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Author Topic: The sky is blue - or should be...  (Read 20213 times)

Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #120 on: May 11, 2018, 04:32:53 pm »

@ Stephen Ray
Yes my raw converters give me a choice of camera profiles I have stored, and they also have a default for each camera.

Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #121 on: May 11, 2018, 04:35:16 pm »

@ Tim

> If it isn't Raw Therapee's fault then why doesn't that image look like it was shot in daylight even if the blue sky looks right?

> Hening, is there a reason your shots of a mid day scene look so dark? What happens when you brighten the image to look as bright as a noon day should?

Here is a new attempt in RT. Black WP 0.1 [--edit: *Raw* WP 0.1, of course!], Auto Levels, then Contrast raised from 25 to 45, Saturation from 0 to 10. Does this look more like daylight? If not, I don't know what to do. I'm afraid the contrast is  a bit high already. Could it be that noon daylight in Texas looks different from noon daylight in NE Germany?
It might also be that a cloud was just about moving into the sun. The sky was blue, but there were shifting clouds, as you can see on the green foreground, which lies all in shadow except a little snippet at left.
I share your concept that a landscape image should render the light of the scene. In this particular image however my focus is not on the overall mood, but on the colors of the foliage as a structure or pattern.

WRT to my second image, 346, this is not noon, but 17:21. (That is "real" time, not Daylight Saving Time). And most of the image field lies in the shadow. 1/2 of it is reflection on the water, which darkens the image even further. I'll try to show 2 attempts on this one later.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2018, 10:04:22 am by Hening Bettermann »
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Stephen Ray

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #122 on: May 11, 2018, 05:24:40 pm »

@ Stephen Ray
Yes my raw converters give me a choice of camera profiles I have stored, and they also have a default for each camera.

If you were to use any default camera profiles from any of your raw processors and possibly use some "auto" settings for exposure, do you suppose your images could be improved as far as appearing more natural? Is the exercise not an easy experiment?
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Peter_DL

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #123 on: May 11, 2018, 05:41:43 pm »

Here is a new attempt in RT.
... Does this look more like daylight?

Leider nein.

In ACR, the Split Toning function can help to make the greens warmer without eliminating the blue in the sky
- as opposed to the Temperature slider in this case.

Peter
--


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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #124 on: May 11, 2018, 10:31:26 pm »


Does this look more like daylight?

If not, I don't know what to do. I'm afraid the contrast is  a bit high already. Could it be that noon daylight in Texas looks different from noon daylight in NE Germany?

It might also be that a cloud was just about moving into the sun. The sky was blue, but there were shifting clouds, as you can see on the green foreground, which lies all in shadow except a little snippet at left.
I share your concept that a landscape image should render the light of the scene. In this particular image however my focus is not on the overall mood, but on the colors of the foliage as a structure or pattern.

WRT to my second image, 346, this is not noon, but 17:21. (That is "real" time, not Daylight Saving Time). And most of the image field lies in the shadow. 1/2 of it is reflection on the water, which darkens the image even further. I'll try to show 2 attempts on this one later.

All of your posted images so far look like I'm viewing the scene through bluish green dark sunglasses.

Here's another option. Load those Raw images in Lightroom or ACR and see if you get closer to not having them look so dark and blue green.

Even Stephen's posted images look reasonably close to what a daylight scene should look. Since he didn't do any edits I'm assuming it's just for reference of what another Raw converter can deliver which is a huge improvement over your results.

Your images remind me of my first Raw scans of prints and negatives off my Agfa Arcus flatbed 20 years ago before I knew about ICC profiles. I'ld get those dark dull bluish scans and try to edit in Photoshop and never make any headway. Not even the Hue/Sat tool made a dent. Curves didn't work either.

Assigned the canned Agfa Arcus scanner profile and got a huge improvement.
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Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #125 on: May 12, 2018, 11:23:02 am »

@ Stephen Ray # 122

RawTherapee has a number of processing profiles, I tried some and have selected 2 that I think come closest. (1+2). Then I have paired them with my own camera profile (3+4), then the other way round, RT camera profile with my processing like in post #121 (5).
My view: Punchy 2 is too punchy, the snippet of sun-lit green at left is too shiny. Punchy 1 is quite natural, but maybe a little too yellow. I find my own processing has the best separation in the green foliage. [Yes they *are* greens, not yellows, fellows ;-) ] - The 2 camera profiles are almost indistinguishable, the processing makes the difference. - I find all of the skies in the ball park.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2018, 11:28:34 am by Hening Bettermann »
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Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #126 on: May 12, 2018, 11:24:29 am »

and here #5 attachment:

Tim Lookingbill

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #127 on: May 12, 2018, 03:10:59 pm »

Those are pretty good improvements but I think this is not an ideal image to test out color consistency performance of DcamProfiles and Raw Therapee.

The fact that you've had to put this much work into just getting it sort of correct looking isn't an indication that'll it'll be easier on other daylight images. This is a simple daylight scene and it's just not working.

Like I asked previously and you didn't do what I asked, I'll ask again...

PLEASE post another midday daylight shot that has a wide range of memory colors like browns, greens, oranges, blues and a neutral target like a CC chart so you know for sure you will get consistent results using DCamProfiles and Raw Therapee.

As it is I'm not convinced this is an ideal color rendering workflow. It looks like too much work and I've processed over 3000 Raw images depicting a wide range of some very HELLISHLY challenging mixed WB and dynamic range scenes especially those in dark heavily wooded and shaded areas with blue sky and bright sunlight back lighting. I have more issues scaling shadows to black point and making sure they don't look too blue than I have working on bright daylight scenes such as yours.

See the before and after Raw edits of some typically challenging scenes I deal with. I got it to look exactly as it appears. To get the greens to look correct I had to apply a dual illuminant D65 Adobe DNG profile created using only one D65 CCchart target image. It puts the right level of cyan in green leaves instead of the cooked yellowish green that a regular single illuminant D65 profile renders. But I still had to use HSL edits to bring out clarity in the green leaves and foreground tree limbs.
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Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #128 on: May 12, 2018, 03:52:31 pm »

@ Peter_DL #123
Peter, these bushes and trees were green, and I see no reason to turn them yellow.

@ Tim
I don't have ACR nor Lightroom.
Here is another attempt at 346, a little more punchy, maybe not final, but in the ballpark (in my view), the mirrored image may need a separate mask, but that is more than what I can do at the moment.
--edit: no forget about this, I'll try to remove the attachment if that is possible

> Those are pretty good improvements

Hm - my favorite is still my edit from post 121, and I find it almost indistinguishable from #5 in post 126 - the only difference being the camera profile.

Here (275) is another midday daylight shot (without a CC chart though). It was not tricky to process color-wise - processed in Iridient, TRC in PhotoLine in HSV_V. Parts of the sky are either blown or that are clouds, more likely.

Do you think this is more natural than the willows (3216)? Maybe the lighting in that scene is not quite as straightforward as it appears, due to the moving clouds which put the image partly in the shadow, see the green foreground and the right hand side part of the white bushes. It may look like the shadow from that sky was just about reaching the 'gallery' in the middle ground.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2018, 03:58:25 pm by Hening Bettermann »
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #129 on: May 12, 2018, 05:02:53 pm »

#275 looks a lot more normal and correct for such a green leaf shaded scene, so I'm going to say the original OP image was just one of those problem images.

I still think your profiles and WB adjusts don't do enough of a job of removing the colored (bluish green, or yellowish) stained filter that full spectrum lighting removes. And that may be due to the limitations of a profile to correct for individually colored elements that WB edits can't fix.

The image below is a test image sample I came up with years ago that illustrates the limits of WB adjusts that is suppose to remove the overall colored stain appearance that's noticeable in image #275.

The one on the left is the unedited Raw shot under daylight balanced flotube showing this dull greenish yellow stain over the entire image. The one on the right is hitting Auto WB in ACR which didn't change Color Temp slider but did force +20 toward magenta. It still didn't get rid of the greenish yellow stain throughout all the other colors. I had to use a real dual illuminant DNG Profile which still wasn't enough to make the cracker look more toasted orange instead of pale yellow orange.

The one on the right looks fresher and more vibrant which is what full spectrum light does to scenes like this. There's no dead/cooked greens, there's no orangy tomato and a lot of that came from HSL adjusts in ACR.

I don't get that daylight full spectrum feel from your images, but the last one looks like it would look with all the green leafy shade but it's more than what I see out in nature.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2018, 05:06:59 pm by Tim Lookingbill »
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #130 on: May 12, 2018, 05:11:08 pm »

How about posting another daylight scene that's not affected by green leafy shade and still shows a full blue sky? I can't believe you don't have other daylight scenes with more memory colors. Is it sunny in your area?
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #131 on: May 12, 2018, 05:23:28 pm »

A correction: I shot the cracker, lettuce, tomato test image under household 2800K soft white tungsten light bulb. That's why my incamera WB shows a color temp of 3100/+17 in ACR as default WB. It was several years ago when I shot that test image so my memory is a bit off.
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Stephen Ray

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #132 on: May 12, 2018, 11:34:42 pm »

Interesting how green trees might be more yellow than believed at this time of year. Curiously similar in color as to what the camera raw auto button performed upon the OP's first post when I experimented in post #19.

Pollen Tree Explosion at YouTube
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Stephen Ray

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #133 on: May 13, 2018, 12:40:05 am »

I eventually processed the OP's RAW using RawTherapee. RT set WB to 4600 with some magenta tint. I pressed the auto button for levels. I added some contrast and saturation. I zoomed to 100% and noticed horrendous lens CA and overall lens inferiority. I explored RT a short while and then decided to export a high rez 8bit tiff to Photoshop because I know the key commands there. After some zooming in and out from many areas of the scene, I further noticed the color contamination by lens CA in areas of high detail frequency was worse than I thought. I decided not to spend any more effort because my processing was already bright, colorful, neutral (as I cared to make it), and VERY much like my effort in my post #19 from just running the auto buttons in camera raw on the OP's first JPG.

Many earlier posts have suggestions and remedies and I agree many or all to be valid and helpful to the OP for his future efforts.
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Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #134 on: May 13, 2018, 02:19:11 pm »

@ Tim
I don't have so many (good) shots with large amounts of open sky as you might exspect, but I found 2.

Camera Profile is my Combo_LUT.ICC  for the a7r2
1980 RT AutoLevels, then Contrast 50 (1 focus slice)
2365 RT AutoLevels, then Lightness +10, Contrast 30 (1 focus slice)

In the process of browsing, I also found some images where I am not happy with the sky at all. Maybe I show these later, and my attempt to fix it.

Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #135 on: May 13, 2018, 02:27:39 pm »

@ Stephen Ray #133:

The lens was a Zuiko 3.5/135. Concerning the CA: Did you turn on RT's amazing automatic CA correction (Raw tab)? The 2 screen shots show an area at utmost left at 400%, with and without CA correction.

Tim Lookingbill

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #136 on: May 13, 2018, 03:51:33 pm »

The CA is a minor issue. It's not going to influence the overall color. I have far worse CA from my kit lens which I used with all my posted edited Raws.

#2365 is the best at rendering a daylight scene. All the colors look as it should including the blue sky. I'm not sure why the thin tree branch highlights in #1980 are a greenish yellow. It's a winter scene going by the dead grass in the far right corner so it can't be pollen.

I examined a few daylight lit, ISO 100 sample incamera jpegs with blue sky and green trees and a stone masonry building from the Sony Ar7ii over at PhotographyBlog.com and can see it has no problems rendering color correctly no matter where the sun is located in the sky.

So we have one image (#2365) that looks right using your DcamProfile and whatever converter of choice. Not a workflow I'ld adopt for myself but if it works for you, Hening, stick with it.

I don't know what else to add so I'm going to move on.
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Hening Bettermann

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #137 on: May 13, 2018, 04:02:57 pm »

Fine that this image seems right.
> I'm not sure why the thin tree branch highlights in #1980 are a greenish yellow.
They have this color - it's a lichen, and the contrast between this yellow-green and the orange of the other willow is a main part of the image idea. :-)

Stephen Ray

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #138 on: May 13, 2018, 04:28:01 pm »

The CA is a minor issue. It's not going to influence the overall color. I have far worse CA from my kit lens which I used with all my posted edited Raws.

It is affecting overall color in large areas. That's why I brought it up. It's that bad.
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: The sky is blue - or should be...
« Reply #139 on: May 13, 2018, 04:34:54 pm »

Fine that this image seems right.
> I'm not sure why the thin tree branch highlights in #1980 are a greenish yellow.
They have this color - it's a lichen, and the contrast between this yellow-green and the orange of the other willow is a main part of the image idea. :-)

So now you have two images that look correct. The greenish yellow I would not have taken to be lichen because it's on very thin branches and not on the rest of the tree. It looks like a highlight fluoresce effect.

Several years ago I encountered something similar what I had to define as a metameric issue photographing similar lichen on a large area of stone lit by a sunset I shot on print negative film and scanned. It was hell editing it in Photoshop to get it to look like it fit in the scene and not have it appear as a color anomaly or lab processing error. I gave up on it.
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