Red Highlights

[Dumien]

any chance you're shooting with the Landscape setting, instead of Standard? I find that the Landscape setting on my XSi often over-saturates the colors.


I didn't know the XSi had Highlight Tone Priority. I need to look at my manual again, I guess.
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Yes I almost always shoot in Landscape setting, because I like how it renders colors, but I usually try all of the settings out when I'm post-processing. This one was converted using the picture style "faithful"


Daniel,
can I send it to you? Could you give me your email? Thanks


Andy

[Daniel Browning]

Andy,


I sent you my e-mail address(es) in a private message ("conversation") using the forum, but I haven't heard back. Just in case you didn't get it, here it is: db (at) kavod (dot) com. (What's another 100 spams per day? I already filter thousands.)

[Daniel Browning]

After Andy got back to his computer he sent me the raw file. Here it is for anyone who would like to take a crack at it:


IMG_0019.CR2


I took a quick glance and it is just as I expected: the raw file itself has absolutely *no* clipping in it anywhere. (I checked with Rawnalyze.)


In fact, it is *underexposed* by 2 and 1/3 stop! Yet when I open the file in DPP, the reds are immediately clipped. This is a very clear case of a raw conversion gone horribly wrong. The good news is that it can be fixed.


The white balance settings include "push RED channel by 2.29 stops", so most of the clipping is probably happening during the application of white balance. I will see if I can get DPP to do a more sane conversion. If not, I'll show what it looks like in a different (better) converter.

[Dumien]

maybe this might help:


in DPP I upped the exposure by 0.33 and then applied kelvin white balance to 4600 degrees. neither contrast nor saturation were applied. Raw sahrpness to 7 and RGB sharpness to 80...


I think that's all I did ^^


thanks for the help


Andy

[Daniel Browning]

Keep in mind that I'm no post-processing expert. I can only prove that better processing is *possible*, not actually do it myself.


I couldn't get the results I was looking for in DPP (I don't use it much), so I did quick run with RPP:





(Full size image)


I'm sure an expert could do much better. The color is obviously very different from yours. But at least it proves that the issue is entirely contained to raw conversion and post processing. It's not a camera or exposure issue. In fact, the shot could be exposed 2.3 stops hotter without blowing any highlights. (In this case that's not important since the image clearly has sufficient DR and noise, but it helps to know that for other cases that do need more DR and less shadow noise.)


Going back to your original question: the best way to avoid this problem is to wait for technology to come up with computer displays that are capable of reproducing the same colors that occur in real life. Of course, they will probably invent teleporters and space travel first, so in the mean time we have to work with software to try and find ways of mapping those extremely saturated colors down to the limited level that monitors are capable of. But since I haven't really learned enough about this stuff, the best answer I can give you is probably "I don't know."

[Mark Elberson]

Daniel


What do you use for RAW conversion?

[Daniel Browning]

Daniel

What do you use for RAW conversion?

Mostly Lightroom. It has a ton of quality problems. Underexposed (high ISO) shots are especially poor. It lacks basic features such as nonlinear EC. The downsampling algorithm corrupts the image with aliasing artifacts. It applies different amounts of hidden exposure compensation for different cameras (e.g. you have to set -0.33 EC for the 5D2 to get counteract their hidden +0.33). There are plenty of other quality issues as well.

But for all its problems, I still prefer it over all the others for one single reason: ease of use. I can get on the computer, process hundreds of photos with various adjustments here and there, and get back off in a short amount of time. The plugins and integration with other software save more time still. Most of my photos look "good enough" with Lightroom, so I put up with the quality issues just to be able to zip through a pile of raws in less time. Before Lightroom 2 came out, I was using Bibble for the same reason: easy. But it took extra time to integrate with the DAM. Lightroom has the DAM integrated directly, which I think saves me some time (at a loss in flexibility).

When I am concerned about quality, I will take the time to load up a different converter. My favorites are RPP, DxO, but sometimes I try Bibble, DPP, or a dcraw derivative. I develop astro shots in a variety of more specialized programs such as IRIS, DSS, and MaxIm DL. I haven't used C1P, Aperture, or SilkyPix, but I hear good things.

[Mark Elberson]

I use DPP and find it very user friendly and with its"recipes" and batch processing I think it can bang out a lot of images in a reasonable amount of time as well. I am curious though what your thoughts are on its quality?