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Lightroom 6 improvements?


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Of course, what else can presets do other than change the sliders and use the tools? :) It's not magical, as there aren't hidden/secret functions that only preset makers can access. Presets are just a way to move or use sliders / curves / tools more quickly. They are time savers. They can also be good teachers.

 

No Brazil, but there may be a 1 week workshop in Bangkok in November 2016. A German one and one for English-speaking delegates.

Thanks Rico.  

 

Bangkok, is kind of very far away ;-)

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  • 2 weeks later...

We can certainly make it part of the workshop in Santa Barbara. The topic has also been covered in forums and blogs, but in the end, folks always want to hand out (or receive) recipes and presets, which I find unsound. I guess some bloggers are even in the business of selling Lightroom presets. Never in my life have I used a LR sharpening preset, and to me, that's the first step towards successful X-trans sharpening. Use those 4 sliders to sharpen the actual image at hand. Heck, even Fuji uses different sharpening parameters in their JPEG engine for Provia and Pro Neg. Hi. It's easy to spot, but I have never seen it mentioned anywhere.

 

exactly. There has been a lot of crap written about LR and transX, some of it indeed written by me until I really gave it a good test. The essential points for me are:

1. Lightroom is not the best for detail at standard settings compared to the likes of PN or Irident which can make it a bit harder to use.

2. Lightroom can be made to give results close to the above with a bit of work

3. There is no preset that works with every image. It took me a while to realise this. Different radius and amount settings in particular are required as are careful setting of contrast and clarity depending on the image.

 

In conclusion, it is easier to get a decent result with PN in terms of clear detail but then we have the likes of dodgy highlight recovery, suboptimal shadow recovery and fewer film or colour presets. Not to mention all the, by LR6, quite substantial local editing features. I still use PN as a reference but have now switched back to LR as a first default simply becuase it does some things better and does far more overall.

 

David

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My experience with Lightroom is a love/hate one. In my experience Lightroom does in fact not handle the sharpening of my X-Trans files so well. I noticed it with my first RAW file from my old X Pro-1. So I use Photo Ninja for part of my workflow. I set it up as an external editor and send them to it when I am ready to sharpen and apply noise reduction. The other features of Lightroom I think work well. Also the film simulations are available in it, which I use a lot in my workflow. I used Iridient Developer for a while, but I think that Photo Ninja is better with noise reduction and I like the interface more. Lightroom excels in shadow and highlight recovery, in my opinion, and I use the local color adjustments a lot in my own editing, and I like how easy I can make those adjustments in Lightroom. So I think, until Adobe fixes this, using Lightroom is fine with X-Trans, it's just that you may have to add an external program to handle the sharpening etc. 

 

I did an experiment the other day. I shot a quick portrait of my daughter with an old Konica 57mm manual focus lens on my XT-1. The image was shot at 3200 ISO. At 100%, when comparing Lightroom to Photo Ninja after using noise reduction and sharpening on each, PN was significantly better in how it handled the noise and the sharpening. Lightroom gave the image that watercolor pattern I've read about. Inside the eyes I saw this the most. I've processed portraits in LR shot at 200 ISO and they were much better looking in this regard. It seems that when I sharpen in Lightroom at 100% detail, and try not to move the amount above 50%, with a small bit of masking, I get pretty good results. When I have to apply the noise reduction, LR starts to get worse. With landscapes I won't do the sharpening in LR. Even with the settings I mentioned LR still makes the foliage look bad. 

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I did an experiment the other day. I shot a quick portrait of my daughter with an old Konica 57mm manual focus lens on my XT-1. The image was shot at 3200 ISO. At 100%, when comparing Lightroom to Photo Ninja after using noise reduction and sharpening on each, PN was significantly better in how it handled the noise and the sharpening. Lightroom gave the image that watercolor pattern I've read about. Inside the eyes I saw this the most. I've processed portraits in LR shot at 200 ISO and they were much better looking in this regard. It seems that when I sharpen in Lightroom at 100% detail, and try not to move the amount above 50%, with a small bit of masking, I get pretty good results. When I have to apply the noise reduction, LR starts to get worse. With landscapes I won't do the sharpening in LR. Even with the settings I mentioned LR still makes the foliage look bad. 

Just a quick comment on this. I think PN with Noise Ninja 4 is more sophisticated than LR with luminance noise reduction though set carefully (typically around 5 and generally no more than 10) LR does a decent job with colour noise suppression.

 

As for the "old chestnut" of foliage, I find it instructive to compare Photo Ninja with Raw Therapee. Although the latter has pretty good demosaicing algorithms, there is generally less detail in some kinds of foilage, particularly in the distance. I find that RT better corresponds with what the eye actually sees in this respect and PN tends to have a somewhat too strong microcontrast  or clarity setting. Both are better from a purely technical point of view than Lightroom but then when I look at the overall image from LR, it is often the one I prefer and I suspect this is partly what Rico is getting at when he discusses the results from his workshops. It's the whole package which counts and this is probably why the majority stick with LR despite some weaknesses.

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its funny how many people say it's no big deal with LR, but I wager that when and if Adobe gets their act together with X-Trans support , then people will be raving about it like it was some miracle feature that came from the heavens.  :D

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After some years with LR, I found that C1 and RT are more pleasing to my eyes especially in the color rendering. It's just a matter of taste, each software has strong and weak points, maybe Adobe has less effective algorhitms to demosaic x trans raws, but is not bad at all btw.

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After some years with LR, I found that C1 and RT are more pleasing to my eyes especially in the color rendering. It's just a matter of taste, each software has strong and weak points, maybe Adobe has less effective algorhitms to demosaic x trans raws, but is not bad at all btw.

C1 is famous for displaying "pretty" images on first convert.  

The old Nikon converter Capture NX was famous for this(with Nikon files only, of course).  Even the current execrable Nikon Capture NX-D(a Silkypix product) has that seductive "nice color" look.

To my eyes, PN often has this effect with both Nikon and Fuji-X files.  

Lately, I have noticed, and increasingly cannot ignore, the jacked-up midtone contrast in Photo Ninja, which, on some files, contributes to the better initial impression, but on many files just looks oversharpened.

Sharpening, in general, has been oversold.  When I feel this way, the X-Trans conversion in Lightroom is like a pleasant vacation from the popular oversharpening look.

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C1 is famous for displaying "pretty" images on first convert.

The old Nikon converter Capture NX was famous for this(with Nikon files only, of course). Even the current execrable Nikon Capture NX-D(a Silkypix product) has that seductive "nice color" look.

To my eyes, PN often has this effect with both Nikon and Fuji-X files.

Lately, I have noticed, and increasingly cannot ignore, the jacked-up midtone contrast in Photo Ninja, which, on some files, contributes to the better initial impression, but on many files just looks oversharpened.

Sharpening, in general, has been oversold. When I feel this way, the X-Trans conversion in Lightroom is like a pleasant vacation from the popular oversharpening look.

I had also that 'bad' impression of overworked file with PN, to me its enhancements of detail and color were way too much aggressive [emoji4]

 

I agree with you when you say that sharpening is oversold, it's not such a simple thing one can deal with moving some sliders only: https://luminous-landscape.com/understanding-lens-contrast/

[emoji121]

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To be honest, I am quite happy with my LR performance. I even made it part of my workshops, because I started to feel stupid with everybody telling me that LR was so bad.

 

Here's what we do: My delegates bring me difficult RAWs that we process in Iridient Developer (which is supposed to be really good) and Lightroom (which is supposed to be really bad). Then we compare at 100%, 200%, 300%, 400%... and in the end, the delegates always agree that the LR processing shows just as much (or even more) detail than the Iridient 3 version. It just took a little bit more effort.

I didn't find any difference between lightroom and iridient either, but lightroom compared to PhotoNinja gave me some very drastic differences, especially in fine detail.

 

See comparison here.

http://imgur.com/q4aEyFI

 

This is one of my most drastic examples, but I haven't found an image yet that doesn't get much better detail out of PhotoNinja than Lightroom.

 

Another:

http://imgur.com/IWJNgZP

 

The down-side is, I don't like the color rendition as much coming from PhotoNinja, so I only use it when the image really needs detail, or for black and white images.

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You must be joking. Where is the RAW file from this image?

 

 

Here's a dropbox of the RAF - https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9dhlp8svi0keuq/_DSF1191.RAF?dl=0

 

It cleans up okay if you add some sharpness, but it doesn't end up coming close to the PhotoNinja file, even at its defaults. 

These results were with default import settings with B&W added to better show the level of detail.

 

Here it is with added sharpness in lightroom, actively trying to match the default import settings with PhotoNinja.

http://imgur.com/5blSlDD

The differences are most obvious in the hair, and specifically around the eyes, where lightroom's issues with detail come out and look like strange grain and low resolution, whereas PN looks normal and very nice. Almost TOO sharp.

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Thanks, that's a nice portrait, so here's a quick Lightroom CC rendering of mine:

 

18722584036_e1801016fc_k.jpg

 

Personally, that's sharp enough for me, and I'm satisfied with Lightroom's feature set, as it allows me to get results quite easily. Of course, I also own and know how to use Photo Ninja, but since PN doesn't support the DR function or any lens correction metadata (distortion correction, CA correction and devignetting), it would be an odd choice for my daily workflow.

 

Click on the image for full-size versions.

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Thanks, that's a nice portrait, so here's a quick Lightroom CC rendering of mine:

 

18722584036_e1801016fc_k.jpg

 

Personally, that's sharp enough for me, and I'm satisfied with Lightroom's feature set, as it allows me to get results quite easily. Of course, I also own and know how to use Photo Ninja, but since PN doesn't support the DR function or any lens correction metadata (distortion correction, CA correction and devignetting), it would be an odd choice for my daily workflow.

 

Click on the image for full-size versions.

 

 

That's much better fine detail than the LR version RadBadTad posted but it's still weak given the detail available in the original. Not adequate for me if that's the best Adobe can do with that photo. The other raw converters do a better job extracting fine detail than what you show here.

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Thanks, that's a nice portrait, so here's a quick Lightroom CC rendering of mine:

 

18722584036_e1801016fc_k.jpg

 

Personally, that's sharp enough for me, and I'm satisfied with Lightroom's feature set, as it allows me to get results quite easily. Of course, I also own and know how to use Photo Ninja, but since PN doesn't support the DR function or any lens correction metadata (distortion correction, CA correction and devignetting), it would be an odd choice for my daily workflow.

 

Click on the image for full-size versions.

Thank you for the compliment on the portrait!

 

I still notice a lack of detail in the skin on his face, and the hair in his stubble. I'll agree that what one can pull out of a photo using Lightroom is plenty for almost any purpose, but it doesn't change the fact that you can spend five whole minutes tweaking sliders in Lightroom and still barely come close to the amount of detail that comes with PhotoNinja by default. Though I do agree that the other benefits of lightroom outweigh the slight increase in detail (like color, and dynamic range, as you also mentioned)

 

For most of my work, I stick to Lightroom. When I truly want tons of fine detail, I'll do PhotoNinja, but it doesn't happen too often. Either way, people should know that their files do contain more detail than they think they do, so they don't end up trashing the system and spreading the word that there just isn't a comparable amount of detail in the X-Trans files, when the issue is just the way that Adobe handles the files. 

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For my taste, there's already too much detail/sharpness in the face, but I pushed it to the point that I could barely justify. I couldn't bring myself to add any more sharpening, and I certainly didn't aim to mimic another image. I simply processed it from scratch like I saw fit (going as far as I could w/o ruining the image), and LR got me quickly where I wanted to be. If you don't like the hair, you might want to reduce the radius, btw.

 

Of course PN and Iridient can extract more detail, and that's also true for Bayer RAWs. They are different products, after all, and Iridient has put great effort in adding different demosaicing options and optimized sharpening algos for X-Trans. Of course, this effort does pay off (though sometimes at the expense of other image properties)

 

It's like Lightroom is a car running 200 mph, and Iridient and PN can go 220 mph. Doesn't really matter though on a highway with a speed limit of 75 mph. Now, if I find the 200 mph car more comfortable and versatile, I'll take it any minute. Dedicated speed racers may use the 220 mph car, but they'll quickly discover that maximum speed isn't everything.

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Btw, in the occasional case that I have/want to go at 220 mph, I send the RAW over to Iridient from Lightroom, process it with Iridient Reveal and Detail+ demosaicing, send a 16 Bit TIFF back to LR and add my LR processing. That would look like this in this case:

 

18204376064_b6feffdc27_k.jpg

 

I have issues with Lightroom, but detail is one of the lesser ones. My main gripes are:

 

  • faulty color processing: Lightroom/ACR is sometimes missing orange/yellow color tones, which will turn into red instead. So your red/orange/yellow sunset will turn into a red sunset.
  • adaptive highlight recovery and shadow boosting: Lightroom's only way of doing this is by adaptive tone-mapping, which is nice for some subjects but very bad for others. It's completely incompatible with the way Fuji is doing it internally with its DR function, so there are some RAW that I actually HAVE to process with Iridient just to retrieve highlights in a way that's bearable. Luckily, Iridient's "Extreme Highlight Recovery" feature works just like Fuji's own DR function, so our results will match.
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Actually, I really never could or will understand why anyone would want to bother with any software Fuji does not supply? After all they absolutely know their equipment better than ANY external ¨engineer¨ could. I was an E. E. E. for many years (after some years Aerial Mapping photog.) building and installing machine control imaging systems. We partnered with Fuji for those camera-lens systems...........believe me THEY KNOW!

 But then again I never had any use for adobe even in early UNIX days. ;-)

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To be honest, I am quite happy with my LR performance. I even made it part of my workshops, because I started to feel stupid with everybody telling me that LR was so bad.

 

Here's what we do: My delegates bring me difficult RAWs that we process in Iridient Developer (which is supposed to be really good) and Lightroom (which is supposed to be really bad). Then we compare at 100%, 200%, 300%, 400%... and in the end, the delegates always agree that the LR processing shows just as much (or even more) detail than the Iridient 3 version. It just took a little bit more effort.

I wholeheartedly agree.  LR 5.7 which is my current version does a fantastic job on my X Files.  I've printed them up so far as large as 24 x 18 and I sell images as stock and no one has complained about my LR processed Raw files.  I will say the stock agencies I deal with have returned images that I had processed in Iridient and Silkypix for "too much sharpening and/or too much noise reduction applied"    This happened on numerous occasions using several of the sharpening methods provided in Iridient.  I'm not saying Iridient is not an amazing software tool.  It quite frankly is, just for my purpose I've yet to have a LR processed raw returned unaccepted with those specific reasons.  Now, I have had them returned because my images sucked but that's a story for another day :)

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Good News everybody :)

ADOBE says: “We will improve X-TRANS detail rendering and overall edge definition.”

More on FujiRumors: http://www.fujirumors.com/adobe-says-we-will-improve-x-trans-detail-rendering-and-overall-edge-definition-ps-cc-lr-cc-and-lr6-updated/

Did I understand right that Adobe will improve in the future, but it is not still improved in todays update ver. 6.1?

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