7D RAW workflow help!

[mike]

I'm using LR3 with the latest version of ACR (updated last week or something), and I still am not too pleased with the colour balance and sharpness with LR3 as compared to DPP.

Shadows look greenish on LR, and images look a little bit softer with LR than DPP.

The situation is helped if I use the "Camera Faithful" profile instead of the "Adobe Standard" in the Camera Calibration panel. Still, colours are not as saturated on LR as compared to DPP.

If it helps, I am currently using Adobe RGB in my camera settings; I am going to change that back to sRGB and do some more tests.

What do people here use to process RAW files from the 7D? Is there a more effective RAW workflow? Something silly that I overlooked?

Help?

[yeshwanth]

This is what i use..

RAW>DPP>PHOTOHSOP
convert raw to jpg take it to ps or any other application....
If you knew a better one let me know....I would love to switch ...got some problems with this method..in a longer run
cheers
yeshwanth

[Seren Dipity]

Remember the color space setting in the camera doesn't apply to raw images, only the jpegs.

In LR3 I set the color space as Prophoto (also in Photoshop) .. I only change to sRGB when saving to jpeg.

[PotatoEYE]

Try using camera standard in profiles in LR3, by the way you can also make it do it default to all images imported from one camera, and you can also make your own profile for both in-camera and LR3 use.

[mike]

Ok, here's a screenshot to compare. LR3 was set to Camera Standard, which looks better than Camera Faithful — thanks PE.

DPP on LHS, LR3 on RHS. Note the difference in sharpness, contrast, noise, and saturation, especially on the Mentos boxes, and the Pringles cans:

[mike]

or something more dramatic at 50%:

Am I missing out something simple here? the DPP picture (LHS) looks like extensive sharpening has been applied. When I tried sharpening on LR3, I could not get it as clean as the DPP image, i.e. without also sharpening the noise grain...

[PotatoEYE]

What I see is noise reduction probably, I know DPP uses a different treatment of noise, and it does provide "better looking" sharper image, if you look at the settings in DPP you'll see how they treat detail. That being said DPP is a canon product, and they know exactly what each one and zero in CR2 means, while Adobe has to guess. I doubt you can get close, but most of real world images don't matter THAT much. So it's up to you to use DPP and convert to whatever dng/tiff etc to get the most details out of your shots. I am pretty sure you don't print 32x24 do you?

[mike]

I was afraid the answer would come down to this.

No, I don't print 32x24, but I don't like it that even onscreen, images are perceptibly worse with LR3, even at 'fill screen' zoom setting. I'm working on a puny laptop screen (not some 30" pro display or anything), so shouldn't the low magnification do something to make the picture look even better?

Sigh. I suppose it's time to learn a new PP software, and wait patiently till Adobe reverse engineers a better version of their RAW decoder to handle the camera files.

Why can't camera manufacturers all come online and support a common DNG-like open RAW standard?!?!?!

[PotatoEYE]

LR3 default with Camera Standard profile



DPP default with Camera Standard profile



40D raw files with adobe rgb converted to jpeg in srgb

[mike]

I think the difference is that the 40D is a mature enough camera that Adobe has had enough time to work on the RAW interpreter to match the output to DPP.

However, the 7D is a new enough camera that I think they may not have ironed out the bugs yet???

But then again, it's almost a year since the launch of the 7D, so ACR should be better... I'm using Camera RAW 6.1, so, I am now wondering if I am missing out something trivial?

[PotatoEYE]

could be, but have you checked your settings in DPP (is everything zeroed under sharpening/noise reduction etc) - DPP takes into account your in-camera settings even for raw files. I only noticed a little mismatch in brightness of highlight areas and gradation, but I prefer more punch, thus like LR3 processing more

Also see the colour space in DPP settings, I think it's default is to use sRGB
LR is natively ProPhoto

[Seren Dipity]

I don't have this problem with the 5D. Set at default settings the jpegs look very similar.

[Carlton]

[mike]

erm, I feel a bit silly now.

I adjusted the 'camera standard' picture style in camera. DPP knows how to make use of the setting, and renders a boosted image, while LR ignores that.

Thanks for the responses guys!