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Puts's latest M8 color comments - seriously flawed


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Guest guy_mancuso

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Jono there is something that you should consider in all of this that maybe you have not thought of. With aperture you are doing a D200 hack to the raw DNG , so are you really processing a D200 file with it's codes or is it a modified M8 file. Until Aperture supports the actually DNG coming out of the M8 we really don't know for sure what is going on with that DNG. Yes it is working they way you like but is it truly correct. That is the question that keeps me wondering.

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Jono--

 

Thanks for the response.... I'll try my best to respond (though frankly, I've had a little too much (very good) wine tonight--reminds of that thread where everyone was taking shots what they'd been drinking :))

 

First off: I've spent no time whatsoever in Aperture.

 

I call M8 support in Aperture a hack, because, categorically, that's what it is, since Aperture doesn't officially support the M8. Good or great or not, I won't invest in something that might go away completely with the next point release. I learned this the hard way on other software :)

 

So I'm not saying that Aperture doesn't give (you) good results with the M8. It obviously does; I love your colour palette and I think your greens stride precisely the right balance between far too yellow (frankly what I get a lot out of my Japanese dSLRs with their own RAW converters) and blue, of which I've seen way too much as well.

 

I know how hard the greens you want are to get; but I actually have a lot of hope in the filtered versions; I just don't know any process right now that takes advantage of the better overall balance the filters provide. Even the new C1 profile, while a huge improvement on the old one, isn't quite there yet on the A channel.

 

But to use something unsupported as the standard of judging the camera's response and workflow? Just seems a little off to me, is all. I'm not saying it doesn't work for you ;)

 

As for Lightroom, I spent a little over a month analysing the LR output with colour tools and about 1000 files before I determined there was really no colour advantage with Lightroom over the latest ACR, and in some cases it was worse, which is weird. Really, weird.

 

With LR I always had to work along the magenta / green axis in every single shot that came out of there. What's worse, it wasn't predictable; sometimes it would seem to be ok, so you could build a "profile" with the settings, but the smallest WB tweak would set it off.

 

Skin tones were terrible, reds were undersaturated; greens were dull. In fact, most of the colour out of LR was dull, if you had to use one word to describe it. Not dull as in "underdeveloped"--that would be ok. Dull as in a limited saturation palette and very small gamut.

 

Apparently, LR seems to be providing saturations with the M8 that are quite a bit smaller than sRGB, even--especially in blues. The difference between Lightroom as it currently outputs M8 files and C1 is quite astounding in the yellow and blues.

 

Reds aren't much saturated either but they're not as bad as blue; that's usually ok since people like to clip the red channel anyway, and printing very saturated blues is quite difficult to begin with, so people expect less there and they get it, and the red response is almost a built-in, um, foolproof....

 

So to me, the current input settings for the M8--whatever they are in Lightroom--are tweaky and unpredictable at best; they're simply not taking any advantage of the camera at worst.

 

It's RSP roots show too in some of the colours, which I can only describe with the M8 as "posterized". They are doing some very funky midtone shifts with stuff like fill lights and vibrance; on the Canons it's ok (but wasn't to me in their first versions) but on the M8 not so good, IMO. Not yet, anyway...

 

Anyway, I really wouldn't say go back to C1 to you, at least not until V4, where you might want to have another look.

 

I liked the workflow concept of Lightroom too; it's still V1 though, and little things I truly hated (like not much control over temporary file placement, etc....) made it come off the machine. I'll wait till V2 till I look again.

 

As for correction of the cyan in PS, I understand the hesitancy to go into LAB mode (losing the desire to live!).

 

But frankly for some jobs, LAB is better than RGB and for others CMYK (a false wide-gamut CYMK for correction, not the limited presets from PS) is even better.

 

Both CMYK and LAB, for instance, let you adjust colour but not touch black or luminance--this is a huge advantage for the cyan correction.

 

Why?

 

Because in LAB I can actually correct the cyan without affecting detail in the slightest (because it lives on the L channel).

 

Even easier--in CMYK, well, a CYAN curve will directly negate the cyan cast! It really is that easy. Since I'm probably sharpening black and not the other colour channels, it's easier than LAB (but not quite as effective for the vignette as well).

 

So once that is taken care of, then you go back to sRGB or whatever you want. Since you won't be printing to anything like ProPhoto, for instance, nothing lost at all.

 

So that's my take.

 

Of course, you're right about the filters in terms of what you shoot and how you process.

 

I was being categorical with my questions, mostly as examples of what Puts should have asked himself.

 

I would have much rather see him shoot different scenes with different input profiles and then measure the delta in saturation and hue in LAB--since it doesn't change like RGB numbers do...

 

So I hope this addresses your questions. Too rambly, I know :)

 

And once I get through the next five albums I need to make, I will actually get around to making new C1 profiles for the M8. I know they won't be much use to Aperture folks, but I hope they will in some small way show the potential response of the camera with the filters.

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Jamie,

 

Where do I get a wide-gamut CMYK profile that's not squashed down to the color space of some CMYK ink set? I'd love to be able to dip into CMYK space for some types of corrections if I did'nt have to loose anything in the conversion.

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Jamie,

 

Where do I get a wide-gamut CMYK profile that's not squashed down to the color space of some CMYK ink set? I'd love to be able to dip into CMYK space for some types of corrections if I did'nt have to loose anything in the conversion.

 

Hey Hank--now that we're completely off topic, what the hey!!

 

I'll let you guys in on a nice little tip... there's this company that produces perhaps the best set of "curving tools" for PS I've ever seen. You can get to them from the link I'm about to give you.

 

One of the things they *give away for free from their site* is a psuedo CMYK profile which simulates incredibly pure inks, and so has almost the gamut of ARGB!

 

But of course, when you're working in CMYK, you can make all kinds of adjustments that would be pure hell in RGB ;)

 

Wide Gmut VCMYK

 

This is not suitable for printing. It is, however, pretty cool in messing around with pure cyan in CMYK then converting back, or sharpening just the black channel :)

 

Enjoy! Their for-pay software is even sweeter; it actually lets you draw PS curves in LAB or CMYK while still remaining in RGB...

 

BACK ON TOPIC--this "non-printing" CMYK profile just illustrates how arbitrary out of camera colour really is, and how easily remedied a lot of so-called fatal colour flaws really are... Ok, I'm stretching, but maybe the mods won't pull the plug so quickly ;)

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Jono there is something that you should consider in all of this that maybe you have not thought of. With aperture you are doing a D200 hack to the raw DNG , so are you really processing a D200 file with it's codes or is it a modified M8 file. Until Aperture supports the actually DNG coming out of the M8 we really don't know for sure what is going on with that DNG. Yes it is working they way you like but is it truly correct. That is the question that keeps me wondering.

Hi Guy

I've considered all this, AND I've spent a great deal of time in Lightroom, ACR and C1 (although not since the last firmware update). The reasons for using Aperture are in the answer to Jamie. However, I can make exactly the same remarks with respect to Lightroom and ACR - it's not a thing which is specific to Aperture.

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Jono--

 

Thanks for the response.... I'll try my best to respond (though frankly, I've had a little too much (very good) wine tonight--reminds of that thread where everyone was taking shots what they'd been drinking :))

 

First off: I've spent no time whatsoever in Aperture.

 

I call M8 support in Aperture a hack, because, categorically, that's what it is, since Aperture doesn't officially support the M8. Good or great or not, I won't invest in something that might go away completely with the next point release. I learned this the hard way on other software :)

 

So I'm not saying that Aperture doesn't give (you) good results with the M8. It obviously does; I love your colour palette and I think your greens stride precisely the right balance between far too yellow (frankly what I get a lot out of my Japanese dSLRs with their own RAW converters) and blue, of which I've seen way too much as well.

 

Hi Jamie - thank you for your long reply, I hope you're feeling well this morning (I'd also had a drink or three last night when I wrote my post).

You are far more knowledgable about colour than I will ever be, but I've certainly struggled with greens over the years, especially with Nikon (Olympus seem pretty good). It's very much complicated by the fact that most people have a tilted perception of how they should look (too much National Geographical maybe?!!).

 

I quite agree with you about Lightroom - as for your comments about Aperture above, well, I certainly wouldn't have made the effort if it wasn't that I already had 20,000 keyworded and organised shots, together with associated web pages and smart albums - features that just arent available in other programs - sure, I could easily get them out, but it would have meant going back to the old "Original/Modified/Print/Web/thumbnail" structures for storage that I had so joyously abandoned a year ago! A big incentive to make it work, I'm sure you'll agree.

 

I think we've both made our points pretty clear - and they sit side by side (rather than opposite). If I seem like a "man with a mission" it's not because I'm trying to convert anyone else to my view - I just want those who haven't yet decided to think twice before committing to the 'put on the filters and forget it' point of view.

 

On an aside - I've been fiddling about with the jpgs recently - unfortunately they're too compressed to be used seriously (why can't they do a 'light' 2.5 compression like Olympus do on the E1). What's startling though is how good the colour is since the last firmware update - you need to turn the saturation down a notch. They don't solve the magenta in fabrics issue, but they sure do produce pretty pictures in nature.

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One of the things they *give away for free from their site* is a psuedo CMYK profile which simulates incredibly pure inks, and so has almost the gamut of ARGB! .......

BACK ON TOPIC--this "non-printing" CMYK profile just illustrates how arbitrary out of camera colour really is, and how easily remedied a lot of so-called fatal colour flaws really are... Ok, I'm stretching, but maybe the mods won't pull the plug so quickly ;)

 

Thanks, this will be very useful. For some sorts of correction CMYK is a lot more user friendly environment. It's more intuitive, as when you started mixing colors as a child with your crayons and finger paints it was the subtractive color mixing of the CMYK color space that you were working with.

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Re the inconsistent color results with Lightroom (and/or ACR), one thing to be aware of is that all of the Adobe products use the color matrix encoded in the DNG file to convert from raw. However, Leica have changed that matrix information between firmware versions, presumably to help with the IR issue. So if you will NOT get consistent color between images taken with different M8 firmware revisions on LR. This is different to most other raw converters, e.g., C1, that use internal profiles, and ignore the DNG color matrix.

 

Sandy

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Re the inconsistent color results with Lightroom (and/or ACR), one thing to be aware of is that all of the Adobe products use the color matrix encoded in the DNG file to convert from raw. However, Leica have changed that matrix information between firmware versions, presumably to help with the IR issue. So if you will NOT get consistent color between images taken with different M8 firmware revisions on LR. This is different to most other raw converters, e.g., C1, that use internal profiles, and ignore the DNG color matrix.

 

Sandy

 

In theory at least I prefer the C1 method. I like to be able to work on the closest thing to raw data possible. Usually software companies dedicated to post-processing and raw conversion software will be better at it then any camera manufacturer and it gives you more flexibility. I also like that C1 can use ICC profiles. Hopefully the next version will bring the interface and feature set up to date.

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Guest guy_mancuso

Well I am having pretty good luck with LR i will say it does seem like it is squeezing the color gamut of Prophoto into a srgb . Just seems compressed. But I do like the fill and recovery and do use that a lot to remap the image. Color really need to watch the magenta. i go back and forth between C1 and LR still waiting for my love affair which i had with the DMR and C1

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Well I am having pretty good luck with LR i will say it does seem like it is squeezing the color gamut of Prophoto into a srgb . Just seems compressed. But I do like the fill and recovery and do use that a lot to remap the image. Color really need to watch the magenta. i go back and forth between C1 and LR still waiting for my love affair which i had with the DMR and C1

 

Wait until Aperture properly supports the M8, and you can start a new love affair all over!

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Guest guy_mancuso

I hope they do and i will certainly look into it than but i can't have a workflow right now that is not supported besides it just really pisses me off. 12k on Apple gear and no support for my camera just makes me irrate. There Apple take that and rotate your Aperture ring around that one. ROTFLMAO

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I hope they do and i will certainly look into it than but i can't have a workflow right now that is not supported besides it just really pisses me off. 12k on Apple gear and no support for my camera just makes me irrate. There Apple take that and rotate your Aperture ring around that one. ROTFLMAO

 

:) I realy do sympathise - and it scares me as well, but as I already have 20,000 odd keyworded images in aperture, together with loads of web albums etc. changing is a BIG endeavour.

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Core image support is a product of the underlying operating system OSX not of aperture. Regardless of, if, or when Apple provide core image support for the M8 we'll have the ability to either use the support provided or create our own versions (profiles) if we wish. "As we say here there are many ways to skin a cat". I fully empathise with Jono, having keyworded many images and the use of smart albums is a breeze to locate and filter images quickly. Once one becomes used to the features/quirks of a raw converter it becomes a comfort zone in which one prefers to do digital workflow.

 

Who knows if C1, Lightroom, ACR or Adobe DNG converters are providing the correct colours from the M8 raws, to my eye they all give different results, now I just consider them akin to films in the digital age, be it kodak, fuji, agfa we now have lightroom, C1 and so on. At the end of the day ones personal preference dictates the raw processor/workflow. None are wrong but I defy you to tell me which one is absolutely right for every occasion. ;)

 

I've nailed my colours to the mast, but should the ship start to sink, there is an export masters & versions function to get my raws & amendments out of aperture and into the next all singing dancing raw processor that will require 16xquadcore processors with 100gb of ram. But that day is far off in the future.:rolleyes:

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Jono--yes, I'm not feeling too terribly bad today. Must drink more, I suppose :)

 

And I do think our views on filters / colour are complementary ;) Which is good when you talk colour anyway.

 

As for Aperture, again, whatever works. I'm sure proper support for the M8 and DNGs is only a matter of time.

 

I really do like the workflow & db management promised by LR and Aperture, and now that I have a couple of terabyte RAIDs here (really--it's the future!) I will reconsider at the next general release...

 

Of course, for me the wild card is still C1 V4...

 

@ Guy, I still think LR will be better in a release or too. But you're right about the gamut. The funny thing is still the unpredictability of the develops I was getting; seemed to be related to tweaky WB.

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Guest guy_mancuso

Jamie i go back and forth between the two and it seems c1 is smoother looking , noise is better that I know. i really need to give them two a head to head comparison. i am just short of time and right now on a heavy deadline and i keep sneaking over here and get distracted . I need someone to pull my internet cord and tie me to the keyboard. LOL

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