DNG Recover Edges with D-Lux 4

[ho_co]

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Working with a D-Lux 4 RWL file converted to DNG using Capture One, DNG Recover Edges produces a useless pattern of stripes at the right edge of the image.

 

Is the effect caused by Capture One's DNG conversion? (Will an improved Capture One--or future ACR for that matter--process the edge pixels better?)

 

Is it caused by the D-Lux 4 because of special formatting needed for the multi-aspect sensor?

 

Is it caused by the D-Lux 4 because of formatting needed to create distortion-corrected TIFFs?

 

Is it caused by DNG Recover Edges itself? (Unlikely since in my experience the applet works fine on other DNGs.)

 

Does the same thing happen also with RW2 files from the Panasonic LX3? (I suppose SilkyPix or some other program allows output as DNG?)

 

(I've tried DNG Recover Edges on horizontal images in both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio from the D-Lux 4, but haven't had opportunity to test either 3:2 images or verticals.)

 

Any ideas/suggestions/workarounds?

 

Thanks.

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[sandymc]

I'd be a bit suspicious of C1 here - Abobe's DNG convert program is more likely to produce a DNG image that preserves edge pixels.....not sure whether its handles D-Lux 4 files yet though.

 

Sandy

[brucek]

What's the concern? If you don't like them in the picture then crop them out.

[ho_co]

bruce??

 

The purpose of DNG Recover Edges is to recover edges.

 

So your suggestion is, run DNG Recover Edges and then when it fails, crop out what it's done?

 

??

 

Take a DNG file, permanently add garbage data to it, then open it in a RAW processor, delete the garbage and save the new file as tiff or psd or what have you?

 

I must be missing something here.

[brucek]

So your suggestion is, run DNG Recover Edges and then crop out what it's done?

 

Yes - crop out the "bad" pixels.

 

Bruce

[ho_co]

I'd be a bit suspicious of C1 here - Abobe's DNG convert program is more likely to produce a DNG image that preserves edge pixels.....not sure whether it handles D-Lux 4 files yet though.

Sandy--Thanks. That's where my suspicions were tending.

 

You're right that Adobe DNG Converter doesn't see the RWLs yet. Real Soon Now, no doubt!

[ho_co]

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Thanks, Bruce, but I still fail to understand.

 

My question is: Why should I run DNG Recover Edges on a Capture One DNG file at all, if all it does is add the bad pixels? Why should I bother to run it just to crop them out? What advantage does it offer?

 

Apparently you've made discoveries about the applet that I haven't.

 

Are you saying that DNG Recover Edges uncovers useful pixels on left, top or bottom and messes up only on the right edge? How many additional rows or columns does the program gain, not including the garbage?

 

Thanks.

[brucek]

Howard:

 

You complained about the bad pixels and I am simply suggesting a way to get rid of them. I do not use Recover Edges so beyond that I have no input.

 

The simple answer is: If you don't like the results of running the program then don't run it.

 

Bruce

[ho_co]

Bruce, did you read any part of the opening post after the description of the problem?

 

I tell my mechanic that there's a strange noise from the right wheel when turning right and his suggestion is, "Don't turn right"?

 

Thanks.

[brucek]

Didja ever stop to think that there may be a reason why those extra lines of pixels aren't put in the normal image? Just because Recover Edges exists doesn't mean that there will be useful data extracted from every camera's images.

 

Bruce

[macgarvin]

ho_co

 

I believe that the extra pixels you are seeing may be the 'extra' pixels left over from the choice of image size, rather than from the barrel distortion correction. I think this because if you create a dng file in Capture One and open it in lightroom you get an image uncropped and without barrel distorition correction, if you open the same .dng in Apple Aperture you get the same image as in Lightroom, but with an additional strip of chopped off bits of pixels plus noise. I provided some sample files in an earlier post if you are interested

[ho_co]

... Just because Recover Edges [sic] exists doesn't mean that there will be useful data extracted from every camera's images.

Bruce--Did you ever consider informing yourself before commenting?

 

You continue to miss the point, though I've also speculated as to why different manufacturers include different numbers of available but initially hidden edge pixels.

 

Your comments are definitely entertaining, particularly since you're unfamiliar with the program.

 

And I like the existential turn here, which returns to your earlier idea: We can't necessarily infer from the existence of a solution that there is a problem.

[ho_co]

I believe that the extra pixels you are seeing may be the 'extra' pixels left over from the choice of image size, rather than from the barrel distortion correction. ...

 

Mac--I was hoping to find that out, and had missed your analysis of the D-Lux 4 since I don't have a D-Lux 3. Looking at it now, there's a lot of good info there, derived from a lot of effort.

 

As you're aware, DNG Recover Edges on the D-Lux 2 (and D-Lux 3, I assume) does indeed recover the extra pixels of the larger formats plus the unused edge pixels. Using the utility on an originally 16:9 D-Lux 2 file recovers about 72000 edge pixels. Or if you originally shot at 4:3 on the D-Lux 2, DNG Recover Edges will retrieve the full 16:9 file with the extra edge pixels.

 

But I was curious whether that would be the case with the new sensor and processor, particularly since (unlike earlier) the size of RAW files changes when you change aspect ratio.

 

Thanks for your contribution. And see next post for more.

[ho_co]

Many thanks to everyone who has tried to help me make sense of this. Adobe has fixed the difficulty:

 

The DNG generator in ACR 5.2 works as expected. Unlike Capture One, it saves the optically corrected file; and the ACR DNG file reveals edge pixels properly when run through DNG Recover Edges. (I've tried that so far on only one file, but it's one which didn't work after conversion by Capture One.)

 

So Sandy was correct: Capture One's and ACR's DNG files differ--and in this case, ACR does the better conversion on both points mentioned.

 

 

Even more interesting to me is that Panasonic's innovation in adding lens correction to the camera processing has brought Adobe to rethink the DNG specification:

from Adobe - Adobe Camera Raw and DNG Converter : For Macintosh : Camera Raw 5.2 update

... With the release of Camera Raw 5.2 (and upcoming release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® 2.2), there is an important exception in DNG file handling for the Panasonic DMC-LX3, Panasonic DMC-FX150, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Panasonic DMC-G1, and Leica D-LUX 4. For those who choose to convert these native, proprietary files to the DNG file format, a linear DNG format is the only conversion option available at this time. ... The resulting linear DNG file is approximately three times the size of a mosaic DNG file or the original proprietary file format.

...

In a future release, Adobe plans to update the DNG specification to include an option to embed metadata-based representations of the lens compensations in the DNG file, allowing a mosaic DNG conversion. ...