Capture One vs. Lightroom for Monochrom images

[Guest]

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Continuation of this thread, since not strictly about M11M:

Lightroom in my experience destroys tonal gradations captured in M10M DNG files, due to a rather steep contrast curve in the only available camera profile.

Capture One allows the selection of a 'Linear' camera profile, preserving about 4x the tonal shades I get in LR. That is even when lowering contrast in LR by setting it e.g. to -75.

Example (and recommendation to give Capture One 'linear' a try if you have a monochrome Leica camera), shot with M10M and Summilux 28mm f/1.4. All settings to default, no corrections:

Lightroom Classic:

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Capture One (linear profile):

[Bikie John]

I don't like what Lightroom does with the files from the M10M - they are too contrasty for me, as they are for you. It seems to apply a slight contrast curve on import. If you go to the "Tone Curve" adjustment panel you should see that. There is a pull-down menu under the graph for "Point Curve", one of the options is Linear. Try that and see if it is more to your taste. It is to mine, so I have it set as an import preset (which also sets sharpening and denoise to zero).

There are also lots of LR presets on the web. I found these for various Leica bodies on the Red Dot Forum:

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2020/04/lightroom-presets-for-leica-cameras/

If I'm a bit stuck I will try the M10M one, and it usually produces quite nice results. And of course is completely tuneable.

Good luck ... John

[Jon Warwick]

2 hours ago, Bikie John said:

I don't like what Lightroom does with the files from the M10M - they are too contrasty for me, as they are for you. It seems to apply a slight contrast curve on import. If you go to the "Tone Curve" adjustment panel you should see that. There is a pull-down menu under the graph for "Point Curve", one of the options is Linear. Try that and see if it is more to your taste. It is to mine, 

Fantastic!! Well spotted re the Linear option, which I found too as one would expect under ACR in Photoshop. And yes, the starting point for the DNG off the M10M is now much more to my taste. Thanks for your help.

[Jon Warwick]

Looking at it more, it seems my ACR at least is set up to default to “Custom” for the M10M, adding a modest S-shaped tone curve that adds contrast. I don’t know how that custom curve is created - by Adobe and Leica? Anyhow, changing that to “Linear” reduces that out-the-box contrast for my M10m DNGs, and that’s a starting point that I prefer.

When I open M11M DNGs, the Custom curve seems to just be the same as Linear, presumably because the latest Monochrom isn’t yet supported? 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Jon Warwick

[ramarren]

I agree that the M10-M defaults in LR Classic are not always the best for all scene types... The one that shows up as a standard default is the one embedded in the M10-M DNG files. (I have no access to an M11-M so I don't have any DNG files from it to analyze and see whether Leica stopped putting a default curve into its DNG files.)

But that's why LR Classic incorporates alternative Tone Curve capabilities. You can go to pre-canned Linear, Medium or Strong Contrast, or any tone curve that you prefer. And if you find you consistently want some other tone curve, even one you create yourself, you can set that as a default to use when importing M10-M files. See 

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/raw-defaults.html

for details on configuring LR Classic raw editing defaults.

Note: I have about 12 different custom configurations for LR Classic raw editing defaults, based upon my experience with processing raw files out of many different cameras I've owned in the past 20 years. Most notable are the ones for the Olympus E-5 and E-M1: the LR defaults for those two bodies incorporated about 2 to 3 times as much sharpening as the raw files needed, on average, and often made the cameras seem extremely noisy even at modest ISO settings. Configuring the defaults and saving them on a per-camera-body basis allows me to obtain very clean, high quality results much more easily, without having to remember to incorporate an alternative preset for each camera type manually each time.

G

Edited April 22, 2023 by ramarren

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Bikie John said:

I don't like what Lightroom does with the files from the M10M - they are too contrasty for me, as they are for you. It seems to apply a slight contrast curve on import. If you go to the "Tone Curve" adjustment panel you should see that. There is a pull-down menu under the graph for "Point Curve", one of the options is Linear. Try that and see if it is more to your taste. It is to mine, so I have it set as an import preset (which also sets sharpening and denoise to zero).

There are also lots of LR presets on the web. I found these for various Leica bodies on the Red Dot Forum:

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2020/04/lightroom-presets-for-leica-cameras/

If I'm a bit stuck I will try the M10M one, and it usually produces quite nice results. And of course is completely tuneable.

Good luck ... John

Thank you, I had not tried the linear curve setting in LR. The result (with 'Iinear curve' in Lightroom) is a bit closer, but I still see a significant advantage for Capture One (with the M10M) to provide a better starting point for editing (all sliders 0, no noise reduction, no sharpening; example was shot at ISO 12500). C1 left, LR right:

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I am wondering if using different raw converters influences reviewers opinions about the Leica Monochrom cameras?
Statements like 'at lower ISO not much different compared to a bw rendition of a color image' for me are more true when using LR; with C1, the M10M sets itself further apart from e.g. my M11.

[Chaemono]

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We now have a problem.

[Chaemono]

vor 8 Stunden schrieb Bikie John:

I don't like what Lightroom does with the files from the M10M - they are too contrasty for me, as they are for you. It seems to apply a slight contrast curve on import. If you go to the "Tone Curve" adjustment panel you should see that. There is a pull-down menu under the graph for "Point Curve", one of the options is Linear. Try that and see if it is more to your taste. It is to mine, so I have it set as an import preset (which also sets sharpening and denoise to zero).

There are also lots of LR presets on the web. I found these for various Leica bodies on the Red Dot Forum:

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2020/04/lightroom-presets-for-leica-cameras/

If I'm a bit stuck I will try the M10M one, and it usually produces quite nice results. And of course is completely tuneable.

Good luck ... John

Linear profile in LR Tone Curve works much better for M10 Mono. Thanks. First one is M10 Mono file exported as TIFF from C1 with Neutral DNG and linear profile. The second one is DNG with linear profile in LR.

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[Chaemono]

But then quite a few adjustments are needed to try to match the little guys in the two files.

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[Chaemono]

The more contrasty M10 Mono files combined with C1's DNG Neutral with linear profile do seem to produce stunning results as a starting point. The M11 Mono files will still show a wider tonal range but LR brush tools can be used on the C1 TIFFs to try to match if one deems that necessary. 

Less compressed JPEGs can be downloaded here: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-QpF9qc/

M10 Mono exported from C1 as TIFF and then exported as JPEG with LUF specifications

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M11 Mono exported from C1 as TIFF and then exported as JPEG with LUF specifications

[Chaemono]

Now with texture +100 and clarity +15 on the M11 Mono C1 TIFF in LR and texture +100 on the M10 Mono C1 TIFF in LR

Less compressed JPEGs can be downloaded here: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-QpF9qc/

M10 Mono

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M11 Mono

[Chaemono]

And now crops of the above. Thanks to the OP for pointing out how well C1 works with M10 Mono. I can make the DNGs available in case anyone is interested.

Less compressed JPEGs can be downloaded here: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-QpF9qc/

M10 Mono

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M11 Mono

Edited April 22, 2023 by Chaemono

[DadDadDaddyo]

Heh heh...

Ever since learning about it on Luminous Landscapes (long, long ago) I've been using Picture Window Pro from Digital Light & Color. I just love its many many powerful tools, as well as its fundamental approach to the problem space. 

It used to be a paid license, but these days it's free. I mention it just in case folks are interested in a powerful package that isn't in the usual grooves worn in the pavement. 

[ramarren]

I don't know what constitutes a problem. Just like when I'm using B&W film, what image processing app and workflow I choose affects the output of the camera. It is no reflection on the camera's quality what constitutes better or worse ... that's a matter which is up to the photographer and whomever is working the image processing.  

I see good things coming out of the M11-M, but also see good things coming out of my M10-M. I have exactly zero motivation to switch cameras on the basis of anything I've seen so far.

How the files are rendered, by whatever app, is all that is important. I think the biggest problem in this discussion is to assume that any one image processing app suits all purposes better than any other one.

G

[Chaemono]

Linear tone curve in LR comes closer to Auto tone curve in C1 for M10M. C1 linear tone curve for M10M/DNG Neutral looks almost identical to LR linear tone curve with highlights at -55. See next post.

LR linear tone cuve

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C1 auto tone curve

C1 linear tone curve

[Chaemono]

C1 linear tone curve

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LR linear tone curve and highlights -55