C1 adjustments imported into Lightroom?

[whitesockcat]

Is it possible to get the adjustments I've made to files in C1, into Lightroom, as RAW?  I.e. If I shoot tethered with C1 and make adjustments to contrast and crop, can I leave the files unprocessed (RAW) and import those files into Lightroom, keeping the contrast and crop adjustment?

[michael]

In a word - no. Save as a 16 bit TIFF in Prophoto them import into Lightroom.

Michael

[Doug Peterson]

Related threads:
http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?p=358219#post358219
http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30728

Key Quote:

Basically most users don't have to think about what a miracle of math is actually going on behind the scenes of any raw processor and so the assumption is that there is "one true photo" and that the different processors are all trying to create it. [And that any adjustments such as adding contrast would be made from that one true photo and therefore should be very easy to "convert" or "translate" between raw processors]

In reality the raw data itself is a myriad of very confusing information, full of errors, noise, stuck/hot pixels, color responses which are not linear, lens aberrations, distortions, inversions, and otherwise not just a picture-waiting-to-happen. This is increasingly true as you get to either extreme of the exposure range of the camera (deep shadows and strong highlights) and especially true at higher ISOs and longer exposures.

Now there are some standards (e.g. ICC definitions of color/exposure/ISO etc) and some conventions. But the fine tuning of the math and where to place the default settings are largely arbitrary. There is no "real image" which each software is trying to get as close as possible to. Instead there is a set of data each software is trying to render in the way that will be most pleasing to their target audience (and encourage that target audience to purchase future upgrades and evangelize the product to others).

There are patents, scholastic research, purchasing of proprietary algorithms, collaboration with the camera manufacturers, user feedback, and the tastes/aesthetics of the higher-ups at each company.

In addition to the general math the software uses there is a variable amount of fine tuning for individual cameras. As you'd imagine the amount of tender loving care that goes into fine tuning for a particular camera depends on everything from market share, to how difficult that camera is to tune for, to business arrangements (e.g. Phase One makes both Capture One and manufacturers digital backs - you better believe they spend a lot of time fine tuning Capture One to get the most out of Phase One, Leaf, and Mamiya digital backs), to what cameras the software engineers themselves use (you can bet if the lead software engineer buys an XYZ point and shoot that it will get extra attention).

So what you're seeing is just two different attempts to make sense of that data. There are many cases where a particular camera is better tuned in one software or the other other.

So in short, the math to create the initial "default" image is different for different raw converters. The math to make any adjustments from that "default" image is different for different raw convertors. There is no way to translate between the two other than processing to a TIFF. If nothing is clipped in highlights or shadows and the WB and overall look of the file are done in C1 then a 16 bit TIFF with minimal sharpening added is a great substitute for an original raw file for nearly all subsequent adjustments.

Doug Peterson (e-mail Me)
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[hjulenissen]

Reverse-engineering the development parameters of common raw developers would be an interesting task, and might allow a coarse conversion of the kind asked by the thread starter.

Say that you set C1 and Lightroom to "standard neutral", compare the results for a bunch of raw input files, then have a program search through all parameter settings to find what settings make Lightroom most "similar" to default C1.

Once this is established, you might change C1 parameter settings one at a time, and in groups, and do the same to see what Lightroom settings corresponds to a given set of C1 settings.

Similarity could be a simple or advanced metric but would probably only correlate to a degree with what you and I might think.

Sounds very time-consuming, but for a computer that never gets bored, this might be doable. There might be a tremendous speed-up if some expert guided the algorithm in hinting that fiddling with Lightroom sharpening settings probably would only affect the curves/levels to a minimal degree and might be excluded from the corresponding search.

-h

[Doug Peterson]

Yes, it could be academically interesting.

But it would only be applicable to that camera at that ISO for those versions of LR and C1.

Repeating the experiment for 40-100 cameras at every ISO every time either LR or C1 made a major revision...

You can see why there is no such utility and likely never will be.

Plus, using a 16 bit TIFF is really a very good solution. It's more space-intensive. But with a gigabyte of storage costing around 4-8 cents today (and half that in 2 years) that's usually the least of most people's concerns.

[hjulenissen]

But it would only be applicable to that camera at that ISO for those versions of LR and C1.

Repeating the experiment for 40-100 cameras at every ISO every time either LR or C1 made a major revision...

You can see why there is no such utility and likely never will be.

As long as the training consume no manual steps, only computer time, I am not so sure about the practicality.

In practice, you can probably assume that the "brightness" slider in Lightroom works the same for Canon and Nikon cameras, and that it did the same in Lightroom 2.0 as in 3.0. This assumption might be wrong, but if you do a few samples (LR 2.0 vs LR 3.0, Canon 400D, brightness) you can be reasonably assured that it holds. And then you have reduced the space consisting of "every Lightroom revision" x "every supported camera" x ... to only a few random picked samples.

Ah well. I am not up to writing that utility and I see little commercial potential. I would wish that the major raw developers felt like doing something similar (e.g. make a agreed upon subset of standardized parameters, and each manufacturers make their own import/export into that format). Then user mobility would be larger, competition would be a little harder, and customers could switch raw developer with a little less effort (import image as a "pair" consisting of raw-file with simplified edits + fully developed tiff file)

-h

[cunim]

This has been said many times before.  Practically, what matters is fitting the raw converter into workflow.  Congratulations to the new owners at Hasselblad for finally accepting that.  I hated Phocus and now Blad users are free of it if they wish.  That is a MAJOR advantage of the Hasselblad platform.  Please Phase, free me of C1 and integrate the low level functions into LR so that I can acquire in C1 (tethered) and work in LR.  After all the corporate statements about how impossible it was to do that with Phocus, in the end it just took a management decision.  Same with C1.  Otherwise, if the Swedes figure out something remotely as good as the IQ back, watch out.