Fuji RAW file Conversion Challenge
This challenge is issued to anyone and everyone using Lightroom as a RAW converter. I issue following my poor results when converting RAW files from my Fuji XT-1 with Lightroom and much better results using RAW Therapee.
The challenge is simple:
- Download the Zip file below. This contains a RAW file and a JPEG image. The JPEG was created from the RAW file using RAW Therapee and no other tools.
- Using Lightroom (any version), process the RAW file with the objective of creating a sharper, more detailed image than the JPEG.
- If you believe you created a sharper more detailed version of the image, post your conversion settings as a comment to this page.
Key rules are:
- You can only use the global settings in Lightroom. No adding additional localised sharpening with the brush tools etc.
- No sharpening or detail extraction with other tools. All adjustments must be made in Lightroom to the RAW file as you would any other RAW conversion.
- I must be able to validate your results by using your settings in Lightroom to achieve the same results. I will be using the latest version of Lightroom CC for this.
[crp]
Ok – here is my quick go:
Basic:-
Highlights -100
Shadows +100
Whites +38
Blacks -30
Clarity +41
Vibrance +21
Sharpening:-
Amount 80
Radius 1.3
Detail 50
Masking 82
Noise Reduction:-
Luminance 19
This is on a 4k iiyama pro monitor – your jpeg looked very soft to me – of course there is a subjective matter to this, and differences between monitors
Hi Ian,
I suspect the softness you see in my image is that I did the sharpening on a 1920 x1080 resolution 24″ monitor. In contrast, when I use your settings on my screen it looks hugely oversharpened but on my Mac with a 5K monitor it looks fine. Your use of the Masking slider is interesting as it’s restricting the sharpening to only the strongest edges. On my PC monitor it looks to be causing some sharpening halos. Having said that, when printed it would look fine.
Thanks for adding your thoughts.
Robin
Here are my settings using Lightroom 6.7 on an MacBook Pro 15″
contrast +10
Highlights -45
Shadows +50
clarity +25
dynamik +15
dehaze +10
sharpening 41
radius 1.1
details 80
mask 27
noise reduction
luminance 10
color 25
I use similar settings as starting pint for my x-T1 shots
Thanks for contributing. I will give these a try. The only one I don’t ecognise is “dynamik” is this new in 6.7 (I haven’t updated yet)? Which panel is it in.
I am sorry. Dynamik means Vibrance. Coming from the German version I used an incorrect translation.
No need to be sorry and thank you for explaining. I had wondered if the latest software had introduced a dynamic contrast slider. Thanks again.
Oops! With apologies to John, I stuffed up in my Lightroom settings for Robin’s photo. I didn’t realise that during my experiments I had changed camera calibration from Adobe Standard to Provia. On resetting it to Adobe Standard I was able to revert to my original basic processing of whites +5, clarity +22, vibrance +20, saturation +13 for a good match with Photo Ninja. I did not in this case need to reduce exposure.
Perhaps, after all, we can achieve comparable results across different platform.
Oztouer,
No apologies needed. I still think your skills are off the chart.
All very frustrating. The settings and results do not appear to be directly comparable across software versions and hardware platforms, making the whole exercise rather futile. For reference, I am using the latest software for Mac – Lightroom CC 2015.6, Photo Ninja 1.3.4b. I am using the “edit in PN” settings recommended here – http://www.picturecode.com/tutorials/lightroom.php – to open the actual raw file in PN. Photo Ninja is at its default settings and is applying colour correction, exposure and detail, colour enhancement, noise ninja and sharpening.
On my setup there is no loss of detail in the trees below the chimney stack in LR, although it was exactly this area that indicated to me that ‘shadows +30’ was required.
This “RAW file Conversion Challenge” has been useful to me as an exercise in fine tuning my personal settings for sharpening Fuji files, and I plan to implement a number of presets for my own workflow, but it seems that there will be no settings that will work for everyone.
I think also that it needs to be made clear that all we are discussing here is ‘phase one sharpening’, i.e. capture sharpening. Stage two, creative sharpening, can only ever be applied to an individual photo and stage three, output sharpening, is dependent on the final intent – a photo published at small scale within a web page will require quite different processing to the same photo destined for printing at A0.
Given that we are discussing capture sharpening, and assuming that we wish to achieve a quality of sharpening in Lightroom to match that of our preferred alternative software, my conclusion as a result of these experiments is that a near perfect pixel-for-pixel match when viewed at 300% constitutes success. If I can save those results as a preset then I can continue to use Lightroom as my processor of choice, reserving round-robin processing for those few files that deserve second and third stage sharpening beyond the capabilities of Lightroom.
Hi John, you prompted me to take another look at Photo Ninja to see if Lightroom could match its rendering. PN’s default take on Phil’s photo can be matched in LR (to my eyes, on my Macbook Pro and iMac, and pixel peeping at 300%), using sharpening of 41, 1.0, 42 and 17, noise reduction zero, and adding in exposure -0.29, whites +5, clarity +22, vibrance +20, saturation +13. At these settings the photo is overly saturated and contrasty to my taste, but it does allow the output of the two programs to be accurately compared.
These sharpening settings are quite different to those I used to match the Iridient rendering. Perhaps we need to save ‘Iridient’ and ‘Photo Ninja’ presets in Lightroom, to be used as appropriate.
I will be the first to bemoan the artefacts produced by even a small amount of over-sharpening in Lightroom, and I appreciate the fact that using the default settings for Fuji files in Iridient, Photo Ninja et al often produce better results than the Lightroom defaults, but I find the benefits of Lightroom sufficient that I am willing to persevere with it. I like the fact that it is a one-stop shop with powerful cataloguing, acceptably small RAW file sizes when compared with TIFF conversions, full editing history, camera profiles and lens corrections, and so on.
I can see the value of round-robin processing in an external application where Lightroom falls short, but it is too much of a faff to do this for all my photos so I prefer to bend Lightroom to my will as much as possible.
Hi Oztourer,
You did a great job! In fact your image is part of the reason I switched to PN; i.e., it would take me forever to get where you got in LR.
As regards sharpness: At full-screen on my screen, PN appears sharper. At 1:1 PN appears sharper in all areas (e.g., the bolt in the rock in the lower right, the grass encircled by the bolt, and the buildings). Both begin to breakdown at higher mags, although differently; at 2:1 PN looks better while at 3:1 LR looks better.
All this “to my eyes,” and I have no idea how you manage to do this while working at high magnification!!
Thanks John, I agree that it was a lot of work! Interesting that my settings were usable on Robin’s photo as I was actually applying them to Phil’s photo. I have now tried the same sharpening on Robin’s photo, but I found on this one that I need to adjust basic settings differently: shadows +30, whites +5, clarity +22, vibrance +6. This gave a good overall match between LR and PN.
On my screen Robin’s photo is as sharp or sharper in LR at all magnifications when viewed on a Macbook Pro with retina display and on a non-retina iMac 27″. At 100% there is to my eyes a really close correlation between LR and PN.
The fact that my sharpening settings could be applied to two different photos suggests that a “Photo Ninja” sharpening preset is a realistic option in Lightroom. It should be sufficient to avoid round-robin processing in all but the most critical of cases.
Oztourer,
Interesting, indeed.
‘My’ PN default looks remarkably like your first LR, except the PN had a bit more pop (which can be reduced without loss of resolution).
If I didn’t miss something, your second settings result in substantial loss of detail on my stock Lenovo 1920×1080 monitor – it really shows for example in the trees below the smoke stack in the center of the photo.
Maybe the interaction of monitor and mag factors is very significant.
BTW my version of LR is 6.6/CR 9.6, and PN is 1.3.3c.
Oops, I stuffed up! See my comments below.
Good luck, Phil, and I hope you will be as happy as I am.
If you don’t see an improvement right off the bat, let me know and I will be glad to post the settings that defaulted for your shot. I think I am pretty much using program defaults, but I may have changed some earlier this year.)
PN does a remarkable job with sharpness most of the time, and I usually let it analyze shots with ‘Smart lighting.’ While some people seem to be able to finish their editing within PN, most of the time I am content to take the PN TIFF into LR. I am however trying to increase my PN skills as it has at least two very interesting sliders: ‘Illumination’ and ‘Exposure offset,’ as well as great noise reduction. (I do wish it would reproduce decent Fuji colors as does LR.)
Take care,
John
Apologies
For ‘clacks’ please read ‘Blacks’!
Still twiddling the sliders, but so far:
Temp: As shot
Contrast +25
Hi: -50
Shad: +50
Whites +24
Clacks: -7
Clarity: 25
Saturation -20
Tone Curve: Strong
Detail Amount: 40
Radius: 0.7
Detail: 100
Masking: 95
Lumin:15
Detail 100
Color: 15
My current preference is PhotoNINJA.
What Adobe does not seem to care about is that there could be a mass emigration as soon as an alternative RAW processor provides us with a cure for insomnia and migraine.
Thanks Mike. I agree that Photo Ninja is much better. Lightroom is still very well designed and I have a few more tips soon on the LWP blog. I don’t think its just the RAW converter that was the source of the problem.
Hi Phil,
You wrote, “This is a good example of mushy grass in one of my raws (Lens 18-55, F14, Focus 1/3 in frame,Tripod OIS off etc) – ”
I loaded your shot in PN and saw no mushy grass. What I did see, I think, was pushing the DOF a little and some diffraction; in the latter connection I limit my 18-55 to f/11, and if necessary, and windless, I focus stack. I also loaded your shot in LR and saw the mushy grass.
FYI PN has a free trial and can easily be set up to work seamlessly with LR. That is, once you complete the 5 minute set up process, you (1) import raw files into LR as usual, (2) ‘export’ a file to PN, (3) PN will use a side file to import the ORIGINAL raw and develop a TIFF, (4) you make any changes you want in PN and then send the TIFF back to LR – 90% of the time I accept the default! The PN TIFFs, to my eyes, are almost always vastly better than what I can produce in LR.
To set up PN to work with LR: On the main PN menu click ‘Help,’ then ‘View online tutorials,’ then, ‘Using Photo Ninja with other applications’ and follow the instructions.
I got PN earlier this year after trying just about every other developer on the market and am kicking myself for not getting it earler.
Cheers
Hi John,
Yes the more I test my kit the more I realise some of my dissatisfaction may be down to over ambitious expectations or indeed incompetence and not concentrating on settings sufficiently. I think you are probably correct in that I’m pushing DOF a tad and I would probably guess at least some of the issues on other images may well be weather related – it is very windy where I am. I would like to be able to prove the kit works as currently carrying my Canon 5D3 and associated kit is not helpful to my back and the main reason I bought into the Fuji system.
I will have another look at PN to see if I can improve on any of my test shots. Thanks for the feedback.
Cheers
Phil
I did some additional testing taking onboard the comments from oztourer to see if I could find the root cause. Testing was with the 18-55 and 55-200. Conditions of the test were:
Apertures f4 – f16
3 separate focal points
OIS on and off
Tripod
The scene included grass, shrubs, gorse and brickwork so hope fill a lot of texture types covered.
Conclusion
– OIS on or off makes no discernible difference.
– the 18-55 was pin sharp within the expected range of focus. No signs of vegetation smearing or watercolour effect. Had I paid 3 times the amount for this lens it would be worth it in my view.
– the 55-200 was slightly different. Sharpness at point of focus was good however the zone focus extended to was perhaps not as I calculated it should be. Further testing needed as I know this sample of the 55-200 is capable of excellent results.
As to the sample I posted I suspect oztourer may have nailed it and I would accept it could well be user error, as looking critically, focus was not where I expected it to be. I will try the 55-200 again and report back. Anyone know how to see where the point of focus of an image is on a Fuji? Canon’s own raw software has this ability but can’t see it in Fuji.
Hi Phil, your develop settings are similar to mine. I think that reducing radius and turning off colour noise reduction adds a fraction more detail, but the difference is marginal.
Your own photo was a 0.7 second exposure and despite the use of a tripod looks soft at 100% magnification, and lacking in micro-contrast. My skill level doesn’t permit a conclusion as to the cause – focus vs camera movement vs diffraction vs lens quality. I would guess that a good prime lens at a slightly faster shutter speed, stopped down a little less would give a considerable improvement provided the necessary depth of field could be achieved.
You say that focus was one third into the frame – did you focus and re-compose to achieve that? The EXIF data shows one-shot AF and the foreground appears to be out of focus.
Tuning this photo was an interesting exercise in using Lightroom and Raw Therapy and it brought home to me that LR can largely match the output from RT, but with rather more effort. I noticed that RT defaults to radius 0.5 using the unsharp mask where LR defaults to 1.0. I was able to exactly match the detail produced in RT with LR sharpening of 34, 0.5, 70 and 17, noise reduction 0, i.e. slightly more sharpening and slightly less detail than my previous efforts. I also dialled in exposure -0.44 and vibrance +5 in LR, at which point I could hardly tell the two photos apart. The histograms do show some differences between the two, particularly in the red channel, proof if any were needed that each application puts its own spin on the raw data.
First to say I know it’s an issue as it happens to my files. 75% of the time they are sharp and no issues with foliage. However 25% of the time the grass and foliage will take on a mushy appearance and no amount of fiddling with sharpening will help. Occasionally another raw processing package may improve it slightly but not to the point of having all the hassle of dual workflows and the learning curve of an additional software package, some of which as you rightly acknowledge can be unstable.
Not sure why you seem to get such bad results as on my system this raw file has no issues. I have developed the image using Lightroom preset settings as follows:
Sharpening:
Amount 45
Radius 1.0
Detail 100
Masking 10
No other changes and on my screen the results are at least as good if not better than the JPG file you have provided. If I had results as good as this consistently with foliage I would not be considering selling my XT-1. My assumption is a camera or lens issue but any advice on how to minimise this is more than welcome.
This is your raw file whichI have developed –
This is a good example of mushy grass in one of my raws (Lens 18-55, F14, Focus 1/3 in frame,Tripod OIS off etc) –
Thanks for sharing these settings.I can achieve a similar result to yourself and the settings aren’t that far from what I had been using with Lightroom. The image used here was from the 10-24 lens which didn’t display the water colour effect much except at the longer end of the focal range.
With your adjustments there is a fair amount of contrast adjustment where I didn’t apply any in RAW Therapee. Two areas I still don’t like with the Lightroom adjustment are that the sharpening makes the image appear blocky which impairs the fine detail. The other is that distant foliage such as the trees seem to take on a pattern which I didn’t get with RAW Therapee. I’m going to post more about this on LWP shortly. I am coming to the conclusion that its better to use a really low Radius of say 0.5 and ignore the Masking.
Thanks also for sharing your RAW file which is a better example of “mushy Grass”. I have processed the RAW file in both Iridient and RAW Therapee and the grass is better defined than with Lightroom. The results are on this link:
I hope you don’t mind me sharing this.
The Iridient image is oversharpened when I look on a PC as it was processed on a Mac with a 5K monitor. RAW Therapee version was processed on the PC and is fine but looks undersharpened on the Mac.
Thanks again for contributing.
I think I am missing the point of this exercise, at least with my eyes, since I see the default in Photo Ninja as much better than any of these LR settings.
For what’s it worth, the best I can do in LR with this image (with my eyes, in a reasonable amount of time) is with Thomas’s x-trans super sharp preset; i.e., Amount 42, Radius 1.4, Detail 40 and Masking 0, then bumping up the Global Contrast and Clarity a bit. But that doesn’t come close to importing the PN default into LR, as regards both sharpness and impact.
Hi John, I didn’t test Photoninja as in the past I have experienced problems with lens profiles and some odd results. My license is out of date but I can still use the software. As you say, excellent results with the defaults. A great choice I think.
Sharpening:
Amount 67
Radius 1
Detail 13
Masking 21
Thanks. That’s an interesting approach and different to the usual advice of pushing detail to 100. Despite this it works quite well.
I played around with this a little as I was finding the sharpening halo a little “blocky” at a Radius of 1. I reduced the Radius to 0.5 and the Amount to 60 and Detail to 30. Masking was then set to 5. I felt this gave a sharp but slightly finer detail.
Tried your settings too. At 100% they look sharper indeed, but when I pixel peep at for instance 8:1 the halos in high contrast areas (the diagonal cable in front of the sky) seem worse to me and diagonals in general seem blockier.
I also tried setting detail to 100 and then varying amount and it seems to me that with both approaches I can get virtually the same results (for instance with radius 0.5, Amount 17 Detail 100 looks remarkably like Amount 50 Detail 5).
Interesting findings about the Amount and Detail sharpening. I would not have expected that.
Regarding pixel peeping at 8:1, I personally cant think I have ever had a use for such magnification. If it looks good on my PC at 1:1 its good and I use 2:1 on my Mac due to the higher screen resolution.
Hello Robin,
I know this doesn’t follow the rules, but it might be nice to know all the same 😉
With the settings you used (amount 60, radius 0.5, detail 30, masking 5) to my eye on my iMac without a Retina screen your file looks pretty much identical to Irident with the default values for “Irident Reveal” sharpening.
There is still quite a bit of plastic-looking rocks, though their texture can be recovered quite easily with a round of Photoshop SmartSharpen (X-Trans sensors really need some form of deconvolution sharpening to shine, like case in point SmartSharpen):
amount 75%, radius 0.1
applied in “Advanced mode” with Fade 60, Tonal width 50, Radius 1 for “Shadow” and Fade 20, Tonal width 50, radius 1 for “Highlight” (the values in the Advanced mode are pretty much my standard, I almost never change them).
My 2 cents!
Thanks for the information. I think a small radius is the key to making this work. I like the idea of a second round of sharpening iin Photoshop. I had been experimenting with a second round of sharpening in nik and it worked well. I shall give this a try.
I have started to find some variation between the same tools on different platforms as strange a it seems, but I need to do more investigation.
Thanks again.
I never use Lightroom, preferring Bridge and Photoshop. Here are my settings:
Exposure – 0.0
contrast – +33
Clarity – +45
Vibrance – +7
Sharpening – 100
Radius – 1.5
Detail – 60
I’m shocked at the difference between your jpeg and mine. I much prefer mine and really wonder why there is such a difference. I only shoot Fujifilm using X Pro1, XE-1 and X100T. Fujifilm RAW files always require a degree of sharpening. It matters where in the post processing sequence you sharpen almost as much as how. I use NIK often, but I get excellent results using NIK Define to eliminate noise and then in Photoshop Smart Sharpen prior to processing the image further. Lightroom CC is very impressive!
Hi Fred. What’s your screen size and resolution? It looks dreadfully over sharpened on my PC and I get a lot of artefacts. If I reduce my screen magnification to 50% it looks OK so I’m guessing your on a Mac with a Retina display or something similar.
I forgot to mention that I turned off all noise reduction – Adobe defaults to “color noise reduction” 25, with detail and smoothness 50, which at low ISO seems unnecessary.
Totally agree. You can see the softening of the Colour noise reduction and as you say, it doesn’t need it.
You don’t provide your Raw Therapee results in the zip file for comparison, but Lightroom provides good results to my eyes using sharpening settings of: amount 27, radius 0.8, detail 100. If I was being finicky I would probably set masking to 19 to avoid sharpening noise in the sky. Optionally dial in a smidgeon of clarity and vibrance to taste. I have left the profile in camera calibration at Adobe Standard, something I would never do with my own photos; my usual choice would be to use my home-brewed dual illuminant profile, which brings out more variation in the greens.
The JPEG in the Zip file was processed in RAW Therapee. It looks good on a PC with a screen definition equal to HD1080. It looks under sharpened on a 5K Mac.
The settings you provided are in line with what I was using except I like a smaller Radius and slightly higher amount.
Thanks for sharing.