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Adobe Raw converter HELP?

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For 5004, try

Temperature: 4600
Tint: +9
Exposure: -0.90
Shadows: 15
Brightness: 65
Contrast +15
Saturation: -20
Red Hue: +25
 
For 6479, try

Temperature: 5500
Tint: 0
Exposure: -0.95
Shadows: 8
Brightness: 70
Contrast: +25
Saturation: -25
Red Hue: +25

If you want your "cold blue" style, just drag the temperature down to about 3500.
 
Wow I am amazed that I have both Thomas Knoll and Stephen Eastwood in the same thread. Anyway, I have not purchased adobe cs yet, but used it at a friends and tried your new photo filters, I love the idea but they just miss the mark. Have you looked at Stephen Eastwood's curves, I downloaded them and use them they are quite amazining and should be added to photoshop default set in my opinion. Especially the warmer curve as well as the cto's, blue's, and crossprocess curves. If you have not downloaded them you should just to show the people who make the color filters for you. you can still get them free at Stephens site http://www.nyphotographics.com/ftppage.htm or direct download at http://www.nyphotographics.com/ftpsites/Curves.zip

Thanks you have a great product most of us could not live without!

--
john dzurenko
 
Thomas Knoll said:
For 6479, try

Temperature: 5500
Tint: 0
Exposure: -0.95
Shadows: 8
Brightness: 70
Contrast: +25
Saturation: -25
Red Hue: +25

If you want your "cold blue" style, just drag the temperature down
to about 3500.
Click to expand...
Hi Thomas,

First off, kudos for CS and your feedback here!

I see you tend to knock down the Saturation in all of these images, which kind of makes them go pale. Is that being done for accuracy reasons? I find the "punch" of the Sat on zero seems more in check and the effect possibly trying to be obtained with the gels? And to me the +25 Red Hue seems to make the skin go overly Y+G.

Also, do you concur with Jeff Schewe about WB sampling off of the Macbeth light gray #20 patch (rather than a darker, gray card) in ACR? If so, how about Stephen taking off the gels, shooting a frame with the Macbeth, replacing the gels and increasing any necessary exposure to compensate, then in ACR apply the WB setting from the Macbeth card to the gelled shots? That in effect should be like shooting film (a fixed WB) and altering the color with the gels. Yes or No?

Thanks,
John

--
http://www.johnmaclean.com
http://www.nmdigital.com
 
John MacLean Photography said:
Hi Thomas,

First off, kudos for CS and your feedback here!

I see you tend to knock down the Saturation in all of these images,
which kind of makes them go pale. Is that being done for accuracy
reasons? I find the "punch" of the Sat on zero seems more in check
and the effect possibly trying to be obtained with the gels? And to
me the +25 Red Hue seems to make the skin go overly Y+G.
Click to expand...
I really have no idea what artistic effect the photographer was trying get, so I just aimed for a fairly accurate skin tone. From this starting point, you can play then controls to get the artistic effect you want.

The settings are my 2 minute efforts on my uncalibrated laptop screen. If I was working on my calibrated monitor, the settings would be probably be slightly different.
John MacLean Photography said:
Also, do you concur with Jeff Schewe about WB sampling off of the
Macbeth light gray #20 patch (rather than a darker, gray card) in
ACR? If so, how about Stephen taking off the gels, shooting a frame
with the Macbeth, replacing the gels and increasing any necessary
exposure to compensate, then in ACR apply the WB setting from the
Macbeth card to the gelled shots? That in effect should be like
shooting film (a fixed WB) and altering the color with the gels.
Yes or No?
Click to expand...
Darker gray cards were designed for exposure, not white balancing. They are often quite far from being neutral.

The Macbeth squares are fairly neutral. The reason for suggesting the light gray patch is it is unlikely to be blown out, and is farther way from the noise floor.

In any case, I almost always fine tune the temperature/tint sliders by eye after doing a click white balance anyway, so I don't worry too much about the exact neutrality of the patch. I just use it for a rough starting point.

As to the second part of your question, the answer is basically yes, fixing a white balance and changing the light would respond the same way as transparency film.
 
The problem I see here is adobe raw cannot be used unless you want to shoot a gray card then apply that to everything, but that is not the only problem, white balance is one thing but all the other settings are off as well. This means that basically you cannot get the adobe raw converter to convert anything that looks like it came from the camera as seen by the in camera JPG or most other converters unless you are willing to go through a hit or miss effort to match each shot and each look. That's really useless as far as a productive workflow goes. Why can't you just have a basic setting set for each camera? So when converting a 1DS file it starts at a basic 1DS set that simulates what you get in camera or fileview, breeze, yarc, or even similar to capture one? Otherwise the whole system becomes trial and error.

Second problem is this, once I get a neutral WB and set all the other settings for a shot like you did for any one of the above shots why does that setting not work the same for all the files from that camera with the only exception being WB change?

Honestly as great as Photoshop IS this raw converter is just not a good choice for working professionals that want creative control at the time of shooting, and anyone who wants to shoot and go. Digital is like slide film, setting to daylight should allow it to be used as such, instead you changed all that and made the whole process a big mess from what I can see. The results you got were horrible looking, (no offense, but the skin looked horrible as did the overall color, and laptop or not its just not appealing) Not being able to get what you shoot and see on the back of the screen would kill any usefulness of the converter to me and I believe most people would agree. A real shame since the convience of having the ability built into Photoshop is great.

Hope this does not come across too harsh, just my opinion looking at the thread and the samples. I expect more from a company and program as top notch as Photoshop.

Joe allen
Thomas Knoll said:
I really have no idea what artistic effect the photographer was
trying get, so I just aimed for a fairly accurate skin tone. From
this starting point, you can play then controls to get the artistic
effect you want.

The settings are my 2 minute efforts on my uncalibrated laptop
screen. If I was working on my calibrated monitor, the settings
would be probably be slightly different.
Click to expand...
Thomas Knoll said:
As to the second part of your question, the answer is basically
yes, fixing a white balance and changing the light would respond
the same way as transparency film.
Click to expand...
 
I agree completely with Joe on this one.

As I pointed out before, on another thread, I find that ACR 2.0 is far too noisy (lots of moire patterns) and the images do not have the same look that those processed in ACR 1.0 (in PS7) have.

I have studio images that required no adjustments (in ACR 1.0) other than setting the preset to Daylight. I then did minor (I mean real minor) correctionms inside PS7 to finish the job in less than 10 minutes.

Now I find that the same file under ACR 2.0 has to be adjusted on almost every level before I can even match the look of the ACR 1.0. And that is even before I go into PS to do the final adjustments that now require about 20-30 minutes worth of work (in PS CS) to get that "crisp" look that only took 10 minutes in PS7.

I took a sample image and made it look pretty close to what it looked like in ACR 1.0 and then saved the settings. When I opened another image from a different shoot the saved settings did not even come close to showing what the two images looked like in PS7/ACR 1.0 looked like with the standard daylight preset.

I am sorry. I love PS CS...I love all the new features....16 bit layers rocks...

BUT...the ACR in PS CS is way too buggy/fickle for me to add it to my workflow.

I have kept PS7 installed and use it to convert all my RAW images to 16 bit and then when all have been converted I will then open them in PS CS and finish my workflow.

To me...(my opinion here), PS CS works pretty much the same as PS 7 but with lots of added features.

BUT...ACR 2.0 is definately a step down from ACR 1.0. I always thought that a new version was to make your job easier and faster. ACR 2.0 does not do that. It may make the image look better at the end. But at three times the times and extra work in PS its not worth it.

I can make my images look just as good using ACR 1.0 and then finishing up the job in PS7 in a third of the time.

Carlos
joe allen said:
The problem I see here is adobe raw cannot be used unless you want
to shoot a gray card then apply that to everything, but that is not
the only problem, white balance is one thing but all the other
settings are off as well. This means that basically you cannot get
the adobe raw converter to convert anything that looks like it came
from the camera as seen by the in camera JPG or most other
converters unless you are willing to go through a hit or miss
effort to match each shot and each look. That's really useless as
far as a productive workflow goes. Why can't you just have a basic
setting set for each camera? So when converting a 1DS file it
starts at a basic 1DS set that simulates what you get in camera or
fileview, breeze, yarc, or even similar to capture one? Otherwise
the whole system becomes trial and error.

Second problem is this, once I get a neutral WB and set all the
other settings for a shot like you did for any one of the above
shots why does that setting not work the same for all the files
from that camera with the only exception being WB change?

Honestly as great as Photoshop IS this raw converter is just not a
good choice for working professionals that want creative control at
the time of shooting, and anyone who wants to shoot and go.
Digital is like slide film, setting to daylight should allow it to
be used as such, instead you changed all that and made the whole
process a big mess from what I can see. The results you got were
horrible looking, (no offense, but the skin looked horrible as did
the overall color, and laptop or not its just not appealing) Not
being able to get what you shoot and see on the back of the screen
would kill any usefulness of the converter to me and I believe most
people would agree. A real shame since the convience of having the
ability built into Photoshop is great.

Hope this does not come across too harsh, just my opinion looking
at the thread and the samples. I expect more from a company and
program as top notch as Photoshop.

Joe allen
Click to expand...
 
joe,

ARC is using profiles for the specific cameras type & if you don't like the other settings, change the defaults.

Did you put slide film in your camera & just shoot away? Even when shooting color neg, I almost always used a color temp meter & filters. With chrome, or neg, I also varied the processing times, film types & ISOs in order to control the look. With neg I spent endless hours at the best labs correcting color & density with the printers. Color is so subjective & even though I had examples on file at the lab, I rarely got a contact, work or final print that didn't need to be tweaked. Most photographers just were not that crititical & ran into the lab, quickly skimmed through the prints under hideous lighting & left smiling, while I stood in the print room obsessing over simple contacts.

There are few printers out there who really understand skin & even those who do, see the world differently then you do. If your not critical, use the default settings in ACR (or whatever convertor) & smile away. If not, change the defaults. Someone once tried to explain to Melvin Sokolsky how to emulate Velvia. He responded "I don't want Velvia, I want Melvia".
joe allen said:
Not
being able to get what you shoot and see on the back of the screen
would kill any usefulness of the converter to me and I believe most
people would agree.
Click to expand...
The 1D's jpegs are no thing of beauty & need help. Canon's 1D/1Ds have awful LCD screens so I don't know what your talking about.

Even though I rarely shoot grey cards, I still find ACR is a great tool & my convertor of choice.

I've only been using ACRII a short time, but I find it much improved over the previous version. One tough area for digital is rendering hair. ACRII is doing a great job & every time I go back to an old file & reprocess it, I immediately notice how much better the hair looks.

Shooting a 4 mgpxl 1D & pulling great looking 100mb/16-bit, 11"x17", 300 DPI files straight out of ACRII is simply amazing.

Kudos Thomas.

All the best,
Bern Caughey
--
APA/LA
http://www.apanational.org/
 
Thomas Knoll said:
Using gels to adjust color temperture when shooting raw is a waste
of effort. It is trivial (once you learn how) to adjust the
temperature/tint sliders in the raw converter to simulate any gel
color of any strength.
Click to expand...
But what if the temperature of light is too warm (e.g. tangsten) to activate G-B-G pixels of Bayer R-G-B-G? The green and blue noise will be then greatly magnified when WB is brought to normal. Also, the resolution will suffer due to only red pixels gathering the information.

Wouldn't the use of a "cool" filters to try to bring the WB closer to correct one in this lighting improve the S/N ratio and detail?

Here's an example of red softness (300% crop):



Here's the RAW data:



Look how activation of only red pixels makes pure red be softer than the mix of red, green and blue.

Another example of red softness:



(not only red is focused at different distance, but it's also softer)
 
joe allen said:
Why can't you just have a basic
setting set for each camera? So when converting a 1DS file it
starts at a basic 1DS set that simulates what you get in camera or
fileview, breeze, yarc, or even similar to capture one?
Click to expand...
My line of thought exactly.

Regards
Stefan

--

»We've experienced the fact that the perceptions of an expert surpass the precision of measuring instruments.« Nakabayashi-san of Canon, Inc.
 
Bern Caughey said:
The 1D's jpegs are no thing of beauty & need help.
Click to expand...
Would you care to elaborate on that?
Bern Caughey said:
Shooting a 4 mgpxl 1D & pulling great looking 100mb/16-bit,
11"x17", 300 DPI files straight out of ACRII is simply amazing.
Click to expand...
So you're saying ACR's upscaling is superior to the algorithms used by other offerings, like Breeze or C1? How exactly did you establish this?

Thanks
Stefan

--

»We've experienced the fact that the perceptions of an expert surpass the precision of measuring instruments.« Nakabayashi-san of Canon, Inc.
 
joe allen said:
The problem I see here is adobe raw cannot be used unless you want
to shoot a gray card then apply that to everything, but that is not
the only problem, white balance is one thing but all the other
settings are off as well.
Click to expand...
I've not had this problem at all using PS CS. Is ACR vastly different?
Out-of-the-box, CS gave me similar look to FVU.

I have since set the defaults more to my liking. For instance, I shoot
+1/3EV. In CS, I have exposure set to -.33. I've also bumped
contrast up. These are camera defaults, now. I've also got
a custom image setting for flourescent lights.
joe allen said:
Second problem is this, once I get a neutral WB and set all the
other settings for a shot like you did for any one of the above
shots why does that setting not work the same for all the files
from that camera with the only exception being WB change?
Click to expand...
See above...
joe allen said:
Honestly as great as Photoshop IS this raw converter is just not a
good choice for working professionals that want creative control at
the time of shooting, and anyone who wants to shoot and go.
Click to expand...
My opinion is that PS CS is doing everything that I need, with an
interface MUCH better than C1 (Personally, I just don't like C1,
YMMV!!!)

I really like the fact that I can drag the RAW processing panel
across two screens, thereby seeing the image almost as large
as my 17" monitor. And I really like the fact that I can click in
a settings' box, and shift/arrow to adjust it in fine increments.

Thomas, I have one blue-sky wish... allow me to use different
"Bayer" conversion routines. I know some focus on clearer
edge details, others on smoother color renderings, etc.
 
Bern & Larry,

I agree with both of you. Yes, I like ACR's GUI better than C1 too! And if you don't like the default presets in ACR, learn how to create your own. It ain't rocket science - RTFM!

If you're expecting one button push to process RAW files than go back to JPG's and PS Elements, geez!
--
http://www.johnmaclean.com
http://www.nmdigital.com
 
OK, so now I have over two hundred emails asking about this post and more files, so I did another quick convert and included two new files each with a gray card shot and uploaded them in separate zipped files for people to play with.

below is what I did, I converted two files, from left to right I did, Breeze conversion based on the gray card image and color picker on the gray card, matrix 4 adobe RGB, second I did Photoshop raw conversion also based on the same gray card image as the color balance and settings, adobe RGB, I then converted the shots in breeze browser as shot, in adobe RGB, that means with the white balance I choose when shooting, cloudy for the extra warmth and daylight for the cool shot, and converted them in adobe RGB, finally I converted them as I shoot them and generally use them, as shot WB and matrix 2 so you can see that was the color I was after. Below the comparison shots you can see two of the shots from that shoot that are being used currently as well as how they looked in final form.

white background shot gray card included in zip
http://www.photographersportfolio.com/canon_raw/BA8C2885.zip

extra warm shot gray card included in zip
http://www.photographersportfolio.com/canon_raw/BA8C2985.zip



actual used shots





Stephen Eastwood
http://www.photographersportfolio.com/stephen

--
Stephen Eastwood
http://www.nyphotographics.com
 
I have not used it since the d30/d60 days, I have yet to have any color problems until playing with Photoshop raw converter over the past few days. So none of my past shoots would have one in it, the gray cards are all I use most of the time when going for more accurate in most conditions I shoot in, and still I mainly use the presets as they are all known values, or color temp settings.

I will say that I see this whole issue as a moot point really real world shooting a Macbeth color chart won't be at the wedding halls, sports arena, reception halls, playing fields, or may other places. All I would want is s default set that simulates the cameras natural default as per the canon drivers. Then I could use this like any other tool only its speed and application within Photoshop would make it possibly more useful than the others.

I may shoot some tests with a Macbeth color chart just to see but overall I would not want the burden for everyshoot of carding and then tweaking, and I still have to produce the colors the clients see on the proofs, so I would prefer to just stay with my current workflow until this improves to the point where ad's from major publications wont kill me for not being able to reproduce what they saw me shoot in the first place :) I was only asking if it was a problem that was easily fixed and I think I have received my answer.

Stephen
John MacLean Photography said:
Stephen,

As Thomas said, gray cards aren't too neutral, so you're
immediately defeating the WB accuracy from the get go!

Don't you have a Macbeth chart?

Best,
John
--
http://www.johnmaclean.com
http://www.nmdigital.com
Click to expand...
--
Stephen Eastwood
http://www.nyphotographics.com
 
I'm surprised you did not get better results w/ C1. I was able to process your images and get your "look" in C1 in a very easy/streamlined way.

John
Stephen Eastwood said:
OK, I have not used the adobe raw converter yet and so I finally
had some time and figured I would give it a try and get use to it.
So I opened some older files and grabbed a raw file to convert, WOW
was it disgusting! So I tried another and again disgusting. So I
was wondering what do I have to do to get the file as close to as
shot as possible? I converted the same file in Breezebrowser
(which I always use) and also Phase one all set to default as shot
Adobe RGB output, all brought into Photoshop and assigned the
proper colorspace and then I placed them on a new canvas to show
you how off they were. Is there any way to get the default to be
as close to as shot as possible? Are there any settings that I
missed? I am not looking to play with every file to get it right,
I get it the way I want it in camera most of the time using gels on
the strobes to achieve the color I want. Here are the samples,
they are named and following that are the files as shot processed
in breeze with matrix 2 (which I usually prefer and only wish
someone would develop a canon in camera curve that can simulate
this on an Adobe RGB shot)

Any help from those of you who are using adobe raw would be
appreciated.

All these are straight as shot samples from the camera.













--
Stephen Eastwood
http://www.nyphotographics.com
Click to expand...
 
It's really not that big of a deal to use, especially in the studio.

And you can apply the settings of your choice in the PS CS File Browser to preview all of your "proofs" with the WB.

Horses for Courses!

Best,
John
--
http://www.johnmaclean.com
http://www.nmdigital.com
 
I had tried C1 and still use on occassion and I did mention that it was very close, and yes it can be easily tweaked to get even closer. The second set I did not bother with C1 becasue it is not that far off and could be made to get it right, but if I was going to use another program I would use breeze since its exact, this is more about getting adobe raw to do it easily.

Thats where I want to go.
John Davis said:
John
Stephen Eastwood said:
OK, I have not used the adobe raw converter yet and so I finally
had some time and figured I would give it a try and get use to it.
So I opened some older files and grabbed a raw file to convert, WOW
was it disgusting! So I tried another and again disgusting. So I
was wondering what do I have to do to get the file as close to as
shot as possible? I converted the same file in Breezebrowser
(which I always use) and also Phase one all set to default as shot
Adobe RGB output, all brought into Photoshop and assigned the
proper colorspace and then I placed them on a new canvas to show
you how off they were. Is there any way to get the default to be
as close to as shot as possible? Are there any settings that I
missed? I am not looking to play with every file to get it right,
I get it the way I want it in camera most of the time using gels on
the strobes to achieve the color I want. Here are the samples,
they are named and following that are the files as shot processed
in breeze with matrix 2 (which I usually prefer and only wish
someone would develop a canon in camera curve that can simulate
this on an Adobe RGB shot)

Any help from those of you who are using adobe raw would be
appreciated.

All these are straight as shot samples from the camera.













--
Stephen Eastwood
http://www.nyphotographics.com
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Stephen Eastwood
http://www.nyphotographics.com
 
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