G1, poor camera jpg, gamma too high...

I agree the standard JPG are a bit dull, but I thought I was doing OK pumping them up in Lightroom. Then I went to take pictures of the cypress turning on a local river and didn't take any pictures I liked and couldn't manage to make them good. So I went back a week later (colors were more dull by then) and shot RAW and what a difference! Amazing difference! So I started shooting RAW+fine JPG. Most of the time I can't decide which is better and am tossing the RAW because I really can't see any advantage to the RAW, but in other circumstances, the JPG is clearly inferior and I am unable to "fix" them. OK, probably something could be done, but if the default Lightroom processin gof G1 RAW is very nice, why struggle with the JPGs. In the case of the river pictures, I could not obtain the correct color, which is kind of a rusty goldy brown.

This does not relate, primarily anyway, to pulling information out of the shadows, but purely based on color.

So since I have plenty of cards an disks are cheap, I'm continuing with RAW+JPG for a while anyway. One can argue shoot only JPG but I haven't made that decision yet. I have concerns about long-term RAW longevity, so I would feel they have to be converted to DNG (?) or TIF now or at some point. If I always processed them all when I load them, I could write out JPGs, reimport, and keep only that but I sometimes don't go back to pictures for months and that process seems like a lot of work.

Here are a couple of samples processed from RAW. Lightroom makes it really really easy to process RAW files.





Judy

Useful thread, likely dead now, but seems that the answer is to shoot RAW then create a preferred profile in SilkyPix. I too like the Picasa rendering, and it's easy and fast, but there is no lens correction. Oh well.

billou2k said:

I agree, the camera jpgs can look a bit softer, although I have played with the film modes and film settings a bit so they might not all be representative

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Do you mind if I process some of your jpegs and post the results in here?

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Cheers

Trevor G

http://www.computerwyse.com/photo.html

No problems,

in the meantime I've also uploaded modified jpg for the 4 first pictures of the picasa album:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/billou2k/DPRG1JpgComp?authkey=Gv1sRgCMH066TlncCaBQ&feat=directlink

Although they are better exposed overall, I find the details are gone in the highlights and skin tone. The statue is nearly totally white. In the protrait, the skin and face are grey and look flat. Compared to the picasa or custom silkypix result, it does not look too good.

billou2k said:

I realised opening the raws in Silkypix (provided with the camera) that for all photos, the default settings (that generate a photo very close the camera jpg) have a gamma of 1.15 and a contrast of 1.5. Setting the gamma back to 1.0 and reducing the contrast (and tweaking the exposure compensation) gives a much better picture than the default raw settings.

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What are your camera settings? If SP is reading your camera settings and you have brightness in camera set to + (or higher than normal), than gamma could be higher. I don't know if that is a fact, but I noticed with my Nikon D90, that adding brightnes ( + in camera menu) I actually adding a gamma to pictures.
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http://photosc.blogspot.com/

billou2k said:

I'm using both the lumix 14-45 and the lumix 45-200, but the 4 pictures uploaded were with the 45-200.

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Thanks. That helps give me a better idae of how the 45-200 performs.

billou2k said:

I've played with RawTherapee too, and liked the highlight handling in particular but the fact it doesnt correct the m4/3 lens barrel distortion is a no go...

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Not automatically but it was discussed here http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1041&message=33840083 and the following was suggested for the 14-45 lens:

14mm -1.0
18mm -0.8
25mm -0.4
35mm -0.2
45mm -005

billou2k said:

Although they are better exposed overall, I find the details are gone in the highlights and skin tone. The statue is nearly totally white. In the protrait, the skin and face are grey and look flat. Compared to the picasa or custom silkypix result, it does not look too good.

Click to expand...

But (on the portrait shot at least) the SilkyPix version looked nasty in the shadows as they had possible been pulled up too much. I don't know whether that is a SilkyPix issue or over-enthusiasm with the curves...!

I know this is only noticeable when pixel-peeping but I can't help doing it.....

1) I'd say that it looked a lot more like the picasa or custom silkypix render, than the camera jpg one. Ok I admit the first reason is because it's a lot more pleasing to the eye than the camera jpg. but also because a face does not look white or grey.

I'm only starting with DSLR type cameras, so I'm not looking for specially artistic pictures, just pictures that look real while standing out a bit. So if I take a picure of someone, I expect his/her face to have nice skin tones nice details (and not flat white or grey).

If it's a statue, then i expect to see the details of the surface, the highlights, the shadows... and they are much better rendered in the picasa/custom silkypix version.

I see your point, and it's difficult to remember afterwards how the scene really looked like. But I've had this in mind on a few shots.

For example I've taken several shots of a building in all the film modes available. It was taken a bit before sunset, the buildings have a beige colour. In all film modes (camera jpgs) it looked more white than beige. The picasa picture on the contrary shows that colour very well, while the default silkypix rendering (gamma 1.15) was halfway between the camera jpg and picasa. The silkypix rendering with a gamma of 1.0 looks a lot like the picasa one in terms of colour while being a bit darker.

http://picasaweb.google.com/billou2k/G1Modes?authkey=Gv1sRgCNTavf6D0tLADQ&feat=directlink

So I'd say it's not just the exposure correction that's wrong in the camera jpgs.

2) about the white balance, do you mean on the portrait? In that particular shot I switched the WB on the camera to cloudy, as it was a bit.. cloudy but in general i leave it on auto outdoors.

And yes.. it took a bit of time to take all these screenshots

Thanks for sharing your experience Judy,
The colours in your pictures are amazing by the way!

Did you try several film modes when taking those pictures or just the standard one?

I originally thought that SP was reading the film modes information and applying it in some way but I've taken pictures in all modes and the SP default rendering is always the same... so the film mode does not affect SP.

Plus I found somewhere that SP was using gamma 1.15 as a new default gamma value (it was even higher earlier) so it cannot be affected by the camera settings.

I just found that visuallly the jpg renderings looked similar to the SP with the default gamma 1.15, while the picasa rendering that looks more pleasing is more similar to the SP rendering with gamma 1.0.
But I dont know why this is done this way in the camera

What do you mean by looked nasty in the shadows? too dark?
This is with which SilkyPix settings ? the one with gamma 1.15 (g1.15) or 1.00 ?

I didnt do any direct tone curve tweak, just changes values in the tone settings tab (contrast, contrast center and gamma).

Thanks for the tip, I missed this. That could be useful!

By the way, do you find the 45-200 abnormally soft?

I didn't find it too bad really but I don't have any other similar lens to compare it with, and the reviews I've read seemed positive about this lens...
well it's not like there was a choice at the moment anyway

Thank you! I'm printing some of these river pictures today for the gallery I am involved with. I sold a river picture today, but more summer than fall in color.

Color modes don't apply to raw. They were processed in Lightroom, mostly using clarity, vibrance, and saturation. The color wasn't that bright or saturated but it was that color. With the JPGs, I couldn't get that rusty brown. They went to yellowish, which these needles are not. I usually try auto tone and see what that does. I fiddle with white balance. I use recovery and fill light if it improves the picture.

billou2k said:

Thanks for sharing your experience Judy,
The colours in your pictures are amazing by the way!

Did you try several film modes when taking those pictures or just the standard one?

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billou2k said:

What do you mean by looked nasty in the shadows? too dark?

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Ignore me - I must be going mad! I just looked again in Photoshop and I can't see what I saw before. I'm sure I looked here (at work) but I'll try again on my machine at home as well.

In retrospect, I think it must have been a colour management problem at MY end with the application (perhaps RawTherapy?) not rendering the shadows nicely on the screen. (They looked patchy, mottled and too light, which I've seen before when colour management goes screwy!)

billou2k said:

By the way, do you find the 45-200 abnormally soft?

I didn't find it too bad really but I don't have any other similar lens to compare it with, and the reviews I've read seemed positive about this lens...

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I'm still in the "thinking of buying a G1" stage! So the only thing I have to compare with is the images my wife gets from her Canon camera/lenses. Her main lens is the EF-S 60mm macro which is painfully sharp. I wouldn't expect any kit lens to compete with that. The nearest lens she has that broadly compares to the 45-200 is the EF 70-300. Although softer at the 300 end, it is fairly sharp at the 70mm end.

Perhaps I am being unrealistic: the EF 70-300 is around £400 so is significantly more expensive than the 45-200. And more to the point is MUCH heavier.

My dilemma is that I can either buy a Canon body and use her lenses (if she lets me ) or buy a G1. I don't want anything big as I'm too lazy to cart around loads of gear but I'm too much of a pixel peeper to get anything which doesn't deliver on quality. There are loads of aspects of the G1 which I really like but the relatively limited number of m43 lenses (and the lower DR of the G1) keeps on putting doubt in my mind!

billou2k said:

I'm trying for now to understant if the white look to the jpg (that I associate to that gamma value set in Silkypix to 1.15) can be fixed.

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I agree that the way Silkypix sets up its adjustments the "gamma" out of camera appears to be too high on the GF1 vs E-P1 images here in dpreview.

This is not the way it appears in some other software I have. It does not appear that there is a standard as to how software designers apply level correction.

I will look into this more, now that I have seen what you are referring to.

--
Cheers

Trevor G

http://www.computerwyse.com/photo.html

Trevor G said:

I agree that the way Silkypix sets up its adjustments the "gamma" out of camera appears to be too high on the GF1 vs E-P1 images here in dpreview.

Click to expand...

It's not Silkypix, it's the jpeg out of the camera.

--
Cheers

Trevor G

http://www.computerwyse.com/photo.html

So have we concluded that there is nothing to do to improve the JPGs out of the camera in terms of getting decent highlights (as opposed to flat grey tones) ?
That'd mean I'll always have to shoot raw and go through raw editing software ?

And I assume it could not be an issue with my particular camera... I mean if the raws seem ok and the jpg is there, then it's most likey working as it should, right?

Is there any G1 owner out there that has something to share about the highlights and the general look of his/her G1 JPGs?

I see that Silkypix Studio 3 supports Mac in the System Requirements, but when I try to get a trial, it only gives you a link to a Windows EXE.

--
Thanks,

Teski
http://www.tedescophotography.com

billou2k said:

So have we concluded that there is nothing to do to improve the JPGs out of the camera in terms of getting decent highlights (as opposed to flat grey tones) ?

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Not at all.

I have a life and a business to run. ;-)

I asked you numerous questions which you did not answer.

The skin colour you prefer on the model appears far too dark on my monitor, and looks rather brown. If that is her real skin colour, or that is the look you prefer, then so be it. I, however, prefer to process in a "scientific" way, rather than the "artistic" way, to preserve the image as much as it appeared at the time, rather than to give it unrealistic "pop".

That is just a personal preference, so I guess I am unable to help you further.

I was hoping to process some of my own comparo images but that all takes time, as does shooting off the many comparison shots I have in the last week.

I can categorically state that, neither in Australia, nor in hot and humid Myanmar (formerly Burma) where I took several thousand pics in October, have I seen your problem. I believe it is more related to camera setting than anything else.

Almost all of my pics need the gamma increased . I expose to avoid clipped highlights on anything I want to see in the image. Almost all my skies in MYanmar are clipped white because they were grey overcast, and thus lacked detail. Yet I still had to gain up (or gamma up) to get the mid range detail I needed.

However, I have in the last week found a new tool to help with mid-range detail. That is the contrast control. I am now using -2 Contrast on any daylight images. It changes the histogram in a visible way, in the mid range area especially, without affecting the highlights.

Another tool is Intelligent Auto - the one which comes in via the Q.Menu, not the iA setting on the exposure dial. Intelligent Auto appears to do the same thing, but since my G1 won't accurately display when it has been used, my progress has been slowed somewhat, since I have to check using PhotoMe.

The iA shows up in PhotoMe under Gain Control, as None, Low Gain Up, or High Gain Up. It also shows up, when using ISO100, as a change in ISO to 125 or 160, and maybe in between as well.

Wait till I start talking about Panasonic's realistic skies...compared to the Oly "artistic license" ones, but that is a thread in its own right.

Cheers

Trevor G

http://www.computerwyse.com/photo.html