Fujifilm .RAF RAW file in Lightroom has worms

Hello Hello, I tried to title this in a way that would help if I was looking for this issue as I have tried and failed to search for an answer to this, some people say worms, some say water colour? I'm not sure really.

Some say 'Don't pixel peak' or 'Don't sharpen' and you'll be fine. but from testing with my own Raw files from a Fujifilm X-E4, I can't seem to get a 'good' looking file in lightroom.

Backstory is I've used Canon DSLRs and lightroom for 10+ years but recently I sold everything and moved to a LOVELY fujifilm X-E4. I saw that fuji had a special Capture one fuji version that apparently handles the simulation profiles etc so I got myself a copy of Capture One and have been trying to use that along with lightroom to see which is 'better'

I've found that I don't really get on with capture one for different reasons, Not being able to change the UI in some ways, the ingest, pick/reject tools and exporting.

So I was going to go back to lightroom when I noticed that my images in lightroom have a strange surface quality, some might say worms? squiggles? However doesn't show up in Capture One. In Capture One these details terminate differently and im many ways appear nicer.

"Don't zoom in" would be an option but I can still see them when at 100% and I noticed they also effect out of focus sections. i'll attatch some images to show what I mean

Lightroom and its surface worms, look in the purple section for knots and then look at the out of focus flowers which have a strange banding issue

In capture one the flowers are blury and soft and the purple section doesn't have the worms

Capture One on the left and Lightroom on the right

My question to my fellow fuji users, am I missing a tickbox or something in lightroom to stop it from doing this? I don't want to use Capture One but my raw images look rubbish in Lightroom.

Optimal sharpening and NR settings in Lightroom depend somewhat on the particular image. Lightroom's X-Trans demosaicing can indeed contribute to processing issues (especially sharpening) with some images, but can usually mitigated to some degree with carefully applied settings or eliminated entirely by using "Enhance Details" or Iridient X-Transformer in place of Lightroom's standard demosaicing. If you'd care to share a link to your RAW file, I'll be happy to see if I can get a better result with just Lightroom. I use Iridient X-Transformer, but Lightroom alone can usually produce a perfectly decent result with most images.

Looks like you found the magic “worm killer.”  Well done, and welcome to the forum.

junkhole wrote:

Yes, silly me was 1 search away! I had looked into this twice with lots of contridication but hopefully my post here can help another, Now all I need to do is figure out how to select all the .RAF files and delete them in lightroom so I can carry on my edit with the better files.

Also its a shame the newly created DNGs don't seem to preview in windows like the RAFs did

Maybe it's just me, but I never delete RAF files for any of my "keeper" images.  There can be processing improvements in future versions that might give you an incentive to reprocess some of your images.  I look at RAF files as digital negatives and only delete those that I don't regard as keepers.  Storage is cheap, so that might be something for you to consider.

junkhole wrote:

Yes, silly me was 1 search away! I had looked into this twice with lots of contridication but hopefully my post here can help another, Now all I need to do is figure out how to select all the .RAF files and delete them in lightroom so I can carry on my edit with the better files.

Also its a shame the newly created DNGs don't seem to preview in windows like the RAFs did

Don’t delete the original RAFs. Copy and paste all your development settings back to the RAF and delete the DNGs if you must, you can always recreate the finished DNGs later if you want revisit your editing at a later date.

I'm not a big post processor, indeed I'm not much of a photographer, but like others I never delete the camera raw files.  I am trying to be more intelligently selective about what I keep, indeed about what I photograph at all but storage isn't costly.

junkhole wrote:

Yes, silly me was 1 search away! I had looked into this twice with lots of contridication but hopefully my post here can help another, Now all I need to do is figure out how to select all the .RAF files and delete them in lightroom so I can carry on my edit with the better files.

Also its a shame the newly created DNGs don't seem to preview in windows like the RAFs did

You need to load a codec pack to support some types of RAW files in windows so that Windows Explorer will show them. This is one:

https://photographylife.com/how-to-view-dng-thumbnails-in-windows

There are many others.

Morris

junkhole wrote:

I do have fastpictureviewer codec installed and these HORRIBLE dng files from lightroom still error out windows and won't open in the "windows photo viewer"

When I used to convert my .CR2 canon files with adobes dng converter, they'd still open in windows but these enhanced .dngs won't

also they are DOUBLE the size, what is going on here???

"windows photo viewer"

opening one in "photo viewer" on windows 10, it loads a really low quality jpg fullscreen and pops this error

I would use the photo viewer on windows but you can't go left and right with the side mouse buttons and it takes longer to open than the "windows photo viewer"

Is this adobe pushing BRIDGE?

It's been a long time.  I think I uninstalled fast picture viewer.  I wish I could recall all the details so I could help.  I just looked in a folder with large icons selected.  It only shows me the DNG files.  No RAF.  I use Adobe Bridge to view them.  I suspect this is my solution and at least I got rid of the Windows Explorer crashes.

Morris

Morris0 wrote:

junkhole wrote:

Yes, silly me was 1 search away! I had looked into this twice with lots of contridication but hopefully my post here can help another, Now all I need to do is figure out how to select all the .RAF files and delete them in lightroom so I can carry on my edit with the better files.

Also its a shame the newly created DNGs don't seem to preview in windows like the RAFs did

You need to load a codec pack to support some types of RAW files in windows so that Windows Explorer will show them. This is one:

https://photographylife.com/how-to-view-dng-thumbnails-in-windows

There are many others.

Morris

Interesting registry item! Tried it and it works after all these years I still use Windows photo viewer for a "quick" (emphasis on speed!) look. I can now see DNG files now and open them with a 6 nano-second click ... most other viewers I have used take longer when all I sometimes want to do is have a quick peek.

Thanks for the link

Deed

The old legend again !!

Just by a wormicide or work in depth with the ACR engine....

I did not find any signifiacant difference. Probably ACR demands a bit more attention and time. Coupled with IXT, or enhancing details give similar results. That was true in the past bur Adobe did improve the program. Comparison with C1 also did not show me any significant difference as well.

So coming back now with observations of the past looks for me as talking about a legend