5D/5-way RAW Skin Tone Test

Since I have been jumping between numerous RAW converters I thought it was time to settle on one for most of my portrait work. The processing below is very simple - straight through the converter with the only tweak being "lower contrast" where available (Silkypix and Bibble for example - not really a big change in final image quality). I did NOT touch exposure, WB, sharpness, etc. I only sharpened in PSCS2 and resized for web.

I didn't want to tweak much in the converter because I thought I had an excellent capture in the first place. I set a custom WB in camera using a WhiBal card and metered very carefully after calibrating my Sekonic L-358. This is a very strong capture and shouldn't' require any tweaking at all. A fitting test to determine how each RAW converter interprets image data. I was surprised by the variance.

I'm presenting these in order of quality with the best converter first.

Silkypix - I think it wins because it offers the most pleasing skin tones to my eye. It might be a hair warm but I prefer it and it looks great in print. I think it's fair to say that the top three are almost too close to call a "winner". Comes down to personal taste.



Canon DPP - almost a toss-up with Silkypix. I think DPP is slightly more magenta. If speed is the goal DPP is probably the most efficient workflow:



Bibble 4.6 - tough call here since it's again VERY close to the other two. I think it's 3rd best because it looks a tiny bit yellow to me. Bibble has the fastest conversion speed BUT the slowest workflow. It's quite a memory hog and took too long to created thumbs IMO. DPP and SP win hands down in speed of use:



ACR - this is where I think the converters drop off with the 1st three being superior and then 4 and 5 significantly behind. ACR is too bright - blowing the red channel slightly. Why does ACR convert a well exposed image so "hot"? ACR also suffers do the the painfully slow Bridge - which is neck and neck with Bibble for the slowest image browser of the bunch (I have a dual core AMD system so it's not my system).



RSP 2006 with latest lo sat Magne CE profile - very disappointed with RSP's default conversion - it is far behind the top 3 and even quite a distance behind ACR. Far too much contrast. Too back because RSP is so fast and efficient.

Something always bothered me about RSP and now I see it clearly. It appears biased toward "punchy" outdoor shots. It fails when looking for soft and gentle tones under portrait light. Why should I spend time tweaking an image that looks great out of the box?

Joe Marques said:

ACR - this is where I think the converters drop off with the 1st
three being superior and then 4 and 5 significantly behind. ACR is
too bright - blowing the red channel slightly. Why does ACR
convert a well exposed image so "hot"?

Click to expand...

Just slide the brightness slider down, until you compare the same contrast and brightness its hard to compare colours. Holding the alt key down tells you if you are clipping a channel when you go back to readjust the exposure slider.

Andrew

Joe,

There is another variable that I do not see discussed much, the variation between sensors for any given body.

I use ACR and PSCS2, but it should apply to any raw converter that will allow a selectible profile for initial conversion.

Have made a profile for my 5D and ACR using this script under different lighting conditions, and I have been pleased with the results so far.

harvey

http://fors.net/chromoholics/download/
--

andrewD2 said:

andrewD2 said:

ACR - this is where I think the converters drop off with the 1st
three being superior and then 4 and 5 significantly behind. ACR is
too bright - blowing the red channel slightly. Why does ACR
convert a well exposed image so "hot"?

Click to expand...

Just slide the brightness slider down, until you compare the same
contrast and brightness its hard to compare colours. Holding the
alt key down tells you if you are clipping a channel when you go
back to readjust the exposure slider.

Andrew

Click to expand...

I know how to use ACR (been using it since it first came out) - the point of my comparison is that ACR does a poor job converting the image "as caputred". The top 3 conversions are untouched so ACR is off the list. Why should I touch a slider when the captured image is exposed extremely well?

PS - ACR doesn't show red channel clipping on this image prior to conversion. It clips the red channel WHEN converting.

Joe

Thanks so much for this test. I am learning RAW conversion and this was very helpful. First of all thats a great shot. Perfect exposure and beautiful color and contrast. What do you think about the Picture Styles in the 5D. I only like Standard for jpegs. I don't have PS2 yet and I'm going insane without it but I'm using DPP and I like it. But I want to try ACR and get into that. You say Bridge is slow, is it too slow or just slower than the others?

Thanks again
Mike
--

When you are down and out, something always turns up -- and it is usually the noses of your friends.

Orson Welles

Thanks for showing us all of this.

But this test is only of one fair boy with blue eyes where "browniness" is acceptable.

Try and photograph a subject with darker complexion and the reds will be messed up.

I m telling we need Raw software that is "clever" rather than just apply ONE profile every time...
--
Yiannis

When I was a very small boy,
Very small boys talked to me
Now that we’ve grown up together
They’re afraid of what they see
That’s the price that we all pay
Our valued destiny comes to nothing
I can’t tell you where we’re going
I guess there was just no way of knowing

Fair point Harvey. I have dabbled with the GM colorcheck and script. It does improve overall color, however, I think ACR doesn't do a sound job of "pure conversion". The red channel wasn't clipped in ACR - adobe simply converted it poorly and clipped the channel once in TIF format.

Joe

hgmoore said:

Joe,

There is another variable that I do not see discussed much, the
variation between sensors for any given body.

I use ACR and PSCS2, but it should apply to any raw converter that
will allow a selectible profile for initial conversion.

Have made a profile for my 5D and ACR using this script under
different lighting conditions, and I have been pleased with the
results so far.

harvey

http://fors.net/chromoholics/download/
--

Click to expand...

Skin tone tests are extremely important to portrait photographers and your post drew me to read it. I like the Bibble version the best, and I am pro that specializes in portraits and weddings so I may be zoning in on certain areas. I am looking at something in your pictures that is exactly where most converters fail for me. The ruddy almost skin rash on his check is usually exaggerated by most converters. I don't like when I see that.

The one you like the best draws out this rash more, while the Bibble conversion is not drawing this out. This is very important with facial portraits one of the top qualifying factors in my deciding which software to use.

The only 2 RAW converters that do not take the facial blemishes and draw them out and magnify them, yet still are able to handle everything well is Bibble Pro and C1. RSP, SP, DPP, and ACR all exaggerate facial imperfections and that makes me turn away from them big time. The SP you like is doing it and it gets grouped in with the rest for me. The way they create their profiles causes the facial features like the boy's check to show a more red sandpaperish complexion that will need to be dealt with later.

Peter

I'm hoping that Eric is busily working on a complete overhaul of Bibble's UI to make it more in line with the intuitive workflow of C1 and RSP. If he nails that (along with the memory issues some seem to experience with it), he'll have a winner.

Dan

Peter Gregg said:

Skin tone tests are extremely important to portrait photographers
and your post drew me to read it. I like the Bibble version the
best, and I am pro that specializes in portraits and weddings so I
may be zoning in on certain areas. I am looking at something in
your pictures that is exactly where most converters fail for me.
The ruddy almost skin rash on his check is usually exaggerated by
most converters. I don't like when I see that.

The one you like the best draws out this rash more, while the
Bibble conversion is not drawing this out. This is very important
with facial portraits one of the top qualifying factors in my
deciding which software to use.

The only 2 RAW converters that do not take the facial blemishes and
draw them out and magnify them, yet still are able to handle
everything well is Bibble Pro and C1. RSP, SP, DPP, and ACR all
exaggerate facial imperfections and that makes me turn away from
them big time. The SP you like is doing it and it gets grouped in
with the rest for me. The way they create their profiles causes the
facial features like the boy's check to show a more red
sandpaperish complexion that will need to be dealt with later.

Peter

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/kluken

Maybe its me then, but with my 20D I am finding Bibble to be a tad red with skin tones and I calibrate my monitor all the time using Monaco Optix Pro and use a CRT. I also find the tempto be a tad off. Both ACR and RSP nail the temp from the camera presets with minimal tweaking needed, if any, yet Bobble os alwys off, I set 5100 in camera dn Bibble comes up with 47xx or 49xx and thus the WB is off a tad. I find I am rarely dead on with skin tones in Bibble. Maybe when I get my 5D Bibble will do better

Excellent point Peter. You've stated very clearly what I've been seeing for the last few months. Here is a comparison of the left cheek with and without sharpening.





I think SP does a good job here as well.

May I just suggest you to try Chaney's profiles ?? I'm very happy with RSP but not with the internal profiles nor the CE, a bit yellowish even if far better than the original rendered colors.

As mentioned by another poster, just take a away a bit of highlight contrast, add a little vibrance, maybe reducing the saturation and the shot will be better.

Very, very nice shot, forget to mention

Ludo from Paris
http://ludo.smugmug.com/gallery/1158249

Are you talking about auto settings? or as shot settings? I haven't converted a RAW yet without having to change something.

It should not be clipped in any channel in the conversion if it doesn show it unless you are previewing in a wider colour space and then converting to sRGB later.

Andrew

I agree SilyPix is the best out of box converter. The thing I noticed along with the "silky" tones is better shadow detail. I'm sure I could make the others perform better but my money goes with the out of the box solution that fits my aesthetic.

Scot Perry

I know most people look down at Raw Image Task, but I am very interested to see how it fares against the other converters. It lacks sophistication and functionality but in my opinion it does the best conversion. Could you please do the same thing you did in DPP with RIT? Greatly appreciated.

I went to their website and it only has the price in yen, I cant find the price in US dollars. I know its a 14 day trial then you have to buy a licence. Thanks
--

When you are down and out, something always turns up -- and it is usually the noses of your friends.

Orson Welles

You CC company will do the conversion. Today it would have been around 115JPY per dollar.... so take 16000JPY and divide by 115....

-gt

I'd 2nd the RIT sample request, using some different picture styles would be interesting.

Also, is it possible to post the RAW image?

While out of the box performance is interesting, I've found RAW's advantage is being able fine tune on a per picture basis?

blah blah blah

Hi,
Maybe a strange question but start shooting with a graycard.
First shot take with the graycard before the face, next shots without.

When doing the conversions first sample the one with the graycard and use that correction on all conversion, if the software is correct they should ALL be exactly the same.

Or the software is wrong and than you can delete it

I use C1 and Camera Raw and both give me the same skintones in this way.
It will give you a much faster workflow anyway

But when you change something do a new test shot.