Dynamic Range (DR400) and Lightroom

[ARNA007]

Hello! I have an X-Pro 2 and shoot in RAW+Fine. My

question is:

If I shoot in say DR 400, and open the RAW file in Lightroom, will Lightroom tone-map to make the resultant image as close as possible to Fuji's internal RAW converter?

In other words, say if I shoot at DR 400, my understanding is that the RAW is actually shot at -2EV and then the shadows are lifted up by internal tone-mapping by the internal converter -- but that the RAW is at -2EV.

Will Lightroom apply a similar tone map, or will it simply take the whole RAW file and add +2EV without taking note of the shadows/highlights? If it does apply a similar tone map, does it do so by making adjustments to Shadows and Blacks sliders?

Thanks so much!

 

[nixda]

Hello! I have an X-Pro 2 and shoot in RAW+Fine. My
question is:
If I shoot in say DR 400, and open the RAW file in Lightroom, will Lightroom tone-map to make the resultant image as close as possible to Fuji's internal RAW converter?

To my knowledge, LR does not honor Fuji's DR directives.

In other words, say if I shoot at DR 400, my understanding is that the RAW is actually shot at -2EV and then the shadows are lifted up by internal tone-mapping by the internal converter -- but that the RAW is at -2EV.

It depends on the situation, but basically, for a given ISO value, the DR settings reduce the amount of analog amplification and increase brightness to compensate later during processing. In other words, for a given ISO value, the exposure will not change, only the amplification/brightening scheme. However, sometimes, one is forced to change the ISO in order to use the DR modes. In that case, the metering will be different, giving the impression that the DR mode changed the exposure, but it is really the change in ISO that changed the exposure as only ISO is connected to metering, whereas DR is not.

Will Lightroom apply a similar tone map, or will it simply take the whole RAW file and add +2EV without taking note of the shadows/highlights? If it does apply a similar tone map, does it do so by making adjustments to Shadows and Blacks sliders?

 

[Ambulater]

According to Rico Pfirstinger's X-T2 guide book (which is excellent, by the way):

“Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw are also smart enough to recognize RAWs with extended DR settings, and they automatically push the RAWs up 1 or 2 EVs when the images are opened with the software. However, recovering the highlights isn’t an automated process; it’s the user’s job. Sadly, this can become pretty tedious because Lightroom’s exposure-related sliders work in a different way than Fuji’s tone-mapping. Even worse, DR200% isn’t recognized if the shot was taken in DR-Auto mode. This means that the image will look underexposed by 1 EV after importing it. To see the image with its correct brightness, you have to move the exposure slider one stop to the right. Hopefully this bug—which equally affects the X-Pro2—will have been fixed by the time you read this.”

Excerpt From: Pfirstinger, Rico. “The Fujifilm X-T2.” Rocky Nook, 2016-12-08. iBooks.

 

[ARNA007]

Hi! Thanks so much for your response. I'm not sure I'm clear on this though -- my understanding was that at say DR 400, and an ISO of 800, the camera raw file would be shot at the base ISO of 200 (it would be metered for ISO 800 but the shot would be recorded at ISO 200). The fact that the raw is at -2 EV enables the preservation of the highlights; then the shadows would be digitally amplified to recover detail etc (but at the price of some noise)... So my question was if LR recognizes the DR 400 setting of a Fuji Camera, and if so, does it simply increase the RAW file by +2 EV across the board (i.e., the user would have to go and play a lot with the sliders), OR, does it tone-map correctly such that the shadows are amplified but the highlights aren't touched? Thanks again...

 

[ARNA007]

Hi Ambulator, thanks very much -- that's great! I read his X-Pro 2 book but it wasn't as explict on this point. Your quote pretty much answers my question -- thank you!

 

[Ambulater]

Hi Ambulator, thanks very much -- that's great! I read his X-Pro 2 book but it wasn't as explict on this point. Your quote pretty much answers my question -- thank you!

You are welcome. I'm glad it was helpful!

 

[EyeEssOh]

LR adjusts the exposure across the board.

 

[ARNA007]

Chris - by any chance, do you know if the Lightroom presets for the Fuji Colors (Provia, Astia, etc.) are somehow impacted by DR? In the X-Pro 2 version of his book, Rico states that to use the Fuji presets the DR must be set to 100. However, I'm not sure why that would be the case if Lightroom now recognizes if something is shot with DR 200 or 400... is there anything you've come across on this point by any chance?

 

[nixda]

Hi! Thanks so much for your response. I'm not sure I'm clear on this though -- my understanding was that at say DR 400, and an ISO of 800, the camera raw file would be shot at the base ISO of 200 (it would be metered for ISO 800 but the shot would be recorded at ISO 200).

The problem is with "...shot at the base ISO of 200". It's not precise, and I wanted to point out that fact. When the ISO is set, several things are affected. One is how exposure parameters are calculated. Another one is what amount of analog amplification is used. Another one is what amount of mathematical manipulation of the raw data is being performed. Another one is how much noise reduction is applied, etc.

The DR setting affects only the amount of analog amplification. So, your statement should read "... the camera raw file would be obtained with the analog amplification of that of base ISO of 200".

This experiment will confirm:
Set the camera to ISO800, then take three shots with DR100, DR200, DR400 resp. and check the raw data. You will see decreasing intensities for the same exposures, because the amount of analog amplification is different while the amount of light falling on the sensor was the same.

However, when you look at the SOOC-JPEG file, they are all bona-fide ISO800 images when generated with calibrated equipment and viewed under reference conditions. They will all look different and may even appear darker with increasing DR setting, but the midpoint is preserved, and that is what determines the assigned ISO.

The fact that the raw is at -2 EV enables the preservation of the highlights; then the shadows would be digitally amplified to recover detail etc (but at the price of some noise)...

What enables the highlight preservation is the reduction in analog amplification.

There are basically three points where clipping can occur:

a) at the sensor level when the capacity of the sensor is exceeded. Only a reduction in exposure can help here.

b) after conversion to digital numbers during ADC. A reduction in the amount of analog amplification will help here, and that is the spot that the DR modes address. Note that the mechanisms implemented by Fuji (and similar ones from other manufacturers) provide a unique way for the JPEG shooter to address this issue. It cannot be recreated in any other way. The raw shooter, on the other hand, would not have to rely on that mechanism.

c) during processing of the digital numbers written to the raw file, e.g., when a certain manipulation leads to values that cannot be represented by the chosen working format (e.g., values of greater than 255 would be truncated to 255 in 8-bit JPEG).

One comment here: ISO is only relevant with respect to images generated from JPEGs viewed with our eyes. It does not apply to latent images (e.g., a JPEG file), nor does it apply to raw data. When you deal with raw data, pretty much the only ISO aspect that is relevant is the amount of analog amplification the setting represents. This is where the DR settings come in. They are basically "analog-amplification-compensation", not exposure compensation.

So my question was if LR recognizes the DR 400 setting of a Fuji Camera, and if so, does it simply increase the RAW file by +2 EV across the board (i.e., the user would have to go and play a lot with the sliders), OR, does it tone-map correctly such that the shadows are amplified but the highlights aren't touched? Thanks again...

I think it is pretty clear that LR doesn't handle the DR directives properly.

 

[Ambulater]

Chris - by any chance, do you know if the Lightroom presets for the Fuji Colors (Provia, Astia, etc.) are somehow impacted by DR? In the X-Pro 2 version of his book, Rico states that to use the Fuji presets the DR must be set to 100. However, I'm not sure why that would be the case if Lightroom now recognizes if something is shot with DR 200 or 400... is there anything you've come across on this point by any chance?

I don't think Rico is saying that you have to use DR100 to use the LR Fuji film presents. I think he is saying, at least in the X-T2 book, that the LR film presets will closely emulate the out of camera Fuji film presets as long as you shoot DR100. I assume this is because the LR versions of the Fuji film presets are calibrated with DR100 as an assumption and cannot dynamically adjust to accommodate DR200 or DR400 tone mapping.

So while you can apply the LR film presents to photos that have been tone mapped to DR200 or DR400, it may not look the same as what would come out of the in camera RAW converter. Does that make sense?

 

[Ambulater]

Not sure why my iPad keyboard keeps changing "presets" to "presents".... at any rate, here's my personal take away on all this:

If you 1) are a Fuji shooter, 2) only use RAW files, and 3) use LR, then:

• Shoot in DR100 only
• Expose to preserve the highlights
• Adjust highlights and shadows to taste in LR

(Basically don't worry about the DR200, DR400, or DR Auto settings if you're a RAW guy)

 

[EyeEssOh]

Not sure why my iPad keyboard keeps changing "presets" to "presents".... at any rate, here's my personal take away on all this:

If you 1) are a Fuji shooter, 2) only use RAW files, and 3) use LR, then:

• Shoot in DR100 only
• Expose to preserve the highlights
• Adjust highlights and shadows to taste in LR

(Basically don't worry about the DR200, DR400, or DR Auto settings if you're a RAW guy)

--

You could of course use the DR settings as an auto-"preserve the highlights" facility. Always shoot in DRAUTO and your RAW will always be one stop underexposed when the camera deems it appropriate. Or just use DR200 and it will always be underexposed in RAW.

I don't do this, but you could!

 

[Ambulater]

BTW, I would have very different advice for JPEG guys. If I primarily shot JPEG then I would:

• Not use DR Auto (auto is limited to DR100 or DR200, no DR400, and the camera really doesn't know how you want your shot to look - take control of this as a part of setting exposure)
• Select DR100, DR200, or DR400 based on the dynamic range of the scene and the look you are going for
• For ease of use I would usually use Auto ISO since the settings above have various minimum ISO requirements (ISO 200, 400, and 800 respectively I believe)
• Make sure exposure preview is enabled in the EVF and expose to exactly how the final JPG should look

I do think the DR settings are extremely valuable if you shoot JPEG, not so much if you shoot RAW.

 

[Ambulater]

Not sure why my iPad keyboard keeps changing "presets" to "presents".... at any rate, here's my personal take away on all this:

If you 1) are a Fuji shooter, 2) only use RAW files, and 3) use LR, then:

• Shoot in DR100 only
• Expose to preserve the highlights
• Adjust highlights and shadows to taste in LR

(Basically don't worry about the DR200, DR400, or DR Auto settings if you're a RAW guy)

--

You could of course use the DR settings as an auto-"preserve the highlights" facility. Always shoot in DRAUTO and your RAW will always be one stop underexposed when the camera deems it appropriate. Or just use DR200 and it will always be underexposed in RAW.

I don't do this, but you could!

True. That would work as well. I kind of like adjusting based on the live view histogram, but the approach you outlined above would work about the same in most instances and require less fiddling.

 

[ARNA007]

Thanks Chris - that makes perfect sense, much appreciated! Thank you for your help.

 

[ARNA007]

Hi Nixda, thanks very much for going through all that and the mechanics of how it works -- much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[nixda]

Not sure why my iPad keyboard keeps changing "presets" to "presents".... at any rate, here's my personal take away on all this:

If you 1) are a Fuji shooter, 2) only use RAW files, and 3) use LR, then:

• Shoot in DR100 only
• Expose to preserve the highlights
• Adjust highlights and shadows to taste in LR

(Basically don't worry about the DR200, DR400, or DR Auto settings if you're a RAW guy)

--

You could of course use the DR settings as an auto-"preserve the highlights" facility. Always shoot in DRAUTO and your RAW will always be one stop underexposed when the camera deems it appropriate. Or just use DR200 and it will always be underexposed in RAW.

Not always. What you describe covers only one type of scenario, namely when using a lower ISO and invoking a DR mode requires a higher ISO and thus results in a lower exposure. That scenario is typically assumed, and it is the basis of the common, but wrong, notion that invoking the DR modes causes a lower exposure.

That is not necessarily the case.

Another scenario would be indoor photography, arguably a very common scenario. Here, one often uses ISO800 or higher as a default. Invoking the DR modes here will not result in a lower exposure, and they are still very useful as they address a clipping problem that cannot be addressed in any other way when shooting JPEGs.

In a summary, it is the change in ISO that causes a lower exposure. When a change in DR requires a change in ISO, exposure parameters will change. When a change in DR does not change the ISO, exposure parameters will be the same.

 

[nixda]

This is a link to a little treatise I wrote on the subject a while back

 

[EyeEssOh]

Thanks for the link. It turns out I had read it when originally posted.

I'm interested in real world practical explanations and would be interested to get your views on the following scenario:

Take an image RAW + JPG with DR set to 200, ISO allowed free reign on Auto. When the RAW image is brought into a programmes that doesn't read the Fuji DR EXIF, and won't make allowance for, by how many stops will the RAW image differ from an image taken at DR100?

 

[nixda]

Thanks for the link. It turns out I had read it when originally posted.

I'm interested in real world practical explanations and would be interested to get your views on the following scenario:

Take an image RAW + JPG with DR set to 200, ISO allowed free reign on Auto. When the RAW image is brought into a programmes that doesn't read the Fuji DR EXIF, and won't make allowance for, by how many stops will the RAW image differ from an image taken at DR100?

Not sure what you mean by 'raw image'. The raw data can be displayed as they are, and since the analog amplification is going to be lower with higher DR modes, the raw intensities will be lower as well, and the raw images will be darker. They are very dark to begin with. For identical exposures, the intensities will be 1EV lower for DR200 compared to DR100, and 2EV lower for DR400 compared to DR100, due to less analog amplification.

If, with 'raw image', you are referring to an image generated from the raw data by (JPEG) processing, then it all depends on the raw processor. LR initially rendered images that were darker by about 1EV (DR200 compared to DR100) or 2EV (DR400 compared to DR100), because it didn't increase the brightness by 1EV or 2EV, resp. to fulfill then ISO setting. Even if it had done so, as it is doing currently it seems, the benefit of the DR mode would be lost, because one cannot just simply apply a constant 1EV or 2EV compensation to all intensities. One must use a special tone curve that lifts the highlights less so than the shadows. The adjustment to middle gray, though, must be 1EV or 2EV, resp. to fulfill the ISO setting.