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C1 LE impressions and concerns

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Ira Blumberg

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I used C1 LE with some of my 10D RAW shots for about 3 hours yesterday. I'll be doing more tonight. I processed the same RAW files in both FVU and C1 to create 16-bit AdobeRGB TIFF files and then reviewed and manipulated those files in PS7 on a calibrated monitor.

As noted in Phil's review, the colors were very different. With no cotrast, exposure, saturation, tone, or WB adjustments, the FVU images were a bit too yellow-green. The C1 images were much lower on yellow and green and showed a stronger blue tone. Neither looked really correct. I may be making some sort of mistake with FVU as the preview image in FVU looks fairly color neutral, but does not match the colors for the same image in PS7. For reference, with FVU, I set FVU to output AdobeRGB and then when reading the image into PS7, I assign (not convert) the AdobeRGB profile to the untagged TIFF from FVU.

The other thing I noticed was the image detail. I attempted to turn off all sharpening in C1 (in preferences and in the focus tab). Similarly, in FVU, I turned off sharpening (which is my normal routine). For 10D images, I usually start with a USM of 300/1/3 and then fine tune up or down depending on the results. For the image I was testing, this setting looked good for the FVU converted image. It looked nice and sharp with little or no edge "ringing" and no artifacts or excess noise. The C1 converted image started out looking quite sharp with no sharpening (much sharper than the FVU converted image). When I applied the USM (again, 300/1/3), the results were terrible. There was lots of noise, and lots of artifacts. It looked as though the image had previously been sharpened. The artifacts were the sort you see when applying high USM settings to a previously sharpened image. Note, I had C1 set to minimal noise suppression.

Any thoughts?

Ira
 
Did you make any prints? I went the same route except I had C1 do the sharpening and my prints are really good.

I use a D30 so I don't have FVU. I use BreezeBrowser for my work and until now I was very impressed. C1 LE is better at the conversion though it does take a bit longer as I am doing more work upfront.

Cropping and sizing are about the only things I won't do in C1 LE. I'll go to PS for that.

And to think I just spent $30 for some PS actions from Fred Miranda. Now I wish I hadn't. The D30 sharpening action does nothing for me. The other was (D30 noise reduction) works well enough and I'll probably continue to use that one.

Take care,
Ira Blumberg said:
I used C1 LE with some of my 10D RAW shots for about 3 hours
yesterday. I'll be doing more tonight. I processed the same RAW
files in both FVU and C1 to create 16-bit AdobeRGB TIFF files and
then reviewed and manipulated those files in PS7 on a calibrated
monitor.

As noted in Phil's review, the colors were very different. With no
cotrast, exposure, saturation, tone, or WB adjustments, the FVU
images were a bit too yellow-green. The C1 images were much lower
on yellow and green and showed a stronger blue tone. Neither looked
really correct. I may be making some sort of mistake with FVU as
the preview image in FVU looks fairly color neutral, but does not
match the colors for the same image in PS7. For reference, with
FVU, I set FVU to output AdobeRGB and then when reading the image
into PS7, I assign (not convert) the AdobeRGB profile to the
untagged TIFF from FVU.

The other thing I noticed was the image detail. I attempted to turn
off all sharpening in C1 (in preferences and in the focus tab).
Similarly, in FVU, I turned off sharpening (which is my normal
routine). For 10D images, I usually start with a USM of 300/1/3 and
then fine tune up or down depending on the results. For the image I
was testing, this setting looked good for the FVU converted image.
It looked nice and sharp with little or no edge "ringing" and no
artifacts or excess noise. The C1 converted image started out
looking quite sharp with no sharpening (much sharper than the FVU
converted image). When I applied the USM (again, 300/1/3), the
results were terrible. There was lots of noise, and lots of
artifacts. It looked as though the image had previously been
sharpened. The artifacts were the sort you see when applying high
USM settings to a previously sharpened image. Note, I had C1 set to
minimal noise suppression.

Any thoughts?

Ira
Click to expand...
--
TonyK
 
Same sharpening settings on both conversions makes no sense at all.
Two different RAW converters, two different sharpness settings!
Make a setting where things look good! That's it.
Ira Blumberg said:
I used C1 LE with some of my 10D RAW shots for about 3 hours
yesterday. I'll be doing more tonight. I processed the same RAW
files in both FVU and C1 to create 16-bit AdobeRGB TIFF files and
then reviewed and manipulated those files in PS7 on a calibrated
monitor.

As noted in Phil's review, the colors were very different. With no
cotrast, exposure, saturation, tone, or WB adjustments, the FVU
images were a bit too yellow-green. The C1 images were much lower
on yellow and green and showed a stronger blue tone. Neither looked
really correct. I may be making some sort of mistake with FVU as
the preview image in FVU looks fairly color neutral, but does not
match the colors for the same image in PS7. For reference, with
FVU, I set FVU to output AdobeRGB and then when reading the image
into PS7, I assign (not convert) the AdobeRGB profile to the
untagged TIFF from FVU.

The other thing I noticed was the image detail. I attempted to turn
off all sharpening in C1 (in preferences and in the focus tab).
Similarly, in FVU, I turned off sharpening (which is my normal
routine). For 10D images, I usually start with a USM of 300/1/3 and
then fine tune up or down depending on the results. For the image I
was testing, this setting looked good for the FVU converted image.
It looked nice and sharp with little or no edge "ringing" and no
artifacts or excess noise. The C1 converted image started out
looking quite sharp with no sharpening (much sharper than the FVU
converted image). When I applied the USM (again, 300/1/3), the
results were terrible. There was lots of noise, and lots of
artifacts. It looked as though the image had previously been
sharpened. The artifacts were the sort you see when applying high
USM settings to a previously sharpened image. Note, I had C1 set to
minimal noise suppression.

Any thoughts?

Ira
Click to expand...
 
I've wondered about this myself. Sharpening is supposed to be the last step in any post-processing sequence. If you can't do all of your processing in C1 and C1 always done some sharpening, then will the resulting image be inferior?

An example would be a third-party noise reduction plug-in or action or a sharpening plug-in/action that works before for specific images.

I haven't done any tests, but it's on my list of things to do.

SMoody
                            • -- - - - - - - - - - - - SMoody
http://www.pbase.com/smoody
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
All RAW converters use the same data from the sensor. Canon SDK seems to be the most "conservative", being careful not to leave any artifacts (pixel noise etc) in the final pic. Thus, the final image may appear soft, but it can take a lot of sharpening. ARC and C1 are adjustable, leaving it up to the user what comes to noise removal. Naturally, if the images are not as soft as Canon SDK conversions, they tolarate less sharpening afterwards. C1 has three setting for "softness" (set in the preferences), ACR has a slider. After having tried quite a few of the converters, I'm sticking with ACR (I'm a D60 users), because it is fast (way faster than SDK or C1), it has a color temp setting (slider, 50K steps), and it does sharpening better than C1. What comes to color, there are a few problematic images (often underexposed) that have to be converted using an SDK based tool to produce the right colors, or ones that are close to the limit of being overexposed
--
Jouko
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/ruusnak/selected/index.htm
 
I've been evaluating C1 LE also ,and have found the colors to be right on and very neutral, if fact too neutral for my liking. I was wondering if any one here has used Fred Mirandas Digital Velvia action (any Examples?), with C1 LE to get back some color and saturation. BTW I have been using Fred Mirandas Canon 10D CSpro for sharpening my photos and it does a much better job at sharpening then C1 Le and Canons RAW converter. It does a real good job of sharpening without an increase of noise and artifacts. It's even better than NIK Sharpener Pro and way cheaper.

Steve Rose
 
Use channel mixer, way better than saturation. I don't know how Fred does it but this is how I do it (ACR with better shadow detail than SDK requires it sometimes)

Red: R+10, G -5, B -5
Green: G+10, R-5, B-5
Blue: B+10,R-5,G-5
--
Jouko
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/ruusnak/selected/index.htm
 
The results I get from using C1 sharpening are far far better than any USM settings.
 
Thanks I'll give that a try, BTW I looked at your pictures and I've got to say you have a great eye for Symmetry and Composition. Your Landscapes have an artistic look to them.

Steve Rose
http://www.pbase.com/srose1
jr said:
Use channel mixer, way better than saturation. I don't know how
Fred does it but this is how I do it (ACR with better shadow detail
than SDK requires it sometimes)

Red: R+10, G -5, B -5
Green: G+10, R-5, B-5
Blue: B+10,R-5,G-5
--
Jouko
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/ruusnak/selected/index.htm
Click to expand...
 
Please see my post a few posts up. There are other actions that should be done before sharpening and there are better sharpening technologies than USM -- Fred Miranda's appears to do a good job of not amplifying noise like USM.
                            • -- - - - - - - - - - - - SMoody
http://www.pbase.com/smoody
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
I don't plan on using any sharpenening in any RAW converter. I usually have a few more color corrections to do in photoshop,then I resize the photo and the last thing I do before printing or publishing to the web is Sharpen the photo. At least that is my current workflow.

Steve Rose
http://www.pbase.com/srose1
JackN said:
The results I get from using C1 sharpening are far far better than
any USM settings.
Click to expand...
 
As Steve Rose said a few posts ago, I want to do sharpening last after all my other PS work including resizing. Thus, I don't want C1 doing any sharpening when I convert from RAW to TIFF. If there is no way to turn off all sharpening in C1 or if C1's processing without sharpening leaves the TIFF in a condition where it cannot later be sharpened by PS or some other package AFTER all my other image adjustments, then C1 won't work for me.

Ira
JackN said:
The results I get from using C1 sharpening are far far better than
any USM settings.
Click to expand...
 
Steve Rose said:
I was under the impression that if you set the Amount slider to
0(zero) then no sharpening would be applied. Not real sure though
as I'm still trying to learn the program.
Click to expand...
Click file/preferences and check the box "disable USM on output".
  • DL
 
I use that workflow as well, so sharpening in conversion is a serious problem. I'll watch out for it tonight. BTW, there is some setting also called "DSLR noise reduction", or something like that. It has a low-med-high option. I don't know how effective or problem it is. Something to test with higher ISO, but neatimage does a really nice job.

Alfred
Ira Blumberg said:
Ira
JackN said:
The results I get from using C1 sharpening are far far better than
any USM settings.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
He implied that he had done that already I think.
Don Lashier said:
Steve Rose said:
I was under the impression that if you set the Amount slider to
0(zero) then no sharpening would be applied. Not real sure though
as I'm still trying to learn the program.
Click to expand...
Click file/preferences and check the box "disable USM on output".
  • DL
Click to expand...
                            • -- - - - - - - - - - - - SMoody
http://www.pbase.com/smoody
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
I still got a result that looked like it had been sharpened.

Ira
smoody said:
Don Lashier said:
Steve Rose said:
I was under the impression that if you set the Amount slider to
0(zero) then no sharpening would be applied. Not real sure though
as I'm still trying to learn the program.
Click to expand...
Click file/preferences and check the box "disable USM on output".
  • DL
Click to expand...
                            • -- - - - - - - - - - - - SMoody
http://www.pbase.com/smoody
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Click to expand...
 
You have the option of totally disabling sharpening in C1, but that said a lot of experts recommend mild sharpening after scanning and before further PS processing and final sharpening. I think they same may apply here although I haven't experimented yet to come to my own conclusion.
  • DL
aevoegels said:
Alfred
Ira Blumberg said:
Ira
JackN said:
The results I get from using C1 sharpening are far far better than
any USM settings.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
http://www.lashier.com
 
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