Still baffled by Lightroom problem

Now the Lightroom 1.1 crop:

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Kuee

Is how the link should read

Can you post the ZoomBrowser crop?

I'm baffled by what you're attempting to do and understanding what isn't working... What I see when I look at your clips is a photograph made under a very red light source. No notion of how much or how little of the full frame they are either. I can't tell whether there was sufficient exposure.

What is the expected result that you're looking for? How much of the frame do these snippets represent? How did you meter the scene? What were the exposure settings you used?

Godfrey

First of all, the Zoombrowser crop is posted. It was the first attachment I put up.

Secondly, I already said that they are 100% crops.

They were taken on a Digital Rebel XT.

The light source is actually a deep orange.

Metering doesn't matter whatsoever. If you pay attention to what I'm saying it's quite simple. 3rd party software, naimly Adobe photoshop + Camera Raw, and Adobe Lightroom, cannot process red/amber/orange or blue lights. The Zoombrowser crop looks as the image should. I want to know if this is just something wrong with MY software or something. Is there a cure for this, etc. It is 100% definitely a defect of some sort. The image does NOT contain these wild clumps of noise and bright white burn-out spots anywhere a red/orange/amber or blue light is shining. Adobe programs just display it that way.

You must not have read my post, or looked at the other thread I linked to.

I can send the original RAW to someone who uses these programs if they would like to see if it happens for them.

Also, I do not care whatsoever about the composition or photographic merit of the image itself. This problem occurs in every situation involving this type of light! This is simply a good example of it that I have on hand. Thank you.

Noise reduction, color...

Your image in Lightroom seem a bit lighter than the Zoombrowser one too. It can explain the noise too. Lightroom by default apply a 50 brightness and 25 contrast. Can explain this.

could you please send me the real untouched RAW and i would see by myself if the problem is Lr or you....it seem very strange that you get that problem, but i have never had a bad ligth situation either so i cant comfirm. i will be please to help detect the problem. feel free to contact me.

You have a completely saturated channel due to monochromatic light. I'm not particularly surprised that Canon, who makes the sensor, knows exactly what is going into the RAW file whereas Adobe is on the outside looking in.

Sorry for misreading the name of the attached file.

Provide a link to the RAW file if you want us to look at it. I haven't seen this problem myself (but perhaps wasn't looking for it). You can also email me at photographyat jingai dotcom.

I have uploaded one of the RAW files from this event to Rapidshare:

http://rapidshare.com/files/47583981/IMG_4093.CR2

Look specifically at the people on the left side of the frame, covered by the orangish light. For me, in Lightroom, the people are whited out and speckled with big clumps of random noise. In zoombrowser, it is a smoothe orange glow.

I have also uploaded an image I shot quite some time ago. It is of a blue neon sign. Again, zoombrowser shows the image beautifully while Lightroom or CS2's Camera Raw show it as a big clump of disaster:

http://rapidshare.com/files/47585242/_MG_4204.CR2

If a couple of people could just access the RAWs and open them with the defaults in Lightroom or Photoshop CS2 or CS3 and then show me a jpg of what you get, that would be great. It must be something inherent to the program itself.

Personally, I prefer the Lightroom example. What you call "whited out" or a "clump of disaster" does not appear that way to me. It appears sharper, and to have better contrast, where the other has a lack of contrast and looks blurred, with less detail.

The difference I see in the 2 images is that the LR crop appears over-sharpened. Have you checked your sharpen settings in LR?

Here's a crop of your image processed in Camera Raw. It's pixellated because you're shooting at 1600 iso, but I don't see any disaster either.

No no, I guess I'm really failing to explain the problem. It's "noisy" because it was shot at ISO1600, yes, but Lightroom is making it look like crap. It's not just noise. Parts of the image that do not actually have clipped highlights appear clipped in Lightroom. It should be a smooth orange glow, but instead, it is orange light with with light inside of it, and large "clumps" of noise. Like blocks of stuck pixels or something, everywhere, on everyone... but ONLY in Adobe converters.

My sharpening is at the default settings. It does not affect green light, apparently. It's always problems like this that can never be fixed because nobody understands them. It's not just me being an idiot, or regular noise at high ISO, it's some type of problem with Lightroom. Either something wrong with my copy, or an inherent problem with the software in general. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

David, could you send me a full-sized jpeg of that image, the way you processed it? I would like to see if it is any different from the way mine turns out. It's hard to tell from that small crop.

James, It's not that I don't understand what you're saying, just that I can't reproduce it. I have done what you requested and opened your raw file in CR and I don't see the problem you're experiencing. This suggests a setting in your own workflow. As I said before, your LR processed image loks over-sharpened to me. Have you tried turning off the sharpness in LR/CR and sharpening in PS instead? I'm not sure if I can post the full size image here?..let's see..

Well, the file uploaded but is not opening properly here. Anyway, you can see that the area you specifically asked us to look at has no large "clumps" of noise or blocks of stuck pixels. There is one small blown highlight, on the gold hairband, which is to be expected. No-one is "whited out". I used the default sharpening in CR, which has exaggerated the noise but overall, I am impressed by the result from your camera under such poor lighting and at 1600 iso.

Going back to the two images you posted originally, look at the smiling guy in the background. Compare his teeth in the two images. You will see that the LR version is *much* sharper and more detailed than the zoombrowser. The downside, as you say, is the 'halo' effect that is characteristic of oversharpening. Again, I suspect the difference in the way the two processors have sharpened the image may be the source of the 'problem'.

David, thank you. I think you could definitely be right that it may have something to do with sharpening. Even with "0" sharpening applied in Lightroom, it is sharper than the Zoombrowser image.

The thing that I don't understand, however, is how the green light areas are not affected. They look excellent to me in both programs.

Did you get to take a look at the other RAW file I uploaded? The one of the soda bottles? Here's a comparison shot I uploaded a long time ago regarding this: http://photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=34769084

I realize the image is fairly small but look at the highlights on the bottles. Naimly the one on the far left. The top image is how Lightroom displays it. The bottom is Zoombrowser. The Lightroom image looks NOTHING like the real scene as I shot it. I mean, I know how capturing an image works and the actual image should never display something this bad. Obviously the camera captured the data properly because Zoombrowser knows how it looked. I just don't understand because Lightroom processed almost EVERYTHING beautifully. I love the way my shots look in the day, etc. It's just this kind of thing, which, of course, it what I mainly shoot. The highlights on the bottles in Lightroom are hazy and the areas that should be nearly clipped to white, in the center of the highlight, are a milky-blue. Even the reflection of the word "BAR" in the bottles looks murky and has no contrast in the Lightroom version.

I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at that RAW.

Thank you kindly for your help thus far. I appreciate it.

could it be just a saturation problem? your Lr bottle image seem darker and more saturated than the other one..maybe that could be the cause?

Also, did you use RECOVERY, FILL LIGHT or/ and CLARIFY on them? if so, many user had problem using those tools because there lack of knowlegde; too much recovery with too much contrast could do what it seem to be your problem.

Here's your bottle shot opened in CR, default settings.

OK it uploaded, but again, I can't see the problem you describe. In CR the neon is blue, but presumably this is a blue neon sign, casting a blue light on the bottles? So in this case, CR has held the highlight detail better than your zoombrowser image? If you prefer a more contrasty result, you have the controls in LR to achieve exactly what you want. I see no disaster, just subtle differences in how the 2 programs handle the raw processing of difficult files.

By the way, the artefact in the center of the bottle nearest the camera has appeared as a result of uploading - it does not appear on my original jpeg. Maybe some compression has been applied automatically by photo.net

Ok the bottle shot looks almost identical. That's definitely not a good conversion by CR or Lightroom (basically the same thing). There's something getting lost in the process here with Adobe.

I also just noticed, there is plenty of rich detail in the image, even in lightroom, when viewed at the standard "screen-filling" size. BUT, when I zoom in, Lightroom completely fades out the detail! I have a different shot of the bottles that I just looked at and you can see and read a bunch of small text on the side of one of the labels. That's when the view is set to "fit". When I zoom in to 100%, the words completely disappear! They turn into a grey blur, as if there was nothing there to begin with except a bit of noise and a grey background. I'm not talking about being dissapointed with pixel-peeping; The words actually completely disappear as if they were cloned out in photoshop.

For reference, here is the image done in Zoombrowser. I had made an ad out of it. No adjustments were needed. I just added the logo and I believe slightly increased saturation.

Larry, In your original posts you were describing your results in LR as a "disaster", "looks like crap", "large clumps of noise" and "blocks of stuck pixels". Those are the issues I was trying to help with because those certainly should not be happening. However, subtle differences between image processors are a matter of personal preference. I don't agree that the CR process is 'wrong' or 'bad', just different. As I said, in this image CR has held the highlights better than the ZB conversion and some (many?) people might prefer that. If you prefer the blown out highlights and less sharp results you have produced using Zoombrowser, then you should probably stay with that program.

On your other point, of lost detail when zooming in LR, are you allowing enough time for the image to render fully on your monitor?

Sorry, I meant James, not Larry!

Actually it's not really blown hightlights. It's more like a smoother gradation that looks natural. Lightroom only does this with artifical light. It's honestly like it really doesn't know how to process it whatsoever.

Also, yes, I'm giving it plenty of time. I've used lightroom since beta and although it may seem like it, I'm not a novice photographer or computer user :P It doesn't do that kind of thing (loss of detail on the text, etc) with other images, just these bottle ones that I have noticed. Again, it's like it's something with the light. It screws with the whole image.

Also, if I change the white balance at all, it changes the entire exposure. If I slide the white balance slider left and right, the whole image blows out like a bright white explosion, and then goes nearly black on the other side of the slider. That is NOT what white balance is supposed to do.

Something is wrong and I have a feeling it won't get fixed. I'd need to bring an Adobe Tech to my house or something.

Again, I don't agree. I procesed using default settings in CR. If I play with the sliders I can get a result which is close to your ZB image but with better gradation and detail in the neon, or I could go further and let the highlights go to white as you say ZB has done by default.

I don't know what might be wrong with your installation of LR, but the serious issues you described earlier are not a characteristic of Adobe programs. I suggest re-posting about the zoom problem with screen grabs.

I looked at the party image in Lightroom and the Microsoft Raw viewer. The red channel is blown and the differences are likely how the software interprets it. RAW viewer sticks some orange in it.

Here's the Lightroom default rendering (imported with all settings on zero as I like it)

Here it is with the highlight recovery slider used to recover the red channel. There may be tonal shifts between ProPhoto and SRGB as well- I'm not taking the time to proof it in Photoshop.

I think Lightroom's working as expected here. Try the zeroed preset as a starting point.

Roger, you're a saviour. An absolute saviour. Zeroed was the ticket for the party pictures. Blue light still doesn't change though. Even zeroed it still looks REALLY bad/odd. Any chance you could take a look at the soda bottle RAW file?

Thank you for your help!

Well, I guess the problems aren't really completely fixed after all. Of course not, I could never be that fortunate.

After "zero-ing" the image, and then using a slight bit of recovery to bring back the red channel (a setting of about 5 in lightroom), I cannot adjust the exposure whatsoever. I moved the exposure slider to +.05 and then tried to move the recovery slider a tiny bit again, to bring back those reds: the faces completely clip to white, with bright yellows everywhere.

It makes no sense whatsoever. It gets BRIGHTER when moving the recovery up after increasing exposure, even slightly. It goes from quite good and balanced, with only a slight bit more recovery needed, to COMPLETELY clipped when I move the slider from "5" to "6".

Oh wow... it actually does it even without changing the exposure lol. Just, when you go past "5" on the recovery slider, everything clips and changes color.

Actually for the crop I showed the procedure was to start at zeroed (as I always do) do highlight recovery +35 and then exposure +.10.

You might find curves more useful than exposure after you use the recovery slider- you can control which tones you want to change a bit more precisely. I think it makes sense- recovery brings you back from the exposure brink and "exposure" just pushes you back over the cliff.

I haven't looked at the other picture. Try zeroed and then bring it into Photoshop and look at each channel to see what info is actually in the image.