versions of his-and Jeff's book. The scripts just automate the process.
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Should noise reduction in ACR 4.4 be performed befor or after input sharpening.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183600\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
ACR 4.4(and the LR version) have been pulled and is being recommended that you should roll back to v 4.3x. Noise reduction should be done before sharpening if possible. Why would you want to sharpen noise?
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Keith,
To effect the Raw conversion, ACR determines primaries that will be associated with each of the Bayer filtered sensor cells. External calibration means supplying such a matrix numerically directly to the software. Such a user-supplied matrix can be informed by sophisticated knowledge of the camera and the lighting. The Fors you refer to scripts just "plays around" with the adjustments available in the software itself, when given a colorchecker image.
Edmund
I thought that this was what the Calibrate Tab in ACR/LR were for. Utilizing something like the Thomas Fors or Rags Gardner script you can, so to speak, calibrate you camera to ACR/LR.
From the Rags Gardner site:
"...is a script for Adobe Photoshop that can be used to calibrate a camera's color response in an Adobe Camera Raw / Lightroom workflow. It performs the calibration based on the standardized colors of the GretagMacBeth ColorChecker target. It is based on Thomas Fors' ACR Calibrator script, which was the first automatic implementation of a calibration procedure suggested by Bruce Fraser."
Since each and every camera can be different, Adobe has, by putting in the Calibrate Tab, a way for calibrating each camera. If they were fighting tooth and nail against it, they simply could have left it out. I'm sure that Mr. Fraser had a strong hand in making sure that this was available in ACR/LR and is explained in all three versions of his-and Jeff's book. The scripts just automate the process.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183628\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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Why shame on you? What did you start? You asked a simple, legitimate question and got a slew of answers and some piffy debate. What else is new?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183622\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Hahaha, true. I was really joking when I said that. It seems this was the topic of the week, and someone just simply needed to post it.
It seems that many of us need to go over our ACR skills and bring them up to date also.
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It seems that many of us need to go over our ACR skills and bring them up to date also.
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Doug, yes, the changes in ACR from 3.7 to 4.x are so fundamental and so powerful that it really behoves one to commit real time to mastering it - pays handsome dividends. There are two approaches - (1) experiment with all of it, extensively, and (2) read Fraser/Schewe "Real World Adobe Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3". It is an excellent resource - you can see my review of it on-line at Amazon.com [a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0321518675/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1]Real World Camera Raw - Reviews[/url], where the book is well-priced. And no - this is not a sales plug - I have no reason to - it's what I really think.
Mark
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No, I'm pissed because if my lighting happens to be spiky, or my camera happens to be a strange sample, or, or, or, I cannot just compute a matrix and tell LR or ACR to honor that and be done.
And you've not answered a simple question about your ability or inability to render an image as you desire. I'm not sure what the spikyness of an illuminant has to do with any of this and doesn't address the fundamental and simply question.
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External calibration means supplying such a matrix numerically directly to the software. Such a user-supplied matrix can be informed by sophisticated knowledge of the camera and the lighting. The Fors you refer to scripts just "plays around" with the adjustments available in the software itself, when given a colorchecker image.
Edmund
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183636\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
So again, with or without the script, the ONLY way you can render an image to a color appearance you so desire is to use a package that allows you to use a custom camera profile? If so, some of us want to examine your Raw files and what you're attempting to render.
You may have had conversations with Thomas, but it appears like so many before you, your desire for a function in an Adobe product was either ill defined, is a solution is search of a problem or, you don't have the problem you think you do.
Lots of Adobe users ask for feature requests, so few know how to do so correctly and based on the very smart people at Adobe who decide how to design a product. You need to demonstrate scientifically (or supply the math, good luck) that without the ability to build and use custom ICC profiles in ACR, the product is unable to produce the results most users require. The group grumbling about this are often those who sell profiles, or software to build profiles. That's not at all been a convincing group so far, probably because they have totally failed to illustrate other than a want, why this is necessary. Thomas didn't leave out ICC profiles to piss off companies trying to sell ineffective camera profiling software, it did it because none of these people have illustrated why its at all useful to anyone but those companies.
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You need to demonstrate scientifically (or supply the math, good luck) that without the ability to build and use custom ICC profiles in ACR, the product is unable to produce the results most users require
I don't think even Adobe would come up with such a nonsense. If something is not working as expected, then I as the customer do not need to prove, that it could not work whatever I triad - the software manufacturer has to show, that it *can* work and *how* it can be done.
As it is now, this has not happened. Adobe has not provided a straightforward, exact way to achieve the best color conversion. The profiles created with the Forst and Rags scripts are based on three (or four?) squares of the Gretag checker and the result is still not as good as for example Canon's DPP is creating.
The new DNG specification adds some color conversion related tags, I wonder what these are addressing.
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I was a great fan of RSP before Adobe bought them out. I still use RSP because their 'detail' and 'vibrancy' controls are capable of a much more dramatic effect than any of these new controls in ACR, such as 'clarity', 'detail' and 'vibrancy', which I presume are concepts that were borrowed from RSP.
I sort of feel that Adobe should be a bit bolder with its control options in ACR. On the other hand, I can see a problem here. When controls can have a dramatic effect, the options for producing really bad results also increase.
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I don't think even Adobe would come up with such a nonsense. If something is not working as expected, then I as the customer do not need to prove, that it could not work whatever I triad - the software manufacturer has to show, that it *can* work and *how* it can be done.
Ah, you've leaped past the point of my questions about not working as expected. That's not the complaint as yet. Who has yet proven the basic premise that the product isn't working?
As it is now, this has not happened. Adobe has not provided a straightforward, exact way to achieve the best color conversion. The profiles created with the Forst and Rags scripts are based on three (or four?) squares of the Gretag checker and the result is still not as good as for example Canon's DPP is creating.
Some may not see exactly what's going on here. The process aids (some would say ensures) that IF you capture the Macbeth color checker, you can get out the back end (output referred) the correct RGB values in a fixed output referred working space (ProPhoto RGB).
This is useful for all photographers shooting Macbeth color checkers. If you're not, then its questionable if not using OTHER rendering controls to produce a desired color appearance isn't were a user should move. It goes back to the simple question no one wants to answer.
Note, you don't need the scripts, nor did Bruce Fraser who came up with this process to get the correct RGB values. You can, as Bruce originally did, move all the calibrate sliders manually to get the values he was aiming for. Note that there's nothing that says you can't alter non-Calibrate sliders to get the values and save a preset. But the values he was aiming for alter the rendering to produce output referred RGB values of this target.
One can now say "I've calibrated my chip" or something along those lines and they would be correct. You've produced the same Macbeth values in ProPhoto as Thomas did with his camera sample(s). It doesn't guarantee anything else you photograph will automatically be the desired color for any other condition (scene and scene gamut, dynamic range or illuminant).
Those who beg for custom profiles never tell us that using such a profile guarantees every capture is now "correct" either subjectively or colorimetrically as was done using the Fraser technique on this single capture. Or if using a calibration process to tweak your chip to what the two profiles were designed for is a less effective use of a CMS. So we end up with the original and simple question: using or not using such scripts, are you unable to produce a desired rendering?
In the end, we hear people say "we want profiles" but without an ounce of proof why or how it would be any better than the arguably different system we have in ACR/LR.
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The profiles created with the Forst and Rags scripts are based on three (or four?) squares of the Gretag checker ....[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183742\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
From the Gardner site:
ACR Calibrator L adds a number of enhancements, the most important of which is that it performs a single 6-dimensional optimization on the calibration sliders, using all patches, instead of alternating the calibration of red, green and blue. In some cases, this improves the stability of the algorithm.
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I was a great fan of RSP before Adobe bought them out. I still use RSP because their 'detail' and 'vibrancy' controls are capable of a much more dramatic effect than any of these new controls in ACR, such as 'clarity', 'detail' and 'vibrancy', which I presume are concepts that were borrowed from RSP.
I sort of feel that Adobe should be a bit bolder with its control options in ACR. On the other hand, I can see a problem here. When controls can have a dramatic effect, the options for producing really bad results also increase.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183746\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Ray, I tried RSP some time before ACR 4.x appeared with these controls. RSP's Vibrancy was arguably more aggressive, but I think the Adobe implementation is more refined and works well. I always find that I can't push Vibrancy and Clarity in ACR too far before the image begins to look "pumped" and artificial. That tells me these tools have all *I* need. YMMV.
Mark
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I don't think even Adobe would come up with such a nonsense. If something is not working as expected, then I as the customer do not need to prove, that it could not work whatever I triad - the software manufacturer has to show, that it *can* work and *how* it can be done.
As it is now, this has not happened. Adobe has not provided a straightforward, exact way to achieve the best color conversion. The profiles created with the Forst and Rags scripts are based on three (or four?) squares of the Gretag checker and the result is still not as good as for example Canon's DPP is creating.
The new DNG specification adds some color conversion related tags, I wonder what these are addressing.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183742\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Pano, I'm perplexed with this post. What do you mean when you say "something is not working as expected"? What was expected and what isn't working properly in relation to that?
As for the obligations of the software manufacturer - look - it's a commercial enterprise whose shareholders reward or punish its management based on sales and profits, so the management has to produce something the market accepts or they're out. The fact that Photoshop has grown through 10 versions over almost a couple of decades, Adobe stock is doing well and the program (including ACR) has become the world's premier image editing application speaks for itself. Not to say it doesn't have issues, but everything does, and just look at what it CAN do - in capable hands. Adobe doesn't have a tradition of publishing the last word on what Photoshop can do or how (there would be no such thing as a last word with this program anyhow - it's too deep). Rather, a whole industry has developed around the program with numerous very well qualified and experienced authors doing that for them - and for us. This is all to the good. It's win-win-win for Adobe, the Photoshop education industry and us users.
Now you go on to say that "Adobe has not provided a straightforward, exact way to achieve the best color conversion". I don't understand the operational significance of that statement. What do you mean by "straightforward", "exact" and "best color conversion". Unless you explain these things in some tangible, objective manner the meaning of this statement is impenetrable.
Then you bring in the Fors and Rags scripts. I don't know where those fit this discussion. Do you know how Thomas Knoll profiles the cameras and creates the recipes for the display representation and the rendering? Have you seen information suggesting that he uses the Fors or Rags methodology, exclusively, for doing this? I'm curious. Indeed, in all of this discussion, it would be good to see some concrete explanation from any one who knows - in what ways do the Fors/Rags approach differ from the Thomas Knoll approach and whose is likely to deliver more "reliable" conversions (with some objective definition of what that means). I've never seen such an explanation, yet this is what's needed to make much sense of this discussion.
You say the results using ACR are not as "good" as those from Canon DPP. What does "good" mean here - because as it stands, this again is a statement devoid of operational significance - the term "good" is subjective, an adjective, and not an objective descriptor of a desired result.
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................... The process aids (some would say ensures) that IF you capture the Macbeth color checker, you can get out the back end (output referred) the correct RGB values in a fixed output referred working space (ProPhoto RGB).
........................... It goes back to the simple question no one wants to answer.
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[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183763\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Well, indeed. The devil is in the details of the "IF". I have a very strong sense that unless the GMCC is shot under very controlled conditions it's a pointless exercise.
Now don't say "no-one" wants to answer your question. I'll repeat your question here for convenience, and I'll acknowledge at once that I know it was not addressed to me, but I'll answer it anyhow:
<<Are you saying that the current sets of rendering controls do not allow you to produce a desired rendering from the Raw? On some or all images?>>
I've probably pushed about a couple of thousand images through the ACR 4.x series since it became available - a considerable variety of stuff. It's an extremely capable piece of software and takes me a very long way to the final product. It lacks three fundamental functions which require trips into Photoshop: no masking (except in the sharpening tab), no output sharpening and no soft-proofing. I can think of further refinements which would add more precision targeting capabilities to its global adjustments, but we do have Photoshop for that. With all the permutations and combinations of adjustments this plug-in allows, my sense is that the primary limitation on outcomes is the user's capability to make it deliver. Sure, there will always be those situations where one wished it could do a little more or a little different of this or that - and I could develop this discussion - but no point - there isn't a piece of software on earth that does everything everyone wants all the time. So let's get real.
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What do you mean when you say "something is not working as expected"?
The colors produced by ACR for several cameras (for example for Canons, based on *many* users' complaints) are off. If color fidelity is not among your expectations, then I don't know, what subject you are discussing.
The fact that Photoshop has grown through 10 versions over almost a couple of decades, Adobe stock is doing well and the program (including ACR) has become the world's premier image editing application speaks for itself
Valid arguments among lay people (I mean in software development). I guess you are criticlessly satisfied with Windows as well - Microsoft is a much more successful company, than Adobe.
Now you go on to say that "Adobe has not provided a straightforward, exact way to achieve the best color conversion". I don't understand the operational significance of that statement. What do you mean by "straightforward", "exact" and "best color conversion". Unless you explain these things in some tangible, objective manner the meaning of this statement is impenetrable
I, as a software developer don't expect my customers to search in internet for the information necessary to the full utilization of my products
Then you bring in the Fors and Rags scripts. I don't know where those fit this discussion
I really don't understand what you don't understand. Don't you know what these scripts are doing? Don't you think they are useful? Do you know of other ways of computerized calculation of the calibration parameters?
Do you know how Thomas Knoll profiles the cameras and creates the recipes for the display representation and the rendering?
Who cares? That's a black box, as it should be.
Have you seen information suggesting that he uses the Fors or Rags methodology, exclusively, for doing this?
I seriously doubt it, but again, that is irrelevant for the user.
You say the results using ACR are not as "good" as those from Canon DPP. What does "good" mean here
I think it would be better to ask those users, who prefer DPP to ACR, perhaps they have inclination to discuss such questions. I do prefer ACR in most cases, but color fidelity is less important for me than for many other users. My initial impression was, that the subject is the quality of color reproduction of ACR and the viability of third-party vendors on that area, not the question, what "good color" means.
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Doug, yes, the changes in ACR from 3.7 to 4.x are so fundamental and so powerful that it really behoves one to commit real time to mastering it - pays handsome dividends. There are two approaches - (1) experiment with all of it, extensively, and (2) read Fraser/Schewe "Real World Adobe Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3". It is an excellent resource - you can see my review of it on-line at Amazon.com Real World Camera Raw - Reviews (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0321518675/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1), where the book is well-priced. And no - this is not a sales plug - I have no reason to - it's what I really think.
Mark
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183724\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Yes but what version of ACR do they cover? CS3 came with 4.0.
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CLARITY HI-JACKED!
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The colors produced by ACR for several cameras (for example for Canons, based on *many* users' complaints) are off.
Off (whatever that means) when and how? As a default or no matter what you try to adjust in the UI??????????
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Yes but what version of ACR do they cover? CS3 came with 4.0.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183824\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
4.1 - and in the book they say they provide a web-site link where they will post up-dated information for future versions. In terms of program features, 4.1 is still "current".
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The colors produced by ACR for several cameras (for example for Canons, based on *many* users' complaints) are off. If color fidelity is not among your expectations, then I don't know, what subject you are discussing.
Valid arguments among lay people (I mean in software development). I guess you are criticlessly satisfied with Windows as well - Microsoft is a much more successful company, than Adobe.
I, as a software developer don't expect my customers to search in internet for the information necessary to the full utilization of my products
I really don't understand what you don't understand. Don't you know what these scripts are doing? Don't you think they are useful? Do you know of other ways of computerized calculation of the calibration parameters?
Who cares? That's a black box, as it should be.
I seriously doubt it, but again, that is irrelevant for the user.
I think it would be better to ask those users, who prefer DPP to ACR, perhaps they have inclination to discuss such questions. I do prefer ACR in most cases, but color fidelity is less important for me than for many other users. My initial impression was, that the subject is the quality of color reproduction of ACR and the viability of third-party vendors on that area, not the question, what "good color" means.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183822\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What do you mean by "colors are off" - Is it that I photograph a color checker, open it in ACR and the values aren't the same as those of the patches?
No-one with a brain in their head accepts anything "uncritically". So let's not side-track the discussion with personal innuendo. And by the way, I think Windows XP on the whole is a very good operating system. Does it have issues - sure. Are they train-smashes? No.
Have you developed a piece of software as complex as Photoshop and tried to explain it exhaustively to the tens of millions of users at all experience levels? Do you really think you are asking for something sensible in this context? Does Microsoft bundle with Office a complete and transparent manual for using Excel?
I know what the Fors scripts are doing. Been there long ago, read the whole thing. If the whole process is prepared and used with great care perhaps it's value-added. OTH, high-end professional cameras are probably manufactured to perform quite uniformly from copy to copy, so once Thomas Knoll calibrates one of them for ACR it's probably satisfactory for most intents and purposes.
OK, so "good color" means "color fidelity", "color fidelity" means what, going back to the initial question. I downloaded DPP, tried it once and trashed it. No way I would substitute that for Camera Raw.
You say colour fidelity is not that critical for most of what you do. Same here if by that you mean some standard of scene-referred accuracy. I know it is for some folks. If you're doing commercial photography and your client is a brewery who tells you the colour of the beer in the glass needs to be Pantone XXX, then you'd darn well better produce a glass of beer that's Pantone XXX. And I'll bet a dollar to a dime that many of the folks doing that kind of work are using ACR and Photoshop, or if they're using Phase backs they could well be using Capture for the raw conversion. If they don't get the accuracy they need "straight out of the box", there are plenty of controls for achieving it - and the more experienced they are, the less they'll break-out in a sweat over it.
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Ray, I tried RSP some time before ACR 4.x appeared with these controls. RSP's Vibrancy was arguably more aggressive, but I think the Adobe implementation is more refined and works well. I always find that I can't push Vibrancy and Clarity in ACR too far before the image begins to look "pumped" and artificial. That tells me these tools have all *I* need. YMMV.
Mark
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183793\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Point taken, Mark. I should not have included vibrancy in that comment. The vibrancy and saturation controls in ACR are more than sufficient with regard to the range of adjustments possible.
It's the 'clarity' and 'detail' controls that seem a bit tame. There's a characteristic quality that RSP's 'detail extraction' can produce that I find difficult to emulate in ACR.
In other words, ACR's 'clarity' and 'detail' controls, both at maximum adjustment and with sharpening at zero, do not equal RSP's 'detail extraction' at maximum with sharpening also at zero.
The closest I can get (in ACR) to that single adjustment in RSP of 'detail extraction' at maximum, is 'detail' and 'clarity' at 100% plus sharpening at 50% with a radius of 1 pixel.
The following 100% crops show the ACR conversion on the left with detail and clarity at 100%, sharpening zero, compared with the RSP conversion with detail extraction at maximum and sharpening at zero.
[attachment=5713:attachment]
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What do you mean by "colors are off" ...
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Mark,
While I like your contributions,
and that’s really the only reason why I’m going to comment,
you might wish to have a look at my recent [a href=\"http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=24087]feature request[/url].
Please assume that I understand the science part of ACR calibration (http://21stcenturyshoebox.com/essays/color_reproduction.html) well enough,
and that I’m also familiar enough with the given ACR rendering controls such as Clarity to derive a somewhat pleasing rendition.
Peter
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Point taken, Mark. I should not have included vibrancy in that comment. The vibrancy and saturation controls in ACR are more than sufficient with regard to the range of adjustments possible.
It's the 'clarity' and 'detail' controls that seem a bit tame. There's a characteristic quality that RSP's 'detail extraction' can produce that I find difficult to emulate in ACR.
In other words, ACR's 'clarity' and 'detail' controls, both at maximum adjustment and with sharpening at zero, do not equal RSP's 'detail extraction' at maximum with sharpening also at zero.
The closest I can get (in ACR) to that single adjustment in RSP of 'detail extraction' at maximum, is 'detail' and 'clarity' at 100% plus sharpening at 50% with a radius of 1 pixel.
The following 100% crops show the ACR conversion on the left with detail and clarity at 100%, sharpening zero, compared with the RSP conversion with detail extraction at maximum and sharpening at zero.
[attachment=5713:attachment]
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183868\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Hi Ray, that's a very interesting pair of images. I think what it shows is that while RSP bundled local contrast enhancement and sharpening in one very effective tool, with ACR you would need to use two tools for roughly equivalent effect. Your left image shows pretty much what is to be expected from ACR - at zero Amount you get zero sharpening regardless of where you set Detail.
Beyond that, I think it becomes a matter of personal workflow preference. I'm actually not very attracted to packing much clarity or sharpening into an image at the raw processing stage, because once you render the image, depending on what else you do (especially the interplay between local contrast enhancement [LCE] and sharpening - which could evolve right through to the soft-proofing stage), you could regret the extent of these adjustments and then you need to go back to the raw (unless in ACR/PS you've imported the raw as a Smart Object) to undo it. I tend to prefer the separation of LCE from sharpening, and apply the former conservatively at the raw stage IF I have no doubt I won't regret it. Then mild capture sharpening in the raw conversion process is fine provided one then doesn't repeat capture sharpening in Photoshop, and provided upon Output Sharpening one doesn't make the image brittle.
So what I'm discussing here really is how to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of the workflow between the ACR stage and the PS stage, and I find the separation and fine adjustability of LCE and capture sharpening in ACR to be helpful in this pursuit.
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Mark,
While I like your contributions,
and that’s really the only reason why I’m going to comment,
you might wish to have a look at my recent feature request (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=24087).
Please assume that I understand the science part of ACR calibration (http://21stcenturyshoebox.com/essays/color_reproduction.html) well enough,
and that I’m also familiar enough with the given ACR rendering controls such as Clarity to derive a somewhat pleasing rendition.
Peter
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[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183882\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Peter, thanks for those references - and Tindemans' site is very useful indeed.
I think the merits of combining Raw+JPG processing is a subject that extends well beyond the question from the OP, interesting as it is. I'd have to think more about it, but the fundamental premise and the prospective valued-added would be the first areas on which I'd focus.
I guess I'm saying this because when it comes to the difficult type of images (typically those with much deep shade and extreme highlights) where such novel techniques would likely be most called-upon, I've never been terribly impressed with the JPEG renderings of even the most expensive Canon DSLRs, but of course this is an individual judgment and everyones' MMV.
I have experimented shooting raw and JPEG to see whether I could use the JPEG as some kind of reference image. It turned out to be more of a nuisance than an assist. I just shoot raw and use the controls in ACR 4.3 and Photoshop to reproduce what motivated me to make the photograph. This of course is something the engineers in Canon can't know. It's the creative side of the image creation process.
I find I can obtain more than a "somewhat pleasing" rendition from ACR. I'd say that is an accurate descriptor up to and including ACR 3.7, but with 4.x enough control is there to go well beyond the "somewhat pleasing", including quite respectable division of control between luminosity and saturation (and yes I'm all too painfully knowledgeable about all the controversy surrounding this subject), significant and powerful tools for improving contrast and image detail in the dark tones and of course there is local contrast enhancement - to revert to Doug Dallam's original question!
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CLARITY HI-JACKED!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183825\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
One has to ask, did this thread provide any clarity?
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One has to ask, did this thread provide any clarity?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183922\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
As a participant who tried, I shall have to recuse myself from trying to answer that (good) question!
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hmmm, is it safe to wade back in and discuss 'clarity'?
ACR 4.4(and the LR version) have been pulled and is being recommended that you should roll back to v 4.3x. Noise reduction should be done before sharpening if possible. Why would you want to sharpen noise?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183631\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What if you prefer to apply NR to a image with a layer mask?
So do you use the noise reduction in ACR? Isn't the ACR noise reduction as crude as the ACR sharpening once was, precipitating the use of NR outside of the converter (as it was once better to do capture sharpoening outside of ACR)?
And I, for one, would also appreciate and benefit from any small tutorial on how to use the clarity slider. Rarely do I set it much beyond '10', except on photos with smog or other air particles. I've read somewhere that you need to judge it's application when viewed at 100%. I find this really doesn't help much. I see how when judging sharpening that 100% viewing helps. I can see the haloes better. But when viewing the effects of moving the clarity slider at 100% view I find it really doesn't help me.
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Not addressed to me but I'll take a stab.
What if you prefer to apply NR to a image with a layer mask?
Then doing it in the converter isn't possible and you have to do it later.
So do you use the noise reduction in ACR? Isn't the ACR noise reduction as crude as the ACR sharpening once was, precipitating the use of NR outside of the converter (as it was once better to do capture sharpoening outside of ACR)?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183946\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I've found that for most of my cameras after my 300D (20D, Xti and 40D) ACR's noise reduction is just fine. For those images where it is not (read:G9) I turn off sharpening in ACR and do noise reduction and sharpening in PS.
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I've found that for most of my cameras after my 300D (20D, Xti and 40D) ACR's noise reduction is just fine. For those images where it is not (read:G9) I turn off sharpening in ACR and do noise reduction and sharpening in PS.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183948\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
With a 5D, I'd agree too. Now, if and when I shoot 3200, I'm getting better results using Noiseware in Photoshop but that's not something I would need for all images. Jeff might pipe in here, there was a pretty big increase in quality of noise reduction between version 1.0 and one of the later builds (1.3?). The defaults settings when viewed as they should be (100%) do help and of course you can alter those settings.
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if and when I shoot 3200, I'm getting better results using Noiseware in Photoshop
This is surprizing, for ISO 3200 is a numerical derivative of ISO 1600 on the 5D, so the noise structure must be identical.
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Hi Ray, that's a very interesting pair of images. I think what it shows is that while RSP bundled local contrast enhancement and sharpening in one very effective tool, with ACR you would need to use two tools for roughly equivalent effect. Your left image shows pretty much what is to be expected from ACR - at zero Amount you get zero sharpening regardless of where you set Detail.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183890\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Hi Mark,
I take your point that 'detail' in ACR has no effect unless one also applies some sharpening. With sharpening at zero, it's irrelevant what setting 'detail' is on.
However, having applied 50% sharpening with 'detail' at 100%, I get a similar effect to RSP's 'detail extraction' at maximum (no sharpening), except there's an appealing quality of color solidity to the RSP image which I fail to emulate in ACR.
Perhaps you, or Andrew Rodney or Jeff Schewe would have no trouble emulating this RSP effect in ACR. I cannot.
[attachment=5726:attachment]
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Hi Mark,
I take your point that 'detail' in ACR has no effect unless one also applies some sharpening. With sharpening at zero, it's irrelevant what setting 'detail' is on.
However, having applied 50% sharpening with 'detail' at 100%, I get a similar effect to RSP's 'detail extraction' at maximum (no sharpening), except there's an appealing quality of color solidity to the RSP image which I fail to emulate in ACR.
Perhaps you, or Andrew Rodney or Jeff Schewe would have no trouble emulating this RSP effect in ACR. I cannot.
[attachment=5726:attachment]
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=184063\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Ray, I'm not too sure what "color solidity" is, but I'll surmise from looking at your illustration that it is a combination of saturation and clarity. I agree your RSP example looks quite smart. Looking at that image, have a go at setting ACR's Recovery to a value somewhere between 3~5 to tame the highlights which look close to blowing. If you are not yet at clipping in the blacks, I would then slide the Blacks up a value of 1 or 2. This tends to add "body" to all colours as well as to improve contrast. Now, if you think there is not quite enough tonal separation in the dark range of the image, increase Fill - I would suggest to no more than a value of 20, then increase Blacks again to the clipping point. Then I would boost both Vibrance and Clarity to taste, and have a second look at the sharpening settings - particularly the Radius - setting it just a wee bit to the right in the context of those other adjustments could take you very close to equilibrating the two images or even better. Then you have a whole panoply of other controls in Curves and HSL if it hasn't yet floated your boat................
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This is surprizing, for ISO 3200 is a numerical derivative of ISO 1600 on the 5D, so the noise structure must be identical.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183991\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
When I shoot ISO 1600 I still get better results using Noiseware in Photoshop....
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I guess what I am trying to ascertain is whether it is better to use ACR's (what I thought were) crude NR capabilities or whether it is better to use a 3rd NR dedictaed plugin (like Ninja, Neat Image ect.).
I understand that theoretically it is best to do NR early as possible, so that one doesn't sharpen the noise before the NR is applied. Obviously it can't be done any earlier than during RAW conversion.
However I also realise that NR, like sharpenig, is best applied using a layer mask so that only the areas with noise are targeted. This isn't possible in ACR (unless it too uses the same mask, the inversion, that can be used for capture sharpening).
So what is the better route?
a) Early in ACR which applied globally would soften non-noisy areas
OR
in PS employing a layer mask that targets the noisy surface regions.
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I guess what I am trying to ascertain is whether it is better to use ACR's (what I thought were) crude NR capabilities or whether it is better to use a 3rd NR dedictaed plugin (like Ninja, Neat Image ect.).
[...]
So what is the better route?
a) Early in ACR which applied globally would soften non-noisy areas
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My 2c's : I'd vote for this one - as long as we're not talking of a 1/3" digicam @6400ISO , the softening will be rather stealth.
There will still be some luminance noise revealed after vigorous contrast enhancements, which may not be that objectionable after all as long long there is enough detail underneath...
It's a matter of taste, definitely, as there is always a tradeoff between noise and detail.
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My 2c's : I'd vote for this one - as long as we're not talking of a 1/3" digicam @6400ISO , the softening will be rather stealth.
There will still be some luminance noise revealed after vigorous contrast enhancements, which may not be that objectionable after all as long long there is enough detail underneath...
It's a matter of taste, definitely, as there is always a tradeoff between noise and detail.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=184547\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thanks for your reply. I am curious how many of the pros here resolve this dilemma.
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Andrew,
I'm entertained by your comment about proving things scientifically, but simple reasoning should suffice for our little topic here - it's not rocket science. - As for existing marketed methods not working - I agree
1. There is no color directly associated with the pixel data in a Raw file. The color is (re)created as part of the Raw conversion process, which then maps the pixels into a color space.
2. We call this mapping process "rendering". It relies on information about the camera to create colors. Eg. identical Bayer pixel data from a different Canon or Nikon model will render to a different color file.
3. Therefore some external information other than pixel data is key to establishing the color of the rendering. This information is camera-dependent.
4. Hence, unless the software manufacturer is omniscient, better information about the camera used to make the capture —calibration information— will improve the quality of the rendering.
Edmund
So again, with or without the script, the ONLY way you can render an image to a color appearance you so desire is to use a package that allows you to use a custom camera profile? If so, some of us want to examine your Raw files and what you're attempting to render.
You may have had conversations with Thomas, but it appears like so many before you, your desire for a function in an Adobe product was either ill defined, is a solution is search of a problem or, you don't have the problem you think you do.
Lots of Adobe users ask for feature requests, so few know how to do so correctly and based on the very smart people at Adobe who decide how to design a product. You need to demonstrate scientifically (or supply the math, good luck) that without the ability to build and use custom ICC profiles in ACR, the product is unable to produce the results most users require. The group grumbling about this are often those who sell profiles, or software to build profiles. That's not at all been a convincing group so far, probably because they have totally failed to illustrate other than a want, why this is necessary. Thomas didn't leave out ICC profiles to piss off companies trying to sell ineffective camera profiling software, it did it because none of these people have illustrated why its at all useful to anyone but those companies.
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2. We call this mapping process "rendering". It relies on information about the camera to create colors. Eg. identical Bayer pixel data from a different Canon or Nikon model will render to a different color file.
Here's where we go in different directions. Rendering (the process of conversion from scene to output referred) is the job of the photographer or image creator using the Raw converter. This isn't an automatic process (otherwise, lets just shoot JPEGs from in camera processing). And as yet, the pro ICC camp has not proved that using a profile automatically produces the desired color appearance for all scenes forging the need to use the supplied rendering controls in a converter.
No one in the pro ICC custom camera profile camp has suggested that a profile is a magic bullet that automatically by default makes this rendering preferred, correct or otherwise because that's simply not what happens. They might suggest "It provides a better starting point" (an argument that those who shoot Raw with a custom white balance suggest), but in both cases, white card or ICC profile, no one has or should (or can) demonstrate that using either produces the desired color without user intervention. That being the case, then I turn the question the other way: without either technique, are you unable to produce a desired color appearance with the current toolset. As yet, the pro ICC camp refuses to answer this. Or, if the default rendering takes 8 steps to get to a closer starting point, why not just do this once, save a preset? Its going to be a lot faster and easier than trying to photograph a target to build a profile, let alone build the profile too.
Basically, the side that says "We must have access to profiles" has totally failed to express why they must have them, they've totally failed to prove that the current products discussed are unable to produce a desired color appearance without said profiles. They've totally failed to prove that colorimetrically correct capture is anything but a starting point for rendering by the user. They've totally failed to prove to the pretty smart color guys at Adobe that such profiles are necessary.
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Andrew,
A profile or matrix is there already in the Adobe software; this is like a canned printer profile -good but can be improved. And this matrix sets the place where automation stops and the photographer's job starts.
If you wish, the Adobe profile is the equivalent of the native Epson printer driver - it gives excellent results, but someone with access to a spectro and software can improve the print channel or customize the rendering of a print to specific light
In the same way, someone with access to a spectroradiometer to measure ambient light, and a monochromator to measure the camera's spectral response can significantly tailor the quality of the Raw rendering.
Of course, this just sets a better starting point for the photographers's work. Andthis is nothing like the profiling packages now marketed.
Last but not least, Andrew, you keep saying Adobe, Adobe, Adobe, but in fact the camera guys make the cameras, not Adobe, in the same way the printer guys make the printers, not Adobe. And the camera guys seem to find the idea of customized camera matrices quite reasonable - you think they don't understand their equipment ?
Edmund
Basically, the side that says "We must have access to profiles" has totally failed to express why they must have them, they've totally failed to prove that the current products discussed are unable to produce a desired color appearance without said profiles. They've totally failed to prove that colorimetrically correct capture is anything but a starting point for rendering by the user. They've totally failed to prove to the pretty smart color guys at Adobe that such profiles are necessary.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=184705\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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A profile or matrix is there already in the Adobe software; this is like a canned printer profile -good but can be improved.
Well other than using the Calibrate tab, that's yet to be proven. Even without the calibrate tab, plenty of users provide a color rendering they desire. So this goes back to the question of, can you or can you not produce the color you desire and is using the Calibrate tab OR some custom profile going to do much for you. I suspect the vast majority of LR/ACR users are not messing around with Calibrate. In fact while I did run this routine on my previous camera, I've found no reason to do so with my 5D. Nor do I have an issues getting out of LR what I want.
And this matrix sets the place where automation stops and the photographer's job starts.
If you wish, the Adobe profile is the equivalent of the native Epson printer driver - it gives excellent results, but someone with access to a spectro and software can improve the print channel or customize the rendering of a print to specific light.
A far better analogy would be, here's where the Epson driver starts WITH a canned Epson profile versus building your own. With just the Epson driver, yes I can get a decent print. Without either the canned or custom profile, I can't soft proof, I can't get the RGB values IN Photoshop to send to the printer etc. The profile(s) we have in ACR/LR are where we now stand with good canned profiles from Epson. You might be able to get slightly better results rolling your own but the vast majority of users don't need to. And, unlike printing, Raw conversion is about moving all kinds of sliders around to get a desired color appearance. You do that before you print, then you want "what you see to be what you get". In this context, we're talking about getting what you want visually from the Raw data.
In the same way, someone with access to a spectroradiometer to measure ambient light, and a monochromator to measure the camera's spectral response can significantly tailor the quality of the Raw rendering.
That would get us far closer to this desired goal of a scene built input profile yes. We're not there now. The current set of solutions is based on the false idea that if you shoot some target (with a gamut that's a far cry from scene gamut), that the dynamic range of the scene and target are the same, you someone fingerprint the way the device captures the color which is still scene referred and has to be output referred. At least with the above idea, you can measure the illuminate and items in the scene if so desired. And the profile here is capture specific, not a single (or better in the case of LR/ACR duel) profile that is supposed to fingerprint anything in front of the sensor.
Even still, its doesn't (nor will it) guarantee the user will not need to alter the rendering controls to get what they desire. No more than shooting a Macbeth with 4 different kinds of E6 film will produce either the same color appearance or the "correct" color appearance.
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Furthermore, to improve upon the canned math in ACR you would need two necessary conditions: (a) you can do a better job profiling the camera than Thomas Knoll can, and ( there is noticeable copy-to-copy variability in the capture characterestics of the camera. My guess is that you would be very hard pressed on (a), and for ( - it doesn't apply - at least to the higher-end pro DSLRs, such as 1Ds series, 5D, D3, etc. I think that's why the majority of users, me includeed, ignore the calibrate tab.
What I would REALLY like, however, is some firmware in Canon cameras which allows users to find a systematic way of getting them to do ETTR instead of ETTL!
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I guess what I am trying to ascertain is whether it is better to use ACR's (what I thought were) crude NR capabilities or whether it is better to use a 3rd NR dedictaed plugin (like Ninja, Neat Image ect.).
I understand that theoretically it is best to do NR early as possible, so that one doesn't sharpen the noise before the NR is applied. Obviously it can't be done any earlier than during RAW conversion.
However I also realise that NR, like sharpenig, is best applied using a layer mask so that only the areas with noise are targeted. This isn't possible in ACR (unless it too uses the same mask, the inversion, that can be used for capture sharpening).
So what is the better route?
a) Early in ACR which applied globally would soften non-noisy areas
OR
in PS employing a layer mask that targets the noisy surface regions.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=184530\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
The mask in the Detail tab of Camera Raw applies for sharpening, not for noise reduction. If there is noise you wish to reduce - but not in ACR, then you should not sharpen in ACR either. Like you, I often prefer to target noise reduction to those areas where it shows, which needs layer masking that cannot be done in ACR. If you try noise reduction in ACR and find it satisfactory, then capture sharpening in ACR also makes sense.
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Furthermore, to improve upon the canned math in ACR you would need two necessary conditions: (a) you can do a better job profiling the camera than Thomas Knoll can, and ( there is noticeable copy-to-copy variability in the capture characterestics of the camera. My guess is that you would be very hard pressed on (a), and for ( - it doesn't apply - at least to the higher-end pro DSLRs, such as 1Ds series, 5D, D3, etc. I think that's why the majority of users, me includeed, ignore the calibrate tab.
What I would REALLY like, however, is some firmware in Canon cameras which allows users to find a systematic way of getting them to do ETTR instead of ETTL!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=184725\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It's pretty obvious that I can do a better job of calibrating *my* camera in my hand than Thomas Knoll can without seeing it, ever, if I have access to lab grade equipment to spectrally measure my camera's sensor response, and the ability to spectrally measure the lighting under which I take my shot.
In the same way, seven or eight years ago Andrew could certainly make a better profile of *his own* printer than the canned one supplied by a manufacturer. Of course, back in the days when he started making profiles the equipment (spectrophotometer) he needed was pretty rare and expensive, and could almost be considered lab grade. Nowadays,the printers are matched to close tolerances, and maybe even Andrew is the consultant who makes those canned profiles, so I guess then the canned profiles match his own printers
I'm not speaking off the top of my head here - I discuss this stuff with the camera manufacturer's techs and color scientists and Raw processor writers.
Edmund
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It's pretty obvious that I can do a better job of calibrating *my* camera in my hand than Thomas Knoll can without seeing it, ever, if I have access to lab grade equipment to spectrally measure my camera's sensor response, and the ability to spectrally measure the lighting under which I take my shot.
You don't need lab grade devices to do this. And what makes you think this is how Thomas makes his profiles in the first place (or that having such a device is necessary)?
Nowadays,the printers are matched to close tolerances, and maybe even Andrew is the consultant who makes those canned profiles, so I guess then the canned profiles match his own printers
Few could see the difference between the custom profile I built for Exhibition Fiber paper for my 3800/4800/7880 and the canned profiles I built for Epson on the same machines.
I'm not speaking off the top of my head here - I discuss this stuff with the camera manufacturer's techs and color scientists and Raw processor writers.
Well most of them (however they are) have done a piss poor job of convincing anyone else that its necessary, at least some of us color geeks and those at Adobe. Of course I've had no success speaking with camera manufactures techs about getting them to provide something reasonably useful in terms of the Raw data info on the back of their cameras.
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It's pretty obvious that I can do a better job of calibrating *my* camera in my hand than Thomas Knoll can without seeing it, ever, if I have access to lab grade equipment to spectrally measure my camera's sensor response, and the ability to spectrally measure the lighting under which I take my shot.
In the same way, seven or eight years ago Andrew could certainly make a better profile of *his own* printer than the canned one supplied by a manufacturer. Of course, back in the days when he started making profiles the equipment (spectrophotometer) he needed was pretty rare and expensive, and could almost be considered lab grade. Nowadays,the printers are matched to close tolerances, and maybe even Andrew is the consultant who makes those canned profiles, so I guess then the canned profiles match his own printers
I'm not speaking off the top of my head here - I discuss this stuff with the camera manufacturer's techs and color scientists and Raw processor writers.
Edmund
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"It's pretty obvious" doesn't answer my points, because it isn't "pretty obvious". What makes you think the cameras aren't manufactured to close tolerances today? We aren't talking about what may have been the case with printers ten years ago - we're talking about high-end camera manufacturing processes today.
I wouldn't suggest or assume you are talking off the top of your head, but you are making hypothetical points which may not reflect the reality.
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"It's pretty obvious" doesn't answer my points, because it isn't "pretty obvious". What makes you think the cameras aren't manufactured to close tolerances today? We aren't talking about what may have been the case with printers ten years ago - we're talking about high-end camera manufacturing processes today.
I wouldn't suggest or assume you are talking off the top of your head, but you are making hypothetical points which may not reflect the reality.
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The *top* cameras are indeed manufactured to very close tolerances these days. At least that's what the guys who make'em tell me -
Edmund
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The *top* cameras are indeed manufactured to very close tolerances these days. At least that's what the guys who make'em tell me -
Edmund
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Like they'd say otherwise?
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Like they'd say otherwise?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=184791\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Well, I've had indications that some of the non-pro cameras have been foobarred.
Edmund
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I feel like I'm in a physics class discussing light and human interface devices.
"Clarity," using it, and its pros and cons over other methods in ACR will be my next new thread.
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Just go here and scroll down to the section Clarity:
http://www.photoshopnews.com/2007/05/31/about-camera-raw-41/ (http://www.photoshopnews.com/2007/05/31/about-camera-raw-41/)
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Just go here and scroll down to the section Clarity:
http://www.photoshopnews.com/2007/05/31/about-camera-raw-41/ (http://www.photoshopnews.com/2007/05/31/about-camera-raw-41/)
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Eric, yes - good reference to what it does and how it works. Also well covered in Jeff's book.
The rest of Doug's query though is how it compares with other methods in Photoshop. For starters there's the general point that the more one can adjust up-stream of rendering the image the better in terms of preserving the integrity of the image file. There are several techniques for doing it in PS which can produce indistinguishable results. I mentioned these in a previous post discussing in tandem with Jeff the variations this technique has been through.
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Second only to KY, Clarity has become my favorite slider.
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The primary technical difference between doing sharpening in ACR/LR (and clarity falls into this category, because it is loosely a form of sharpening) and doing sharpening in PS is that in the former case it is performed in a linear space whereas in the latter case it is performed in a gamma-encoded (non-linear) space. This has subtle impacts on things like the brightness of light halos vs. dark halos, for instance. Of course one has more options in PS to adjust sharpening & clarity-like settings. In ACR/LR there is a single degree of freedom for clarity and four for sharpening.
So the natural follow-up question is whether any of these differences have any practical benefit or impact, one way or the other.
My opinion is that the primary advantage of having these operations performed in Camera Raw vs. PS is that CR will automatically apply the operations (e.g., clarity, sharpening, noise reduction) in an ordered sequence that minimizes artifacts (problems like unwanted hue shifts). For example, in CR you can decide to fiddle with the sliders in any order you want, go back and forth between them any number of times, but CR internally will apply the ops in a manner that makes sense.
In PS, doing operations on sequential adjustment layers -- even though they are non-destructive because you can always go back or turn off the -- is generally non-commutative. Doing a hue/sat adjustment layer prior to performing a RGB curve adj layer is not the same thing as the other way around ...
Eric
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The primary technical difference between doing sharpening in ACR/LR (and clarity falls into this category, because it is loosely a form of sharpening) and doing sharpening in PS is that in the former case it is performed in a linear space whereas in the latter case it is performed in a gamma-encoded (non-linear) space. This has subtle impacts on things like the brightness of light halos vs. dark halos, for instance. Of course one has more options in PS to adjust sharpening & clarity-like settings. In ACR/LR there is a single degree of freedom for clarity and four for sharpening.
So the natural follow-up question is whether any of these differences have any practical benefit or impact, one way or the other.
My opinion is that the primary advantage of having these operations performed in Camera Raw vs. PS is that CR will automatically apply the operations (e.g., clarity, sharpening, noise reduction) in an ordered sequence that minimizes artifacts (problems like unwanted hue shifts). For example, in CR you can decide to fiddle with the sliders in any order you want, go back and forth between them any number of times, but CR internally will apply the ops in a manner that makes sense.
In PS, doing operations on sequential adjustment layers -- even though they are non-destructive because you can always go back or turn off the -- is generally non-commutative. Doing a hue/sat adjustment layer prior to performing a RGB curve adj layer is not the same thing as the other way around ...
Eric
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Eric, I'm with you till the last para. This is something I hadn't heard before. I thought these Adj Layers would do the same thing regardless of the order in which they are implemented - but what does matter often is the order in which they are stacked - not necessarily the same thing of course.
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Eric, I'm with you till the last para. This is something I hadn't heard before. I thought these Adj Layers would do the same thing regardless of the order in which they are implemented - but what does matter often is the order in which they are stacked - not necessarily the same thing of course.
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Just move the order around and I think you'll see, depending on the adjustment, there's a difference. For example, make a curves adjustment layer, then an Exposure adjustment layer and switch the order. Or cruves and Photo filter etc.
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Sorry, I meant the stacking order, not the creation order, of the adjustment layers.
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Sorry, I meant the stacking order, not the creation order, of the adjustment layers.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=185089\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Ah - for sure! Makes total sense now.
Mark
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Well, just to get back on topic of the actual clarity slider, and how to use it......
As a digital noob I am confused by the Clarity slider in ACR. I have read Mr. Schewe's article about the changes to ACR and how to use the Clarity slider. It advocates judging it's application while viewing the RAW file at 100% view. But I never see any halos, even when applied liberaly (at least not to the extent that I see halos when I use the sharpening sliders at 100% viewing)
As a result, I usually back off the Clarity slider at around 10 (except with shots with lots of haze) out of fear of over-processing a shot.
Do people apply Clarity to most of their shots?
How much? Yes I know it depends on the shot but are there any general rules of thumb?
Are there types of photos (i.e. like hazy day shots, shot from a long focal length lens) that benefit more from Clarity than others?
Are there types of photos where use of Clarity would be of no benefit?
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Well, just to get back on topic of the actual clarity slider, and how to use it......
As a digital noob I am confused by the Clarity slider in ACR. I have read Mr. Schewe's article about the changes to ACR and how to use the Clarity slider. It advocates judging it's application while viewing the RAW file at 100% view. But I never see any halos, even when applied liberaly (at least not to the extent that I see halos when I use the sharpening sliders at 100% viewing)
As a result, I usually back off the Clarity slider at around 10 (except with shots with lots of haze) out of fear of over-processing a shot.
Do people apply Clarity to most of their shots?
How much? Yes I know it depends on the shot but are there any general rules of thumb?
Are there types of photos (i.e. like hazy day shots, shot from a long focal length lens) that benefit more from Clarity than others?
Are there types of photos where use of Clarity would be of no benefit?
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The 100% view is useful for evaluating the appearance of halos. Otherwise it is best to use it with the image in full screen mode allowing you to assess its aesthetic impact on the photograph - which does vary from image to image and according to the taste of the photographer. When the image starts looking artificially "clarified", back it off a bit. I also leave a bit of headroom for capture sharpening because the combined effect of the two can be a bit much, but this as well is largely a matter of taste.
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Furthermore, to improve upon the canned math in ACR you would need two necessary conditions: (a) you can do a better job profiling the camera than Thomas Knoll can, and ( there is noticeable copy-to-copy variability in the capture characterestics of the camera. My guess is that you would be very hard pressed on (a), and for ( - it doesn't apply - at least to the higher-end pro DSLRs, such as 1Ds series, 5D, D3, etc. I think that's why the majority of users, me includeed, ignore the calibrate tab.
Some prima facia evidence to the contrary:
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....opic=17064&st=0 (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17064&st=0)
Every camera I have owned has inaccurate reds coming out of ACR, and calibration greatly improves the accuracy of the color rendering relative to the ACR defaults. Moreover, the shifts on the red calibration sliders are *ALWAYS* in the same direction, and it's not just my random bad luck of camera samples (including my 1D3), as the above referenced thread indicates. It seems a lot of people can do a better job than Thomas Knoll since the median values of the calibrations reported is much different than zero.
It also seems to me that the ACR calibration tab does not allow the full latitude of a 3x3 matrix, which would be the most general transformation of the color data for each pixel (after Bayer interpolation) preserving the linearity of response that is a property of raw capture. Granted, one degree of freedom is an overall rescaling which can be absorbed in the exposure slider of the main tab; but eight remain. The calibrate tab only has six sliders (ignoring shadow tint, which I presume makes a shift based on luminance level and not a linear transform of the data) and so two parameters cannot be adjusted. Optimization of the calibration could be improved if those two additional parameters were available on the calibrate tab.
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Every camera I have owned has inaccurate reds coming out of ACR, and calibration greatly improves the accuracy of the color rendering relative to the ACR defaults.
OK, that problem is solved.
Moreover, the shifts on the red calibration sliders are *ALWAYS* in the same direction, and it's not just my random bad luck of camera samples (including my 1D3), as the above referenced thread indicates. It seems a lot of people can do a better job than Thomas Knoll since the median values of the calibrations reported is much different than zero.
Well we don't know the sample of users who fall into this camp. We don't know the exact conditions Thomas used to build the profiles or shoot the targets (pretty sure he's using a Macbeth Judge booth to capture his Macbeth). But Thomas was fully aware that his conditions and yours would likely not sync up, that's why he built the calibrate tab.
The question is, does it not provide an adjustment, along with the other sliders to produce a desired color appearance?
It also seems to me that the ACR calibration tab does not allow the full latitude of a 3x3 matrix,
That is the case.
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Every camera I have owned has inaccurate reds coming out of ACR, and calibration greatly improves the accuracy of the color rendering relative to the ACR defaults.
OK, that problem is solved.
Yes, it is solved for me because I have taken the time and effort to do the calibration. I am suggesting that if Adobe wanted to improve their product for the vast majority of Photoshop users who do not go to the trouble, they might want to investigate why their calibration procedure is so inaccurate according to the end results obtained by comparing GMCC conversions in ACR to reference values, and why there is a systematic bias to calibration efforts by the end users who have gone to the trouble to calibrate their cameras. I would hope that Adobe would be concerned about such a systematic calibration bias reported by their customer base.
It also seems to me that the ACR calibration tab does not allow the full latitude of a 3x3 matrix
That is the case.
Well, why not? If one is going to offer the possibility to do user calibration, why not offer the full latitude of possible adjustments?
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Yes, it is solved for me because I have taken the time and effort to do the calibration. I am suggesting that if Adobe wanted to improve their product for the vast majority of Photoshop users who do not go to the trouble, they might want to investigate why their calibration procedure is so inaccurate according to the end results obtained by comparing GMCC conversions in ACR to reference values, and why there is a systematic bias to calibration efforts by the end users who have gone to the trouble to calibrate their cameras. I would hope that Adobe would be concerned about such a systematic calibration bias reported by their customer base.
We need to do a lot more sampling of users and camera types before we go out and say for a fact there's an issue here. Lets say Adobe (Thomas) tweaks the existing profiles. Do we know for a fact that a larger audience would have other color issues? The tool exists so any user can tweak the calibration. I'd be pretty shocked if everyone needed to do this BUT Thomas. He's a pretty bright guy, knows a thing or two about image processing, Raw rendering and color management (he wrote the application that builds the Adobe ICC profiles installed, the DNG converter and originally Photoshop).
You seem pretty sure of yourself that this is a systematic issue with the calibration, with not much to back it up other than personal experience. If you have more solid numbers, we're all ears.
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We need to do a lot more sampling of users and camera types before we go out and say for a fact there's an issue here. Lets say Adobe (Thomas) tweaks the existing profiles. Do we know for a fact that a larger audience would have other color issues? The tool exists so any user can tweak the calibration. I'd be pretty shocked if everyone needed to do this BUT Thomas. He's a pretty bright guy, knows a thing or two about image processing, Raw rendering and color management (he wrote the application that builds the Adobe ICC profiles installed, the DNG converter and originally Photoshop).
You seem pretty sure of yourself that this is a systematic issue with the calibration, with not much to back it up other than personal experience. If you have more solid numbers, we're all ears.
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Yes, more sampling needs to be done. But there are close to thirty calibrations reported in the thread I linked to, all but one point in the same direction -- negative red hue correction, positive red saturation correction. A quick google of
camera raw calibration "red hue"
yields quite a few more reported values
Red Hue -16 Red Saturation +35
red hue -21 red sat 29
Red Hue: +8 Red Saturation: +20
Red hue: -22 Red saturation: +39
Red Hue: -13 Red Saturation: +20
Red Hue = -16, Red Saturation = +20
Red Hue -13 Red Sat 8
Red Hue: -14 Red Sat.: 22
and this is just from the first 20 entries that Google returned (out of 5350, though I presume only a few hundred are on point). So I don't think it's just my personal experience. Different camera models to be sure; lots of spread in the data, to be sure; but the mean/median shows systematic bias which is increasingly hard to discount.
I'm not saying it can't be corrected for (that's what the calibration tab does, even if it has only six out of the eight controls it ought to have), I am simply pointing out that the software ships with a built in bias, according to a large number of user reports.
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I'm not saying it can't be corrected for (that's what the calibration tab does, even if it has only six out of the eight controls it ought to have), I am simply pointing out that the software ships with a built in bias, according to a large number of user reports.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188773\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
In terms of your idea of large number and mine, we'll have to agree to disagree. Since the fix is easy, its probably moot anyway. Rendering is subjective.
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Well, why not? If one is going to offer the possibility to do user calibration, why not offer the full latitude of possible adjustments?
The transformation relates to a given illuminant; I think that's the reason, that three values are fixed. The DNG file usually contains two sets of transformation matrixes for two different illuminants; the matrix used in the actual transformation has to be interpolated based on the actual illuminant, and that step will "fill" the missing values. In other words, if the entire matrix was specified based on illuminant-independent parameters, then the conversion could not take the actual illumination in account.
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The transformation relates to a given illuminant; I think that's the reason, that three values are fixed. The DNG file usually contains two sets of transformation matrixes for two different illuminants; the matrix used in the actual transformation has to be interpolated based on the actual illuminant, and that step will "fill" the missing values. In other words, if the entire matrix was specified based on illuminant-independent parameters, then the conversion could not take the actual illumination in account.
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That makes sense. Thanks.
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In terms of your idea of large number and mine, we'll have to agree to disagree.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188776\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I don't want to quibble about the definition of "large number". The point which you seem to want to ignore is that well over 95% of the people who have bothered to report their calibration settings on the internet have reported values in the same direction away from zero calibration adjustment.
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I'm not going to pick any fights here with the existing ACR implementation - It has done a great job of getting the existing userbase into the Raw world.
However, I believe that it's time the sophisticated user were offered the overrides which are very carefully built into the DNG specification, that the physics of the phenomena involved be discussed in the appropriate forum, which is the ICC Digital Photo Workgroup, and then a camera calibration model ie. cam2xyz be standardized by the industry by means of the ICC.
Photoshop was substantially improved by incorporating standardized color management tools - wouldn't you agree, Andrew? ACR is fast approaching the same degree of maturity.
I talked with Jenoptik/Sinar earlier this week, had a discussion on this topic with some color specialists at Xrite yesterday, I've just scheduled presentation to Fuji next week regarding this topic, and the Adobe guys have said we should talk about this by the end of the month. The very fact that so many parties are talking confirms the fact that over-arching color management is starting to make sense to many people involved in the industry.
I've been told by two sources that there appear to be some technical hurdles why 3x3 matrices are simply not enough even for ONE camera in ONE lighting condition - apparently camera metamerism is a persistent nuisance.
Edmund
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YIKES!! Clarity RE-hijacked -
Why DO people get so miffed at having to calibrate ACR? A RAW converter is just a tool. Adobe gave us a way to calibrate it to get the results we need. Yes it is a PITA to do it but it's intuitive workflow, ease of use and large amount of control make the program a gem once you bother to calibrate it. Sure I find DPP gives a better initial rendering of the colors but I HATE it’s crude clunky interface and lack of certain controls (i.e. highlight control, chrom aberration ect.). I couldn’t care less whether ACR needs to be calibrated due to someone at Adobe's perceived agenda, laziness, incompetence or haste. All I know is that once calibrated, it is a great tool. One that I want to learn better how to use...which is my segueway back to the clarity slider.
The 100% view is useful for evaluating the appearance of halos. Otherwise it is best to use it with the image in full screen mode allowing you to assess its aesthetic impact on the photograph - which does vary from image to image and according to the taste of the photographer. When the image starts looking artificially "clarified", back it off a bit. I also leave a bit of headroom for capture sharpening because the combined effect of the two can be a bit much, but this as well is largely a matter of taste.
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Thanks for your reply.
"When the image starts looking artificially clarified". Since it's definition doesn't really mean much to me I'll take it as when the image starts to"suck" . That's what I had been doing but always scaling even further down. But thanks to your explanation I will endeavor to be even bolder.
Do people apply Clarity to most of their shots?
How much? Yes I know it depends on the shot but are there any general rules of thumb?
Are there types of photos (i.e. like hazy day shots, shot from a long focal length lens) that benefit more from Clarity than others?
Are there types of photos where use of Clarity would be of no benefit?
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Why DO people get so miffed at having to calibrate ACR?
Some of those, who get so miffed came to the conclusion, that no amount of calibration can achieve what they want to get.
A RAW converter is just a tool
Really?
Sure I find DPP gives a better initial rendering of the colors but I HATE it’s crude clunky interface and lack of certain controls (i.e. highlight control, chrom aberration ect.)
Good news for you: DPP DOES have CA control. Moreover, it has controls for vignetting correction (like ACR), distortion correction (unlike ACR), and some more - all this with the knowledge of the lens.
Still, the UI and functions of ACR are better than DPP, but it is not always a disadvantage to know your tool's functions.
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Why DO people get so miffed at having to calibrate ACR? A RAW converter is just a tool. Adobe gave us a way to calibrate it to get the results we need.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188805\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Suppose that every lens that Canon sold had the autofocus miscalibrated to front focus by (on average) one DOF, but gave the user an AF adjust feature. So each user is required to go through a calibration procedure for their lens to focus properly.
Oh wait, that's pretty close to reality
Why DO people get so miffed at Canon quality control? A lens is just a tool. Canon gave us a way to calibrate it to get the results we need
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I don't want to quibble about the definition of "large number". The point which you seem to want to ignore is that well over 95% of the people who have bothered to report their calibration settings on the internet have reported values in the same direction away from zero calibration adjustment.
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95% of 5% of all users isn't a statistically compelling reason to alter the code. When you have some real numbers, lets talk.
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However, I believe that it's time the sophisticated user were offered the overrides which are very carefully built into the DNG specification, that the physics of the phenomena involved be discussed in the appropriate forum, which is the ICC Digital Photo Workgroup, and then a camera calibration model ie. cam2xyz be standardized by the industry by means of the ICC.
I suggest you do your darnedest to get on that committee and effect this change. When you're a few years shy of this happening, let us know so we can be ready for it.
In the meantime, there's a solution in search of a problem that as yet, no one on the your side wishes to discuss. That's that simple question posed about rendering and ICC profiles.
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95% of 5% of all users isn't a statistically compelling reason to alter the code. When you have some real numbers, lets talk.
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Um, not statistically compelling? Sampling theory says otherwise. Pollsters don't have to canvas everyone to get an accurate picture of the electorate; epidemiologists don't need to study the entire population to assess disease prevalence.
Unless you have a reason to suspect that the sample is for some bizarre reason biased to report calibration adjustments all in the same direction, 95% of 5% of all users IS statistically significant. Quite a bit.
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Clarity's one of the best adjustments there is. It's usually the first one I touch, and I add Clarity to every photo. LR = non destructive editing = optimized images. What's not to want??
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I don't want to quibble about the definition of "large number".
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188787\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Due to some info that Andrew and I are privy to, it's really, really not worth arguing about this at this stage. In the not too distant future, all of this discussion will be moot.
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I suggest you do your darnedest to get on that committee and effect this change. When you're a few years shy of this happening, let us know so we can be ready for it.
In the meantime, there's a solution in search of a problem that as yet, no one on the your side wishes to discuss. That's that simple question posed about rendering and ICC profiles.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188855\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Andrew -
I am on that ICC committee, and I am doing my utmost to effect that change; and in fact it does seem like things are moving.
I really wish you would get on board - after all you did benefit considerably from the standardization of the print color process, and so do understand that standardization gives consultants a *portable* competence. And that did happen within your lifetime
Edmund
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In terms of your idea of large number and mine, we'll have to agree to disagree. Since the fix is easy, its probably moot anyway. Rendering is subjective.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188776\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
As to sampling size, I would say if you flip a coin 20 times and it comes up heads 19 times, something is wrong and you do not need to extend the sample size. The thread referenced by Prof. Martinec gives good evidence of a systematic bias of a negative red hue and positive red saturation. On the other hand, Digidog has presented no data whatsoever. Perhaps he is relying on the three cameras tested by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe and mentioned by Jeff in the referenced thread as showing random variations.
Rendering is subjective, but a ΔE* is not, especially when corrected for chroma (saturation) and luminance (exposure). Many observers favor increased chroma, but few favor orange reds as rendered by default by ACR in many cases. A typical result is shown below. The red patch (#15) is strongly shifted towards orange.
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/photos/164350910_FMqRN-O.png)
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Suppose that every lens that Canon sold had the autofocus miscalibrated to front focus by (on average) one DOF, but gave the user an AF adjust feature. So each user is required to go through a calibration procedure for their lens to focus properly.
Oh wait, that's pretty close to reality
Why DO people get so miffed at Canon quality control? A lens is just a tool. Canon gave us a way to calibrate it to get the results we need
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188834\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
OK let's suppose there were inter-camera differences in how they interacted with lenses. It wouldn't bother me that much if I had to calibrate my lens to my specific camera if once I calibrated the lens I knew that forevermore it would work fine and be tack sharp.
ACR isn't perfect - calibrate it and forget it - that's my philosophy. I have too little time too speculate why it initially isn't perfect. I'd rather spend my energy doing what it takes to make it as useful as possible i.e. calibrate it. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy reading the banter about the subject and admire everyone's depth of knowledge on all these matters.
Right now I just want to understand the clarity slider. Maybe if I was as knowledgeable as all you folk I'd concern myself with these esoteric matters. So carry on with the enlightening and interesting dialogue but please do, if you have the moment, discuss the 'clarity slider, and some of my earlier queries. Thanks!
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Clarity's one of the best adjustments there is. It's usually the first one I touch, and I add Clarity to every photo. LR = non destructive editing = optimized images. What's not to want??
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188869\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thanks. every photo? But how much? Yes I know it depends on the shot but are there any general rules of thumb?
Are there types of photos (i.e. like hazy day shots, shot from a long focal length lens) that benefit more from Clarity than others?
Are there types of photos where use of Clarity would be of no benefit?
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Andrew -
I am on that ICC committee, and I am doing my utmost to effect that change; and in fact it does seem like things are moving.
I really wish you would get on board - after all you did benefit considerably from the standardization of the print color process, and so do understand that standardization gives consultants a *portable* competence. And that did happen within your lifetime
Edmund
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188893\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I'm on that board in some capacity so I have some idea how things move. I wish them all luck and would add, all their efforts are appreciated. But so far, there's a big solution in search of a problem I've yet to see anyone on your side define. Until that happens, or the technology improves to the degree we can actually measure the scene illuminant, the current solutions are half baked.
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As it is now, this has not happened. Adobe has not provided a straightforward, exact way to achieve the best color conversion. The profiles created with the Forst and Rags scripts are based on three (or four?) squares of the Gretag checker and the result is still not as good as for example Canon's DPP is creating.
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Profile created?
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Keep in mind that doing ACR calibration with a script is not going to get you what DPP (or Nikon's View/Capture NX) produce. No colorimetric characterization is going to get you there, since generally DPP and NX's renderings aren't really colorimetric. In fact, aside from the deep reds issue, ACR generally reproduces hues more accurately than DPP does (esp. its 'Standard' rendering, which is the default). It is true that ACR (indirectly) biases deep reds towards orange but on the other hand DPP biases deep oranges towards red (i.e., the other way around).
DPP, NX, and most of the vendor software perform non-linear hue twists that are apparently based more on the vendors' notions of what people want to see (i.e., the color rendering style) rather than being colorimetric or 'accurate'. No matrix is going to reproduce this.
My suggestion would be to re-read Jeff Schewe's last post carefully.
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Good news for you: DPP DOES have CA control. Moreover, it has controls for vignetting correction (like ACR), distortion correction (unlike ACR), and some more - all this with the knowledge of the lens.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188823\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Unfortunately that is only Canon lenses--and not all of them.
Diane
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I'm on that board in some capacity so I have some idea how things move. I wish them all luck and would add, all their efforts are appreciated. But so far, there's a big solution in search of a problem I've yet to see anyone on your side define. Until that happens, or the technology improves to the degree we can actually measure the scene illuminant, the current solutions are half baked.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=188981\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Andrew
All of us techies on that board have started to have a hard look at the issues with Raw lately. The general feeling seems to be that the time to fully color-manage Raw has come. The problem is now hacking out a solution that keeps all the proprietary interests happy.
AFAIK The capacity to spectrally measure the scene illuminant is there, fully implemented, in every EyeOne Pro and every sub $500 ColorMunki. Of course at this point you need a computer set up in the studio to do the incident light measure, but that's no problem for the tethered studio shooters. Of course at this point, there is no packaged software available that would allow a photographer to use those spectra, but as a color geek, if if you also have the sensor response you can do anything you want with the camera, including computing the Knoll matrices for the measured illuminant
The problem at that point becomes convincing LR to use *your* Knoll matrix rather than its internal preset Knoll matrix. And of course the fact that the camera color geeks say that a Knoll matrix will not solve everything because of camera metamerism ...
Edmund
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Andrew
All of us techies on that board have started to have a hard look at the issues with Raw lately. The general feeling seems to be that the time to fully color-manage Raw has come.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=189070\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What currently isn't color managed with respect to Raw?
The problem is now hacking out a solution that keeps all the proprietary interests happy.
That sounds like a political issue and I'm not at all interested in having anything to do with politics and digital imaging. I'm interested in what problems we have and how they can be corrected from a technical and end user perspective.
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What currently isn't color managed with respect to Raw?
That sounds like a political issue and I'm not at all interested in having anything to do with politics and digital imaging. I'm interested in what problems we have and how they can be corrected from a technical and end user perspective.
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Andrew,
At the moment, nothing about Raw is color managed - in the sense that every converter comes with its own cam2xyz interpretation of the Raw data into color (xyz) data which is then rendered into some output-referred space. Each converter is basically a black box with its own non-swappable cam2xyz: Canon has DPP, Nikon has NikonView, Adobe has ACR etc - none of these have any reason to associate the same xyz to a given cam pixel Raw value.
There is also some debate at the ICC about what one should do with the demosaiced data: In which color-space one can and should encode the demosaiced scene-referred *colorimetric* data from cameras - I'm sure you're as much aware of the problems here as I am.
I'm talking to the camera guys, and there appear to be some technical subtleties involved in the cam2xyz transform; I think photographers would benefit if people from the hardware and software sides of the business were talking to each other.
Edmund
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At the moment, nothing about Raw is color managed
Raw has to be output referred and rendered. The color numbers I see, the color appearance I see is honored from start to finish. Raw or color neg, converter or color darkroom (or even scanning UI), nothing useful in terms of color management is necessary for the user before they even render an initial preview. One has to render a desired appearance. That's why we shoot and use Raw. From that point on, everything is fine, and its questionable in a big way IF prior to the rendering, the user has any need of color management.
We have color neg auto analyzers in labs which can do a pretty good job, much of the time, rendering a print from a color neg. That doesn't diminish the other people who need custom prints made and often find, they themselves have to control the rendering. The auto button in LR works and fails, but expecting 90%+ preferred rendering (considering how damn subjective it is), is a pretty huge stretch. And even if its 50%, it only takes a few seconds to move a few sliders to produce far more than 90% desired global rendering. My god, this workflow is really fast. Its not like we're trying to force edits on 12 million pixels in memory.
Its funny, you give people a true digital darkroom, they want it to roughly behave like the in-camera JPEG rendering engine they are trying to get away from.
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Raw has to be output referred and rendered.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=189079\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I differ. Raw needs to be taken to a large space eg xyz; then it can be rendered to an output referred space. Or just written out. With people looking at things on HDR displays, the meaning of rendering is going to change.
Edmund
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There is also some debate at the ICC about what one should do with the demosaiced data: In which color-space one can and should encode the demosaiced scene-referred *colorimetric* data from cameras - I'm sure you're as much aware of the problems here as I am.
Not only do I not know its a problem, I don't care. I want tools that provide a desired color appearance ASAP+HQ+NBS. What happens under the hood is of little interest to me.
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Not only do I not know its a problem, I don't care. I want tools that provide a desired color appearance ASAP+HQ+NBS. What happens under the hood is of little interest to me.
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Andrew, don't be disingenous. Colorimetric data needs to be saved in some space - we have nice spaces for output-referred data eg. Adobe RGB, sRGB, but nothing really future-proof and usable for the scene-referred data out of the cameras. Altough ROMM and RIMM etc were nice waystones it seems they are not quite satisfactory ...Anyway, I just hear this stuff being discussed, I don't really quite understand all of it. I'm just a geek while all these guys are the world's geekiest color geeks
What's happening now is that the converters compute some colorimetric scene-referred data, then throw it away and retain only the output-referred rendered version.
Edmund
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Due to some info that Andrew and I are privy to, it's really, really not worth arguing about this at this stage. In the not too distant future, all of this discussion will be moot.
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Haha. So they'll render reds as reds, or give the ability to calibrate?
Ah, we'll find out soon enough I guess
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Holy crap!
These answers are like telling a guy who wants directions to Omaha how the internal combustion engine works...
A better name for Clarity would be Midtone Contrast.
It allows you to add contrast to the midtones without blowing out the highlights or blocking up the shadows.
Only a software engineer would call that clarity.
Yet no matter how moronic I find the name, I love the tool, so two points to the software engineers...
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As to sampling size, I would say if you flip a coin 20 times and it comes up heads 19 times, something is wrong and you do not need to extend the sample size. The thread referenced by Prof. Martinec gives good evidence of a systematic bias of a negative red hue and positive red saturation.
…
A typical result is shown below. The red patch (#15) is strongly shifted towards orange.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=188955\")
Of course we would first have to agree which side of the coin counts for up or down (just to follow up on this analogy).
One silent assumption with any “best-fit matrix approach” is that precisely the same definition for CIE XYZ is used a.) to shape the spectral response of the sensor according to the related color matching functions, and b.) as the master space for the camera matrix.
Can we take this for granted? Is CIE XYZ always the same?
Not necessarily. For example, the different CIE 1931 and CIE 1964 color matching functions are shown in the chromaticity.zip which can be downloaded [a href=\"http://www.efg2.com/Lab/Graphics/Colors/Chromaticity.htm]here[/url].
Just a thought.
Peter
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Are there types of photos where use of Clarity would be of no benefit?
You have to be very careful when applying it to skin. The tiniest shadow, dimple and pore will become over-defined. Not pretty. In fact, for beauty images, I find it can be deadly, so it often stays at zero. If hard and gritty is your style, then it may have a possible use in people shots. I imagine Clarity is good on tattoos.
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You have to be very careful when applying it to skin. The tiniest shadow, dimple and pore will become over-defined. Not pretty. In fact, for beauty images, I find it can be deadly, so it often stays at zero. If hard and gritty is your style, then it may have a possible use in people shots. I imagine Clarity is good on tattoos.
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Maybe it's like USM ?
Edmund
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You have to be very careful when applying it to skin. The tiniest shadow, dimple and pore will become over-defined. Not pretty. In fact, for beauty images, I find it can be deadly, so it often stays at zero. If hard and gritty is your style, then it may have a possible use in people shots. I imagine Clarity is good on tattoos.
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Misty and Edmund, I don't think it's quite like USM. It is intended to (and does) accentuate very fine local differences of tonality within the mid-tones; I believe this is somewhat different than USM which accentuates any edge contrast wherever it occurs unless you deploy various masks and filters to modify it. I agree with Misty that Clarity can make skin too gritty - depending upon how strongly it is applied, because skin has varying shades and textures which would get "clarified".
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We need to do a lot more sampling of users and camera types before we go out and say for a fact there's an issue here. Lets say Adobe (Thomas) tweaks the existing profiles. Do we know for a fact that a larger audience would have other color issues? The tool exists so any user can tweak the calibration. I'd be pretty shocked if everyone needed to do this BUT Thomas. He's a pretty bright guy, knows a thing or two about image processing, Raw rendering and color management (he wrote the application that builds the Adobe ICC profiles installed, the DNG converter and originally Photoshop).
You seem pretty sure of yourself that this is a systematic issue with the calibration, with not much to back it up other than personal experience. If you have more solid numbers, we're all ears.
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Available information is strongly suggestive that there is a systematic problem with the reds in the default ACR calibration, and no data to the contrary have been presented. However, before we jump to rash conclusions, we should look at the entire situation, not just the reds.
The following quote by DPL of Thomas Knoll is illustrative of the problem:
“Actually, to create a camera filter set that is "perfect", it is not required to exactly the match the human cone responses (or the XYZ responses). All that is required is the filter responses be some linear combination of the human cone responses. If that is the case, then a simple 3 by 3 matrix [space] can be used in software to recover the exact XYZ values.
If the filter set is not a [perfect] linear combination of the cone responses (which is the case for all current cameras), then any color calibration is going to be some kind of comprise, getting some colors correct and other colors incorrect. This is true even if you know the exact illuminant spectral curve and the exact filter spectral response curves.”
One can use a least squares method to minimize total RMS error or one can calculate the matrix coefficients to minimize error in colors that are thought to be important such as flesh tones, blue sky and foliage, which are important memory colors. One such approach is given [a href=\"http://color.psych.upenn.edu/brainard/papers/bayesColorCorrect.pdf]here.[/url]
For the Nikon D200, the overall accuracy of the default ACR rendering of the Greytag color checker is actually slightly superior to that of Nikon Capture NX even though the ACR reds have the mentioned bias.
ACR default rendering:
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/photos/164350910_FMqRN-O.png)
Nikon Capture NX (normal contrast, normal saturation setting on camera):
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/photos/164349487_rWTQN-O.png)
For your information, patches 1,2,3,4 and 15 are respectively dark skin, Caucasian skin, blue sky, foliage, and red.
For different illuminants and different surface colors, no one set of matrix coefficients will give optimum results. Mr. Knoll's calibration likely gives the results he wants for best overall results, but it may not be optimum for reproducing the red patch on a Macbeth Color Checker.
Bill
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Excuse me people....
....shouldn't we be HAPPY that ACR renders RAW differently than DPP? Isn't it analogous to Velvia rendering differently to Kodachrome or grain film? As long as the rendering is predictable and consistent what is the fuss?
Doesn't this just mean we need to be aware of the differences and chose whatever tool we think best suits our goals?
I know different films rendered different skin tones....did photographers argue and complain endlessly about that?
All philosophical issues aside, do any of you people use the clarity slider*? Any thoughts on how it be best used? Are there some types of photos where it is best used liberally? where it should never be used?
*the subject of this thread
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IMO, even if raw color management was a completely open standard in the early processing stages (e.g., the transform from camera coordinates to XYZ) it would still not solve the problem of dependencies on the raw converter, because of the issue Andrew points out: the color rendering. Unless the entire raw pipeline is implemented the same way across all converters (something that obviously isn't happening and won't ever happen), then raw color profiles would still be software-specific. For example, the tone curve math used by Adobe is different than Capture One's tone curve math, so even if you specified what the tone curve was in the profile you'd still have different results.
I don't know what the vendors do on the colorimetric side of things. But they certainly do things in their default color rendering which has quite little to do with colorimetry (funky hue twists, etc.). This is deliberate, by design, and is intended to provide "the Canon look" and "the Nikon look", etc.
The thing about raw color management is that it might allow one to define a standardized way of transforming camera coordinates to XYZ. But I don't see how it could usefully capture the "color rendering" aspect of color processing. And if we just omit the latter, then all we'd ever be able to do is create really consistent but visually unsatisfying output ...
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Any thoughts on how it be best used?
Like any creative tool, it depends on taste.
Slide it to 50 and see what it does to your image. I was quite surprised by the obvious nature of this slider: the result is apparent quickly and you get to immediately decide if it's good or bad.
I love it on landscapes. I love it on fashion. I love it on food. I love it on interiors. I love it on architecture. I love it on flowers. Did I miss anything? It's a great tool and adds just as much punch as you desire.
How far do you go? I would say that takes a bit of experimenting. You have to see the final output rendering, compare it to others, and then decide which number is best. Thank goodness for Post-It notes.
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Excuse me people....
....shouldn't we be HAPPY that ACR renders RAW differently than DPP? Isn't it analogous to Velvia rendering differently to Kodachrome or grain film? As long as the rendering is predictable and consistent what is the fuss?
Of course we should. And that said, the question doesn't address whether this is happier or not with a default setting (something that's often useless) or after moving the sliders presented to the user to produce a desired color appearance (something you couldn't do with film unless you happen to count the scanning process and the degree of alterations compared to Raw is simply tiny).
What we have is a group of people who refuse to define when they get undesirable color appearance (all the time or by default) and hence its a problem with the tool, never the user. Even if 90% of every user found a percentage of images shot that had red issues, it doesn't mean squat since:
1. They don't tell us how a profile would automatically fix this and not hose equally different types of images.
2. They don't tell us they pulled even a single slider one way or the other and made a preset.
3. They don't tell us how many other differing colors shift or don't produce a color appearance they expect in this or other converters.
In the end, its a lot of yacking from people who want to hear themselves speak or want to criticize Adobe. Is Adobe's Raw converter prefect? Nope. Have I see reds go orange? Yes and one move a slider makes that a moot point. Have I see such color issues in other converters or even in terms of scanning? Sure. Is there ever going to be even a 95% make me pretty button in a Raw converter? Nope. Rendering is subjective, that's why some of us want to work with Raw data.
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Like any creative tool, it depends on taste
Absolutely. But some companies making software just can't win. If you put in enough granularity to produce effects but hose images in the hands of some users, said users bitch and moan. Nearly every software product that affects an image has a potential hurt me button. I'm shocked I don't hear more complain that Photoshop has a Posterize command and that using it might produce banding on your images!
The one thing software engineers can't code is taste and style. Thankfully.
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Excuse me people....
Doesn't this just mean we need to be aware of the differences and chose whatever tool we think best suits our goals?
All philosophical issues aside, do any of you people use the clarity slider*? Any thoughts on how it be best used? Are there some types of photos where it is best used liberally? where it should never be used?
*the subject of this thread
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Philmar,
We don't have to be aware of differences between raw converters once we select the one we think best meets our needs. The one that that best meets my needs is ACR 4.3 because it integrates seemlessly with Bridge and Photoshop, is largely coherent with Lightroom and it has more than enough controls to achieve whatever rendering I like and can be achieved within the limits of its largely global adjustment capability.
I agree with Andrew and Eric that no raw converter will be technically "perfect", whatever that means. Therefore one needs a raw converter with the best capability for translating the image data into a rendering we like best - judgment call.
As I've mentioned in previous posts in this thread, I do use the Clarity slider, generally a bit conservatively and to taste. I have not been able to cobble together any general rules or recipes for the Clarity adjustment, and I'm not sure this is even possible. If you have an image which you think would benefit overall from some local contrast enhancement, just use it to taste. The main thing, therefore, is to have a display that is well colour-managed and of high enough resolution to provide you with a useful impression of what you are achieving. That said, the one general situation in which I would NOT use it, is where it gives undesirable results on one part of the image but not others. In this case you need masking and therefore best to do it in Photoshop.
Mark
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although i liked the clarity slider much ( and i still like in general the 4.4 or LR converter ), it creates an sideeffect which cant be eliminitated later. : stairsteps on diagonal straight lines become VERY visible in larger prints.
so i am carefull now in increasing local contrasts at the raw konversion stage because it can lead ( esp. in case of architecture motifs with many stores or diagonal lines ) to unusability of the files,- even if taken with 33/39 mp backs and just used at a size of A2.
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although i liked the clarity slider much ( and i still like in general the 4.4 or LR converter ), it creates an sideeffect which cant be eliminitated later. : stairsteps on diagonal straight lines become VERY visible in larger prints.
so i am carefull now in increasing local contrasts at the raw konversion stage because it can lead ( esp. in case of architecture motifs with many stores or diagonal lines ) to unusability of the files,- even if taken with 33/39 mp backs and just used at a size of A2.
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Rainer,
One of the beautiful things about adjusting raw images in ACR is that the file never becomes unusable. If it creates the effect you describe, you can go back into the raw version of the image and reverse it. This is harmless if you look for this trouble before doing anything else to the rendered image. You can also embed the raw data as a Smart Object in the rendered document, making it even more convenient to change the settings of Clarity or any other ACR adjustment while remaining in Photoshop.
Mark
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I agree with Andrew and Eric that no raw converter will be technically "perfect", whatever that means. Therefore one needs a raw converter with the best capability for translating the image data into a rendering we like best - judgment call.
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Oh, the problem as described by Bill et al. is very well known:
>> There is currently a fundamental tradeoff between the skin tone rendering and the rendering of deep saturated reds. For many individual images, this can be worked around using the calibration & HSL sliders. However, no single preset will tackle both issues generally (i.e., across several images). And for some images that contain both, there is no workaround at the moment.
Eric<<
[a href=\"http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.3bb6a85c.59b4cc97/8]http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.3bb6a85c.59b4cc97/8[/url]
Some of us like to contemplate about the root cause, however, I recognize that there was a kind of bug fix announced in the course of this thread. Let’s see.
Peter
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Peter,
If you read what I said, I think we'll agree I didn't say there are no issues.
The issue you refer to in the Adobe Forums can also be atttributed to the fact that ACR is not yet equipped for localized adjustments within a single colour group.
As well, I haven't seen any reference to a bug or a bug fix in this thread. If you are alluding to Jeff Schewe's post, I wouldn't presume he is talking about a bug fix. I expect, without knowing, it is something much more fundamental.
Mark
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All philosophical issues aside, do any of you people use the clarity slider*? Any thoughts on how it be best used? Are there some types of photos where it is best used liberally? where it should never be used?
*the subject of this thread
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I've always thought it's rather easy to see the effect of Clarity. You can just use your own eyes to see what happens when you move the slider.
I find that when there are f.i. white clouds against a blue sky in the image, you quickly see a dark halo (much wider than a sharpening halo) around the clouds by using Clarity, unless you keep it at a very low value. In tree branches/bushes and similar fine detail against bright backgrounds the effect of Clarity is also very apparent. You can make the rendering of details a lot clearer, but you can also make things look unnaturaly sharply and thickly defined, or surround them by a wide halo. It can also make nice bokeh look less nice, by adding a sharp edge to nicely blurred shapes.
How much you will want to use really depends on the subject matter. Because Clarity is applied globally (not anymore in Lightroom 2beta i believe?), you shouldn't use more than the finest details that you want to preserve, can handle - textures can start looking unpleasantly coarse, and you also won't want to exaggerate things like skin blemishes (was already mentioned). In other cases you can use high values to make bigger shapes stand out more. Just watch out for halos.
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I've always thought it's rather easy to see the effect of Clarity. You can just use your own eyes to see what happens when you move the slider.
I find that when there are f.i. white clouds against a blue sky in the image, you quickly see a dark halo (much wider than a sharpening halo) around the clouds by using Clarity, unless you keep it at a very low value. In tree branches/bushes and similar fine detail against bright backgrounds the effect of Clarity is also very apparent. You can make the rendering of details a lot clearer, but you can also make things look unnaturaly sharply and thickly defined, or surround them by a wide halo. It can also make nice bokeh look less nice, by adding a sharp edge to nicely blurred shapes.
How much you will want to use really depends on the subject matter. Because Clarity is applied globally (not anymore in Lightroom 2beta i believe?), you shouldn't use more than the finest details that you want to preserve, can handle - textures can start looking unpleasantly coarse, and you also won't want to exaggerate things like skin blemishes (was already mentioned). In other cases you can use high values to make bigger shapes stand out more. Just watch out for halos.
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Thanks to you and all others for their responses. It has helped me tremendously. These forums and digital processing often gets so technical that often one forgets to trust ones own eyes and taste. Yeah I noticed that the clarity slider causes large, not sharp, haloes emanating from objects that have sky in the background.
The point about ACR being a global adjustment is a good one that I will take with me. I have only recently started sharpening and noise reducing using layer masks so I have new techniques to learn and master with local contrast enhancement. As always "Thanks" for all the helpful info. I will learn how to create a series of PS actions that mimic this slider.
I just hope I can get my photos to POP before the new PP techniques I am learning cause my head to POP.
Now that I feel I have sufficient clarity on the issue of clarity I will take leave of this thread and allow the highly entertaining philosophic discussion about RAW converters to ensue.
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I agree with Andrew and Eric that no raw converter will be technically "perfect", whatever that means. Therefore one needs a raw converter with the best capability for translating the image data into a rendering we like best - judgment call.[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=189216\")
Oh, the problem as described by Bill et al. is very well known:
>> There is currently a fundamental tradeoff between the skin tone rendering and the rendering of deep saturated reds. For many individual images, this can be worked around using the calibration & HSL sliders. However, no single preset will tackle both issues generally (i.e., across several images). And for some images that contain both, there is no workaround at the moment.
Eric<<
[a href=\"http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.3bb6a85c.59b4cc97/8]http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.3bb6a85c.59b4cc97/8[/url]
Some of us like to contemplate about the root cause, however, I recognize that there was a kind of bug fix announced in the course of this thread. Let’s see.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=189256\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Peter,
If you read what I said, I think we'll agree I didn't say there are no issues.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=189266\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Mark,
Referring to the compiled term “technically perfect Raw converter”, which I read in your post, this for sure has some relevance for the initial step of colorimetric interpretation, or what is called color reconstruction. Wouldn't give up this claim too early. "Accuracy" and some perfection are supposed to lay a better ground for all the creative rendering tools (including Clarity) which are set on the top. Or, to say it in Bruce Fraser’s words: >>"Accurate" is not necessarily the final goal, but it tends to make for a much better starting point than randomly inaccurate.... <<.
Mentioned antagonism of pure reds vs skin tones is a measurable effect with regard to hue accuracy. Get one right (via calibration) and the other one becomes worse. This “balance” was found to be surprisingly consistent across different camera models and brands.
While numbers can always fool you (me), it happens that many of us are able to see this issue because typically we don’t like orange reds and/or magenta skin tones. Of course, maybe depending on cultural background, one could see it differently. However, while this subject comes up every now and then, people obviously tend to recognize what the numbers confirm. So for the moment, let’s believe in this claim for initial (hue) accuracy with these colors.
The issue you refer to in the Adobe Forums can also be atttributed to the fact that ACR is not yet equipped for localized adjustments within a single colour group.
That would certainly be nice – however, at the end of the day, it can just remove the symptoms, but not the root cause.
As well, I haven't seen any reference to a bug or a bug fix in this thread. If you are alluding to Jeff Schewe's post, I wouldn't presume he is talking about a bug fix. I expect, without knowing, it is something much more fundamental.
No problem to agree and to withdraw “bug fix”. Something “fundamental” might be more appropriate.
Anyway, I’m glad to see that the threadopener seems to be happy with the discussion and I certainly don’t have insist on this off topic part.
Peter
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