Viable alternatives to Photoshop.

[Richard Lundberg]

I'll see if I can manage it, Colin. I do appreciate the time you've put in explaining. I think this subject is important.
I did checkout Intensify Pro, which MacPhun claims is one of the most popular on the App Store, but it does not read the lens correction. Next I'll see if it interprets the dng.

[Colin Southern]

I'll see if I can manage it, Colin. I do appreciate the time you've put in explaining. I think this subject is important.
I did checkout Intensify Pro, which MacPhun claims is one of the most popular on the App Store, but it does not read the lens correction. Next I'll see if it interprets the dng.

If you want to read more about the "insides of DNG and ACR", grab a copy of "The Digital Negative" by Jeff Schewe.

[Richard Lundberg]

I have that book, thanks. I got your message. I'm trying something with DNG Converter first.
Iintensify Pro opens the RAF without lens correction but does not interpret.
I always tell a raw converter to open in Pro Photo 16 bit if that choice is available.
I'm going to open the dng in ACR again and see if there's something I missed.
The two files are 13 mB and 8 mB (dng). My email will send up to 25 mB.

[ajohnw]

There are a number of raw files from this camera on this site

http://www.photographyblog.com/revie...sample_images/

I took the worst one from a perspective point of view.

Using an Adobe profile it picked up the colour temperature from the camera but gave a rather dark view that needed 2EV adjustment, contrast low and in need of sharpening. No perspective correction.

I then loaded it up in rawtherapee. Used autolevels and around +0.5EV compensation, contrast and sharpening. Done quickly but very close to the camera jpg on the site. No perspective correction so did that manually. It looks like the shot should have been tilted 1st but results are better than the camera jpg. This package makes use of Adobe dng files but haven't installed them yet. When I have time later I will see what they do. This is the result so far. A default icc file for the camera has been used so colour temp is as it came out.



I mention this package from time to time it might make a useful alternative for you. It's normally used prior to the GIMP where local retouching and one or two other things can be done but for GIMP read any package you might want to use.

John
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[Colin Southern]

I have that book, thanks. I got your message. I'm trying something with DNG Converter first.
Iintensify Pro opens the RAF without lens correction but does not interpret.
I always tell a raw converter to open in Pro Photo 16 bit if that choice is available.
I'm going to open the dng in ACR again and see if there's something I missed.
The two files are 13 mB and 8 mB (dng). My email will send up to 25 mB.

No worries - just eMail them to me then.

ProPhoto is one of those "with great power comes great responsibility" colourspaces; it's guaranteed to support all the colours that a camera can capture, but monitors won't be able to display some of them -- and that's where the fun can start

[Colin Southern]

Just threw this through ACR. Not sure why you needed to brighten it by 2 stops John - it's already got blown highlights, so increasing the exposure is only going to make that worse. What it did need is fill light to compress some of the dynamic range.

My version of ACR didn't have lens correction info available for this camera / lens combination, but I think it would only have made a mediocre difference anyway; that shot had some appalling distortions, and the sensor wasn't vertical when the shot was taken either. To be honest, if I had a lens that performed like that I think I'd just bury it.

Anyway ...

[ajohnw]

The 2 stops is down to the package Colin. It's called Photivo and is completely different to other packages I have used and I need to do a lot more to get to grips with it. Just aimed to get close to the jpg.

I can get closer to yours by throwing more at it but rich wood colours seem to be a problem, I corrected the tilt this time but suspect horizontal and vertical shifts may be a tiny bit out or more likely the barrel and pincushion distortion in the lens is a little warped.



John
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[Colin Southern]

The 2 stops is down to the package Colin. It's called Photivo and is completely different to other packages I have used and I need to do a lot more to get to grips with it. Just aimed to get close to the jpg.

I can get closer to yours by throwing more at it but rich wood colours seem to be a problem, I corrected the tilt this time but suspect horizontal and vertical shifts may be a tiny bit out or more likely the barrel and pincushion distortion in the lens is a little warped.

Hi John,

For me, your comment nicely illustrates what I consider to be a very common issue - and that's "why do people hold the JPEG up as the reference standard"? And following on from that, "why would one want to adjust a RAW to look the same as the JPEG"?

This is a shiny example; surely the objective is to create the best-looking image possible - and a RAW capture gives us the most latitude to correct short-comings with the least chance of visible image degradation. In the case of the above image, the JPEG is hideous; it's got a strong blue cast - truckload of visible noise - extremely poor tone-mapping around the chandeliers & darker areas and horrific lens distortions. Why would one want to process a RAW capture to emulate those severe shortcomings instead of using using it's strengths to improve it (like I did)?

[bambleweeney]

Hi John,

For me, your comment nicely illustrates what I consider to be a very common issue - and that's "why do people hold the JPEG up as the reference standard"? And following on from that, "why would one want to adjust a RAW to look the same as the JPEG"?

Yep, had me confused as well. Almost considered de-installing Photoshop and selling my monitors to replace them with little 3" replicas of the LCD panel on my Nikon

[ajohnw]

Hi John,

For me, your comment nicely illustrates what I consider to be a very common issue - and that's "why do people hold the JPEG up as the reference standard"? And following on from that, "why would one want to adjust a RAW to look the same as the JPEG"?

This is a shiny example; surely the objective is to create the best-looking image possible - and a RAW capture gives us the most latitude to correct short-comings with the least chance of visible image degradation. In the case of the above image, the JPEG is hideous; it's got a strong blue cast - truckload of visible noise - extremely poor tone-mapping around the chandeliers & darker areas and horrific lens distortions. Why would one want to process a RAW capture to emulate those severe shortcomings instead of using using it's strengths to improve it (like I did)?

I have already argued in this thread that is what raw is for Colin especially in the case where a light has severely interfered with the rest of the shot.. Getting it to look like the jpg would be a bit of an odd thing to do except in this case where the jpg is on the site as well as the raw and lack of jpg look a likes seems to be one of the problems. There is the lens correction aspect as well. Looks like auto correction for this camera isn't available. On the shot posted I don't think it would help much either due to the camera angle.

I can see the OP point though but even jpg's often need adjustment.

I had another go at it for practice. It could do with a bit more noise reduction really.



John
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[ajohnw]

Yep, had me confused as well. Almost considered de-installing Photoshop and selling my monitors to replace them with little 3" replicas of the LCD panel on my Nikon

And also bears no relationship to what I have been trying to point out or what my own beliefs are either.

John
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[Colin Southern]

I have already argued in this thread that is what raw is for Colin especially in the case where a light has severely interfered with the rest of the shot.

Yes. No disagreement there. My previous comment wasn't "getting at you John", just commenting on how I hear - a lot - of people bemoaning the fact that "then they shoot RAW then this package can't be very good because the shots don't look like they did when they viewed the (JPEG) on the back of the camera". To which my response is "they're putting the cart before the horse"; THANK GOODNESS they don't look like the JPEGs on the back of the camera -- we want to get them looking much better than that.

Having just said that though, what people don't seem to realise is that cameras are getting pretty smart - and they can do a pretty descent job of what one sees on the back right off the bat; by the time you see that image on the back it's already had adjustments made to saturation, contrast, tone curve, sharpness etc etc etc; the RAW file in contrast has none of that, and that's often mistaken for being a bad thing by those who don't yet understand what RAW processing involves. Unfortunately, the next step doesn't offer them much encouragement because as they start out they won't have the knowledge or skills to beat the camera yet either. It's not until the learn even more that they'll be able to match the camera - and when they learn yet more STILL then eventually you get to the point where they can produce considerably BETTER results from the camera.

A lot of that does depend on what they're shooting though; if it's just an average scene then it may not be worth all the effort, but if it's something that pushes the boundaries then RAW processing is the only thing that's going to accomplish that. Case in point; chances of this popping straight out of the camera as a JPEG are ZERO: (which incidentally looks spectacular and has sold as a frames 0.5 x 1.5 meter print)

There is the lens correction aspect as well. Looks like auto correction for this camera isn't available. On the shot posted I don't think it would help much either due to the camera angle.

I agree. Frankly I was shocked at the distortions in that shot. In all honesty, if those are the kinds of issues that are regularly occurring, I'd be inclined to concentrate less on automatic corrections, and more on replacing the equipment.

I had another go at it for practice. It could do with a bit more noise reduction really.



John
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You've still got a very strong blue colour-cast.

[Richard Lundberg]

This whole thing is ALL YOUR FAULT, Colin. You failed to point out that I am an idiot.
I converted to dng again, this time with prefs set to NO JPG PREVIEW. Problem solved. I will perjure myself in court and say that I thought I had set it to NONE.
One thing is annoying me though. When I open in PS ACR, there is a checkbox for preview above the upper right corner of the display window. The hint says you can toggle for the original in the control panel tab ℗. I can't find that.
Anyway, thanks for posting that link, ajohnw, I found many many web pages on the camera but not that one. it will be quite useful.
I bought the camera because it was the best choice for the money to start with RAW. Now I could buy a Nikon 24 mp with a kit lens for 429, but not then when I paid 125 for the Fuji, they were around 700.
I can't get either RawTherapee or dcraw to work on my 10.8.5 Mac. Photivo for Mac requires so much work to compile it etc that it isn't worth it. I haven't looked at the Win ver that I could run in Fusion yet.
The Fuji proprietary version of Silky Pix and ACDSee Pro 3 handle the lens, and DxO Perspective is easy to use for straightening. I have any number of apps for prettiness.
The real problem is shooting paintings in situ. I'm sure I'm going to end up with natural light and incandescent. I don't know where my movie light is any more, but it would cause reflections, the bane of shooting oil paint.
In conclusion, mea culpa, mea culpa, laugh your butts off.

[xpatUSA]

In conclusion, mea culpa, mea culpa, laugh your butts off.

I for one will not be laughing. You persevered and won through in the end.

Well done.

[Colin Southern]

This whole thing is ALL YOUR FAULT, Colin.

What can I say? I'm a responsible person. If something goes wrong, generally, I'm responsible!

You failed to point out that I am an idiot.

I'm not allowed to (J/K - I wouldn't anyway!)

One thing is annoying me though. When I open in PS ACR, there is a checkbox for preview above the upper right corner of the display window. The hint says you can toggle for the original in the control panel tab ℗. I can't find that.

Dunno - mine is there where it's supposed to be



There's a more powerful feature though - snapshots (on the 10th tab) - you can create multiple snapshots of edits at any stage (and keep them). Works best with DNG files as they're all saved in the 1 file with the original data, as opposed to in a sidecar file for native file formats.

Anyway, thanks for posting that link, ajohnw, I found many many web pages on the camera but not that one. it will be quite useful.
I bought the camera because it was the best choice for the money to start with RAW. Now I could buy a Nikon 24 mp with a kit lens for 429, but not then when I paid 125 for the Fuji, they were around 700.

Go on - upgrade. You know you want to

The real problem is shooting paintings in situ. I'm sure I'm going to end up with natural light and incandescent. I don't know where my movie light is any more, but it would cause reflections, the bane of shooting oil paint.

They can be quite a pain, for a number of reasons. If you don't have control of the painting then - ideally - a tilt and shift lens is beneficial to prevent the distortion caused by having to tilt the sensor plane upwards (assuming the painting is above camera height) (Software can correct this, but it's a very "dirty" fix in that it has to extrapolate the data progressively more and more towards the top of the image. It works, but not ideal if the image is destined for professional reproduction).

Lighting is seldom flattering; ideally you need to replace the ambient light with controlled flash light, but you need a couple, and you need to get them outside of the family of angles, which means (a) having them, (b) having a means to trigger them, (c) having a means to set them up (lightstands etc), (d) they'll produce a very harsh light unless you can attach some very big light modifiers (this has quite an effect on oil paintings due to the fact that they're actually quite 3 dimensional, not 2 dimensional as people might first think) (small light sources produce unflattering local contrast and increase specularity)

I do quite a bit of art reproduction in the studio - we generally fire 1200WS strobs into huge softboxes - outside of the family of angles - all even to within 1/10th of a stop according to the lightmeter - and we STILL get issues with unevenness.

An accurate white balance reference (and preferably a colour target reference too) are also very helpful.

Here's a couple I did not too long ago ...





Alas, all produced in Photoshop

In conclusion, mea culpa, mea culpa, laugh your butts off.

Not at all - I've made hundreds of mistakes - and that's just this week!

Hopefully you'll see ACR / DNG in a more favourable light now

[ajohnw]

I preferred the blue to the warm yellow of the lighting Colin. I see colour balance as another variable. In this case I feel it's more realistic.

Anyway I feel that the camera as set up for that shot has so much noise that it would seriously limit the max size of a final image. I have heard that Topaz can be very effective for that sort of problem and that it has a relatively low price tag.

John
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[Colin Southern]

I preferred the blue to the warm yellow of the lighting Colin. I see colour balance as another variable. In this case I feel it's more realistic.

Your call on your edit John, but to be honest, I think the blue permeating all the shadow detail just looks pretty bad.

I just white balanced it to a white reference in the scene.

[ajohnw]

If you are shooting paintings AND are allowed to use flash it's possible to find an angle to shoot them at where reflections don't go back to the camera and then correct the perspective via software. On relative flat subjects this should work out reasonably well within limits that you will have to find out for yourself. It can work out with some problems on subjects that have depth as well. This one was shot through glass and is pretty representative of what I actually saw. A day out finding out what an E-PL1 gets up to when taking shots. My PP is a bit extreme on this one. The effect of keystone type correction can be seen in some of the shapes. It's important to include more area than the subject takes up in the shot for this approach to work out.



Keystone can also be used to mostly correct things like this. Also this one had a reflection removed by copying one of the tiles over another. I don't think there are any Public Bars left like this in the UK. Serious place for just drinking beer especially on pay day. Who needs seats.



If you have to shoot with natural light or artificial a grey card wouldn't be a bad idea. Perhaps on a stand and included in each shot. Colours - well I don't think a PC will completely match a painting when viewed with a critical eye.

John
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[Richard Lundberg]

I've learned a lot from being dumb over my career, stupid misteaks( see what I did there) are an opportunity if they don't kill you. I'd appreciate a reference on the "family of angles" I've never heard that term before. I agree you have to leave some room around the subject for corrections and a white or grey reference unless you take a second shot for that. You've got to get as much resolution as you can also, if there's a fabric component in the frame or grain in wood you get weird results blowing up if resolution isn't maxed out.
I don't have any real lighting equipment and will have to make do.
I will definitely upgrade next year. That Nikon should be below 300 by midyear. I hope its mount takes my old Nikon 105mm even if I have to do all manual. There might even be something better in six months. Tilt/shift is pretty high end, I think.

[xpatUSA]

I'd appreciate a reference on the "family of angles" I've never heard that term before.

I hadn't heard it either, So I googled "The Family of Angles" and got a hit or two:

Inside:


Outside:


Reference:

http://studiography.blogspot.com/201...of-angles.html
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