Current X3F-processing best practice?

[D Cox]

I think the best approach to SPP is to do as little as possible there. Set Sharpness to -2.0 (other programs sharpen better), highlights to minimum and shadows to maximum, and spend your time on the "Exposure" slider getting rid of burned out highlights.

Standard colour mode, Daylight balance.

Don't try to get an image that looks good -- the best ones for further processing are often quite dark.

Export 16-bit TIF in ProPhoto space.

 

[xpatUSA]

I think the best approach to SPP is to do as little as possible there.

Agreed.

Set Sharpness to -2.0 (other programs sharpen better), highlights to minimum and shadows to maximum, and spend your time on the "Exposure" slider getting rid of burned out highlights.

BUT, as always, I must object to one-size-fits-all settings, especially in SPP.

Here's my wall targets, processed in SPP in accordance with the above settings:

An obviously incorrect black level and quite poor contrast

Here's how it should look, IMHO:

SPP default adjustments except -1.0 Sharpness

Speaking of Sharpness, I claim yet again that -2.0 can not be suitable for every Sigma camera with every lens and with every degree of focus.

Here are four settings for the above shot: -2.0, -1.0, -0.5 and 0.0:

Edge Spread:

Yes, 0.0 for this combination of lens, camera, focus and lighting is too much (see peak at top left).

No, -2.0 is way too soft IMO see 10-90% rise for the captured edge.

Also, for completeness, the Line Spread:

Some antics at +2px for 0.0 and -0.5 ... -1.0 looks smooth but still quite narrow ... -2.0 is too wide for my taste, perhaps only good for vain ladies' portraits ... ;-)

Standard colour mode

Agreed

Daylight balance.

Disagreed.

Don't try to get an image that looks good -- the best ones for further processing are often quite dark.

Hmmm ...

Export 16-bit TIF in ProPhoto space.

Agreed.

My main objection is to the promotion of probable maladjustment in SPP by rote - irrespective of the camera, the lens, the degree of focus and the scene ... the which maladjustment to be recovered somehow by further processing elsewhere.

--
what you got is not what you saw ...

 

[SandyF]

Agreed.

My main objection is to the promotion of probable maladjustment in SPP by rote - irrespective of the camera, the lens, the degree of focus and the scene ... the which maladjustment to be recovered somehow by further processing elsewhere.

 

[D Cox]

I think the best approach to SPP is to do as little as possible there.

Agreed.

Set Sharpness to -2.0 (other programs sharpen better), highlights to minimum and shadows to maximum, and spend your time on the "Exposure" slider getting rid of burned out highlights.

BUT, as always, I must object to one-size-fits-all settings, especially in SPP.

Here's my wall targets, processed in SPP in accordance with the above settings:

An obviously incorrect black level and quite poor contrast

Here's how it should look, IMHO:

SPP default adjustments except -1.0 Sharpness

Speaking of Sharpness, I claim yet again that -2.0 can not be suitable for every Sigma camera with every lens and with every degree of focus.

Here are four settings for the above shot: -2.0, -1.0, -0.5 and 0.0:

Edge Spread:

Yes, 0.0 for this combination of lens, camera, focus and lighting is too much (see peak at top left).

No, -2.0 is way too soft IMO see 10-90% rise for the captured edge.

My aim is to have no sharpening at all in SPP, because Topaz Sharpen does a much better job. Somehow the Topaz people have managed to code a sharpening algorithm that gives no halos.

Also, for completeness, the Line Spread:

Some antics at +2px for 0.0 and -0.5 ... -1.0 looks smooth but still quite narrow ... -2.0 is too wide for my taste, perhaps only good for vain ladies' portraits ... ;-)

Standard colour mode

Agreed

Daylight balance.

Disagreed.

I want to start in the further processing with the light as recorded. Very often it needs no change. Warm light --> warm light.

Don't try to get an image that looks good -- the best ones for further processing are often quite dark.

Hmmm ...

They are often very dark by the time all the overexposed highlights are gone. We don't have that problem with files from the fp, because of its greater dynamic range.

Export 16-bit TIF in ProPhoto space.

Agreed.

My main objection is to the promotion of probable maladjustment in SPP by rote - irrespective of the camera, the lens, the degree of focus and the scene ... the which maladjustment to be recovered somehow by further processing elsewhere.

I want SPP to do as little adjustment as possible. Convert X3F to RGB and lower the tones enough to recover overexposed highlights. No more.

Don

 

[Peter has left]

Don, I have a similar experience with Topaz Denoise and Sharpen... Even if I set the sharpness in SPP to -2, the image after editing in Topaz is always too sharp. Topaz evaluates it itself and sharpens it to the maximum extent.

Peter

 

[Scottelly]

I think the best approach to SPP is to do as little as possible there.

Agreed.

Set Sharpness to -2.0 (other programs sharpen better), highlights to minimum and shadows to maximum, and spend your time on the "Exposure" slider getting rid of burned out highlights.

BUT, as always, I must object to one-size-fits-all settings, especially in SPP.

Here's my wall targets, processed in SPP in accordance with the above settings:

An obviously incorrect black level and quite poor contrast

Here's how it should look, IMHO:

SPP default adjustments except -1.0 Sharpness

Speaking of Sharpness, I claim yet again that -2.0 can not be suitable for every Sigma camera with every lens and with every degree of focus.

Here are four settings for the above shot: -2.0, -1.0, -0.5 and 0.0:

Edge Spread:

Yes, 0.0 for this combination of lens, camera, focus and lighting is too much (see peak at top left).

No, -2.0 is way too soft IMO see 10-90% rise for the captured edge.

My aim is to have no sharpening at all in SPP, because Topaz Sharpen does a much better job. Somehow the Topaz people have managed to code a sharpening algorithm that gives no halos.

Also, for completeness, the Line Spread:

Some antics at +2px for 0.0 and -0.5 ... -1.0 looks smooth but still quite narrow ... -2.0 is too wide for my taste, perhaps only good for vain ladies' portraits ... ;-)

Standard colour mode

Agreed

Daylight balance.

Disagreed.

I want to start in the further processing with the light as recorded. Very often it needs no change. Warm light --> warm light.

Don't try to get an image that looks good -- the best ones for further processing are often quite dark.

Hmmm ...

They are often very dark by the time all the overexposed highlights are gone. We don't have that problem with files from the fp, because of its greater dynamic range.

Export 16-bit TIF in ProPhoto space.

Agreed.

My main objection is to the promotion of probable maladjustment in SPP by rote - irrespective of the camera, the lens, the degree of focus and the scene ... the which maladjustment to be recovered somehow by further processing elsewhere.

I want SPP to do as little adjustment as possible. Convert X3F to RGB and lower the tones enough to recover overexposed highlights. No more.

Don

Don, do you ever use X3F Fill Light? I find that tool pulls back the highlights as well as brightening the shadows. If I shoot a contrasty scene, where a highlight gets overexposed, I will normally make a version of the image using a little X3F fill light, as well as pulling down the exposure and highlights to recover what would otherwise be blown highlights. Sometimes I make three or four versions of an image, and I'll combine them as layers, which I will manually adjust/edit (changing opacity and erasing or partially erasing various unwanted sections of one or two of the layers).

--
Scott Barton Kennelly

Big Print Photos - Photography by Scott Barton Kennelly

Landscape and nature photography, photographic prints by Scott Barton Kennelly, an Australian photographer living in south Florida.

www.bigprintphotos.com

 

[Scottelly]

Thank you for this. Getting 0.56 Beta 3 made all the difference.

Like commented by sambaba above, for Merrills do not use X3F Wrapper 0.57 but use 0.56 Beta 3, to be found under https://github.com/Kalpanika/x3f_wrapper/releases.
By mistake this version lacks the f/5.0 opcode for the DP3M (file DP3M_FF_DNG_Opcodelist3_5.0), but you can easily copy it over from 0.57 in case you have a DP3M.

Regards, Georg

Woah, that's hard-core! I love this forum!

(When I read this, I laughed, and said to myself, "Talk about a crazy post!" What I meant by that is that I was impressed by the lengths to which some people will go in order to get what they want from their raw files.)

I know there are people who shoot with all sorts of cameras, and use all sorts of lenses, who go to great lengths in order to get what they want. I knew a hard-core HDR guy, who used a thing called a Promote Control to shoot his HDR series (often more than a dozen shots). That guy is the main reason I bought my first Sigma camera (SD 14). He moved on to using Nikons, and never shot much with his SD1, opting to sell it and get another Nikon. Anyway, he was one of those people, like some of the people who write some of these comments in this forum, which prove to me that I'm not alone, when I go to great lengths to make the image I want, whether that's a result of buying some exotic lens, traveling far from home, using some crazy camera, going to great lengths when setting up a shot, using some unusual editing technique or software, etc.

Thank you all for your inspiration!

 

[D Cox]

No, Scott, I no longer use the Fill Light, because

1. they don't tell you exactly what it does -- it seems to be some variant of unsharp masking with big radius

2. it usually gives big halos around rooftops, hilltops, etc.

Don

 

[Scottelly]

No, Scott, I no longer use the Fill Light, because

1. they don't tell you exactly what it does -- it seems to be some variant of unsharp masking with big radius

2. it usually gives big halos around rooftops, hilltops, etc.

Yeah, and it can really ruin the look of what would otherwise be a perfectly uniform, clear blue sky. This is why I normally use it very carefully, or I blend two or three versions of an image together. I have found I can use just a tiny bit of X3F Fill Light to pull back the highlights just enough to recover them, when they would otherwise not be recovered. The brighter shadows are not always desirable, but that's a simple fix.

Sometimes I'll use it to make a "cloud layer" image (created just for cloud highlight recovery). And I'll blend just the clouds or only one or two spots in the clouds with the "main image layer." Miracles can happen, and recovering blown clouds with the X3F Fill Light tool is one of those miracles that can happen sometimes.

Don