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Author Topic: Use LR for RAW conversion, or Canon's software?  (Read 21855 times)

The View

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Use LR for RAW conversion, or Canon's software?
« Reply #40 on: July 11, 2008, 01:40:34 am »

Where can I get the data for the autoadjustments for the Canon 40D?

And how can I switch these off?
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Panopeeper

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« Reply #41 on: July 11, 2008, 01:50:21 am »

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Where can I get the data for the autoadjustments for the Canon 40D?
I listed them, did not I? And anyway, you have no reason to use the 1/3 and 2/3 stop ISOs. Start with 200, and increase it by full stops if necessary, up to 1600.

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And how can I switch these off?
You can't; as I posted above, you have to "counteradjust".
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Gabor

The View

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« Reply #42 on: July 11, 2008, 10:38:33 pm »

Actually, the adjustments for the 40D are only a quarter of an opening, so I think that's neglectable.
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The View

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« Reply #43 on: July 12, 2008, 03:03:52 am »

I did a comparison.

DPP gets better detail and color right out of the box.

LR/ACR has more sliders, and it badly needs it. You can get within a distance of the DPP conversion, but...

... LR/ACR processed images look blunt in comparison. DPP is much better in smoothness, color, detail.

Too bad, I liked the LR workflow. But the whole software is flawed at its core, at image quality. It's simply not letting you get the maximum quality out of your shots, and actually hurts image quality.

So, for workflow advantages, you take a hit at image quality.
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john beardsworth

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« Reply #44 on: July 12, 2008, 03:13:23 am »

Produce a look that you like in LR, and then Alt/Option click the Reset button in Develop. The button text changes to "set default" - ie your out of the box comparison.....
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The View

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« Reply #45 on: July 12, 2008, 03:20:26 am »

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DPP applies all the in-camera settings (contrast, sharpness, WB, saturation, color tone, Highlight Tone Protection), ACR applies only the WB.

If I add to this the fact, that ACR makes an auto-adjustment of "exposure", which can ruin the image, but does not say a word about it, then I can only say: stay awa from ACR until you don't understand, what it is doing.
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I just reread that.

Sharpness, color saturation, contrast settings... that's actually only for JPEGs, if I am not mistaken. If you choose RAW shooting, all of these don't apply.
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The View

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« Reply #46 on: July 12, 2008, 03:21:49 am »

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I just installed DPP and found out, that it has Adobe RGB as the widest color space. No ProPhoto color space. Isn't that a bit limiting?
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My mistake. Wide gamut is only slightly smaller than ProPhoto RGB. It has advantages in the primary colors, so I found out.
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The View

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« Reply #47 on: July 12, 2008, 03:27:31 am »

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In cruising web sites of various top notch digital photographers, I cannot find a single one that uses DPP. All of the DSLR shooters are using Aperture, LR or ACR. I guess the poor workflow of DPP is a big problem for working pros.

Since learning how to use LR and ACR, the images that I produce are great and the integration with Photoshop is excellent. So I think that I'll stick to what the best photographers are using.

Bud James
North Wales, PA
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I simply cannot believe that.

"Various", how many is that?

"Various" is not a statistically viable term.

How many websites did you find where the photographer displays what software he is using?

None.

Because the workflow is usually kept private.

So I must really ask you, how you get to your personal conclusion.

It's of no use for anyone to use ready-made arguments, pre-fab argumentation, that is put together just in different permutation.

Bud, don't see this as critique. I guess we all try to fulfill our work goals and tend to grab "solutions", which are processes, based on convictions of what is true and good, that often are not defined.
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john beardsworth

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« Reply #48 on: July 12, 2008, 03:28:17 am »

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I just reread that.

Sharpness, color saturation, contrast settings... that's actually only for JPEGs, if I am not mistaken. If you choose RAW shooting, all of these don't apply.
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DPP understands any in camera settings and applies them when it converts the raw data, hence your out of the box finding, but you can override them, while with JPEG they're baked in.
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Josh-H

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« Reply #49 on: July 12, 2008, 03:39:55 am »

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I simply cannot believe that.

"Various", how many is that?

"Various" is not a statistically viable term.

How many websites did you find where the photographer displays what software he is using?

None.

Because the workflow is usually kept private.

So I must really ask you, how you get to your personal conclusion.

It's of no use for anyone to use ready-made arguments, pre-fab argumentation, that is put together just in different permutation.

Bud, don't see this as critique. I guess we all try to fulfill our work goals and tend to grab "solutions", which are processes, based on convictions of what is true and good, that often are not defined.
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The simple fact of the matter is this:

And I would pre-emt this by saying I was a heavy DPP user and espoused its virtues prior to adopting Lightroom.

Simply put the workflow in DDP sux - period. In a straight RAW conversion DPP will produce better colors than ACR or LR- I dont think there is any real question about this. BUT! All things are not straight....

ACR and LR will give you far greater control and latitude than DPP - and hence with a little work a superior result that more closley matches the creative vision of the photographer. The level of control offered in ACR and LR simply makes them THE best creative tool for the job.

Does DPP have its place?

Of course it does. Its probably the best free RAW converter for Canon files out there. But - its workflow is abysmal and it offers simplistic control that cannot even begin to rival ACR and LR.

For the creative photographer looking to match his RAW file to his creative vision then ACR and LR are bang for buck the best.
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The View

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« Reply #50 on: July 12, 2008, 04:19:36 am »

It's not about bangs and bucks.

It's about the smoothness of tones, the quality of detail.

And in this area LR/ACR simply falls behind.

I see a RAW image as exactly that: as RAW. I want a good, basic image, that I can work on in PS.

I see PS as the image editor to go after what you saw when you did the shot, not the RAW editor.

The RAW editor is for creating the best basis, with as much information as possible contained.
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Josh-H

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« Reply #51 on: July 12, 2008, 05:17:13 am »

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It's not about bangs and bucks.

It's about the smoothness of tones, the quality of detail.

And in this area LR/ACR simply falls behind.

I see a RAW image as exactly that: as RAW. I want a good, basic image, that I can work on in PS.

I see PS as the image editor to go after what you saw when you did the shot, not the RAW editor.

The RAW editor is for creating the best basis, with as much information as possible contained.
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Well thats where we differ.

I see the RAW conversion tool as the opportunity to do as much as possible via meta data edits creativley to the file before conversion to Tiff.

I only covert to Tiff for any pixel level editing.

I did my own comparisons of DPP v. ACR/Lightroom and found ACR/Lightroom vastly superior from a workflow perspective. And since I always have to adjust something before conversion to Tiff I prefer Lightroom for the workflow advantages.

If you feel DPP offers better color and tone so be it - but dont beleive for a second that the same quality [or better] is not acheivable through ACR and Lightroom.

Please remember - I am a Lightroom convert. I am sure if you do a search you will find old posts from me talking about the advantages of DPP.

Bottom line for me - Lightroom is the tool of choice.
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The View

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« Reply #52 on: July 12, 2008, 05:35:13 am »

Quote from: Josh-H,Jul 12 2008, 01:17 AM

I see the RAW conversion tool as the opportunity to do as much as possible via meta data edits creativley to the file before conversion to Tiff.

(...)

I did my own comparisons of DPP v. ACR/Lightroom and found ACR/Lightroom vastly superior from a workflow perspective.
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Yes, LR is better for workflow. That's easy to see.

But I prefer using adjustment layers in PS, and I'm just getting into the advanced stuff you can read about in Real World CS3.

Quote from: Josh-H,Jul 12 2008, 01:17 AM

If you feel DPP offers better color and tone so be it - but dont beleive for a second that the same quality [or better] is not acheivable through ACR and Lightroom.

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I just re-imported the last shoot. I erased the conversions to DNG.

The image quality is much better when using the original Canon RAW files.

Converting to DNG ruins your images.

I will go and continue my tests. Regarding my work process, even after bigger shoots I find my images of interest very quickly, and then focus on those, doing a fairly large number of versions.
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madmanchan

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« Reply #53 on: July 12, 2008, 09:51:45 am »

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It's about the smoothness of tones, the quality of detail.

And in this area LR/ACR simply falls behind.

I would be very interested if you have an example RAW file (i.e., one that you can post and share for us to try) that shows this difference. I am guessing you are not applying the sharpening/masking settings in CR properly.
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Eric Chan

Panopeeper

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« Reply #54 on: July 12, 2008, 11:19:15 am »

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Converting to DNG ruins your images
This is definitively incorrect. I doubt that you can produce an example for even a tiny difference in the result between processing the native raw file vs the DNG in ACR.
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Gabor

The View

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« Reply #55 on: July 12, 2008, 10:05:35 pm »

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This is definitively incorrect. I doubt that you can produce an example for even a tiny difference in the result between processing the native raw file vs the DNG in ACR.
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I threw out the DNGs and re-imported the images staying with Canon RAW CR2.

Much, much better.
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The View

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« Reply #56 on: July 12, 2008, 10:08:35 pm »

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I would be very interested if you have an example RAW file (i.e., one that you can post and share for us to try) that shows this difference. I am guessing you are not applying the sharpening/masking settings in CR properly.
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I erased the DNG files.

You could see the files staying in Canon RAW format were much better. You could even see it in the thumbnails (with LR's out of the box conservative settings).

And it was easy to bring the image to live, while the other, converted to DNG files were soggy, had bad color and detail.

Panopeeper says, it can't be, but I see it here, and I just downloaded without any presets ( I don't use presets) and I also kept the basic out of the box-adjustment of LR with black level to 5, etc...
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Panopeeper

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« Reply #57 on: July 12, 2008, 10:43:50 pm »

I think you are misleading yourself with some uncontrolled experiment. There is *NO* inherent difference between processing of a native raw file vs. DNG.

However, it is possible, that the default setting for the 40D CR2 is different from that of the DNG. It is possible, that LR saved and applied settings, which you do not see. to be sure, you should load an *unadultered* CR2 and the converted DNG in ACR through Photoshop, see that all adjustments are the same and convert both of them in TIFF. Overlay one over the other in a "difference" mode layer and if you find some difference, pls upload both the CR2 and DNG.
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Gabor

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« Reply #58 on: July 13, 2008, 02:04:21 am »

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I think you are misleading yourself with some uncontrolled experiment. There is *NO* inherent difference between processing of a native raw file vs. DNG.

However, it is possible, that the default setting for the 40D CR2 is different from that of the DNG. It is possible, that LR saved and applied settings, which you do not see. to be sure, you should load an *unadultered* CR2 and the converted DNG in ACR through Photoshop, see that all adjustments are the same and convert both of them in TIFF. Overlay one over the other in a "difference" mode layer and if you find some difference, pls upload both the CR2 and DNG.
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I'm going to do that. But it has to wait a few days. That's why I was a bit stressed out, as shoots were coming in, and I produced flat and soggy files with my new camera.

(I checked my camera settings: quality is on RAW, not on sRAW).
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Nick Rains

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« Reply #59 on: July 13, 2008, 07:01:58 am »

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I erased the DNG files.

You could see the files staying in Canon RAW format were much better. You could even see it in the thumbnails (with LR's out of the box conservative settings).

And it was easy to bring the image to live, while the other, converted to DNG files were soggy, had bad color and detail.

Panopeeper says, it can't be, but I see it here, and I just downloaded without any presets ( I don't use presets) and I also kept the basic out of the box-adjustment of LR with black level to 5, etc...
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You are certainly doing something wrong here. Thumbs from CR2 files mostly look flat and lifeless becuase they are based on the jpeg previews generated by the camera. Of course if you crank up the sat, sharpness, etc in the camera then they might look OK but they are still camera-baked jpeg previews.

Bring a CR2 into LR, adjust it to where it needs to be and the save out as a DNG and the thumbs generated in DNG aware software reflect those adjustments. The same is not true for straight CR2 file in apps like IView, PhotoMechanic and all the web software. like Dreamweaver etc.

There is no 'loss' converting to DNG, that's not the way it works. If the colours change it's because you are not doing it correctly. Have another look at your workflow and you'll see that this is true.

Also, as Andrew Rodney has said, "do the heavy (tonal) lifting in RAW" and do the pixel level stuff in PS. There are advantages to this as you are working on the RAW data not an exported TIFF. PS is less colour-accurate in curves adjustments than the RAW converters.

It's a bit like scanning film - better to do the tonal edits in the scanner software and then do the pixel stuff in PS.
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Nick Rains
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