Sony ARW files look dark and saturated

[dugmoore]

I have files from the Sony A7R II that used to appear very desaturated. One night I was editing a few photos in Adobe Bridge 2018 (Mac OS Sierra) and ACR from a test shoot, and everything was fine. I would shoot jpegs and they were saturated, and the RAW files looked desaturated but would be saturated after I edited them in ACR.

The next morning it was if the situation was reveresed. All autoupdates on my machine are turned off. Adobe always says to upgrade everything (in all honesty that has never worked for me in the past, but I did it anyway). Nothing changed.

One more clue: when loading photos in Bridge they do look OK for a while, but after 4 seconds or so they become saturated again. The jpgs continue to look flat. The same goes for loading the photos into Lightroom.

I have recently upgraded to High Sierra, and reinstalled all my software. Everything stays the same now.

Adobe tech support has been limited and we have been spinning around in circles for weeks. Has anyone else had this issue and found a solution?

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Raw files have a JPEG embedded inside of them, created by the camera and using the camera’s JPEG settings. It is what you see when you view the raw on the back of the camera.

Bridge will pull up those embedded preview JPEGs when you first load the raw into your computer. Eventually, the Adobe software will automatically re-render the image, and from then on you’ll see that in Bridge.

The Adobe rendering of Sony raw files will never exactly match Sony JPEGs, but you can try adjusting your settings.

 

[dugmoore]

....Eventually, the Adobe software will automatically re-render the image, and from then on you’ll see that in Bridge.

The Adobe rendering of Sony raw files will never exactly match Sony JPEGs, but you can try adjusting your settings.

Thank you for the support Mark!

I realize that they look different, but my question is "Why are my RAW files now really dark and saturated all the time, and jpgs washed out and flat? It used to be the opposite, and I am not aware of why this changed".

It is puzzling as to why this happened, and I am used to getting RAW files that look desaturated and flat, and I adjust them from there. I thought RAW files always looked flat until we saturated them in ACR. Is this not the case?

 

[lehill]

I have files from the Sony A7R II that used to appear very desaturated. One night I was editing a few photos in Adobe Bridge 2018 (Mac OS Sierra) and ACR from a test shoot, and everything was fine. I would shoot jpegs and they were saturated, and the RAW files looked desaturated but would be saturated after I edited them in ACR.

The next morning it was if the situation was reveresed. All autoupdates on my machine are turned off. Adobe always says to upgrade everything (in all honesty that has never worked for me in the past, but I did it anyway). Nothing changed.

One more clue: when loading photos in Bridge they do look OK for a while, but after 4 seconds or so they become saturated again. The jpgs continue to look flat. The same goes for loading the photos into Lightroom.

I have recently upgraded to High Sierra, and reinstalled all my software. Everything stays the same now.

Adobe tech support has been limited and we have been spinning around in circles for weeks. Has anyone else had this issue and found a solution?

I really don't have the answer to your problem and I'm still using the old PhotoShop CS6 on Win10. Recently I got a new computer and had to reinstall everything. I had a devil of a time getting ACR to use my own custom default preset. It kept on applying Adobe's default preset instead of mine. I got it working properly but don't ask me how.

My only suggestion is to open a Raw file and dig deep into each tab of ACR - particularly Camera Calibration - and see if ACR is automatically applying some weird preset.

In addition, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check the A7RII Creative Styles settings to make sure nothing has happened to them.

 

[bobn2]

....Eventually, the Adobe software will automatically re-render the image, and from then on you’ll see that in Bridge.

The Adobe rendering of Sony raw files will never exactly match Sony JPEGs, but you can try adjusting your settings.

Thank you for the support Mark!

I realize that they look different, but my question is "Why are my RAW files now really dark and saturated all the time, and jpgs washed out and flat? It used to be the opposite, and I am not aware of why this changed".

Raw files are not anything until they have been processed. A raw file is just a set of pixel by pixel exposure measurements, they contain no fixed determination of how that information should be rendered into an appearance. Operating system and photo editing tool providers have provided photographers with what might be considered a service or dis-service, depending on your point of view, by providing instantaneous renderings of raw files in their OS/tools, which represent only one possible rendering of that raw file. A lot of photographers have drawn the conclusion from this that the rendering represents how the raw file is, rather than how it might be. If you don't like it like that process it differently, so it is rendered as you want. That is, after all, the whole point of shooting raw.

--
Things became much easier since I stopped confusing profundity and profanity.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

In Adobe software, you can specify a “default processing” for your cameras, which will override whatever processing it used to do. Any possibility that you changed or set this?