Images washed out with LSharpen

[wcapald]

Just converted files from Breeze to linear TIFs, run LSharpen in PhotoShop6 and my pix are washed out and nowhere near the contrast in Breeze. My working space is set to AdobeRGB98 so should be OK. Any clues to what I'm doing wrong? Help!!!!!!

[Wheelie]

I'm afraid I get the same problem ...
And , it seems difficult to impossible to adjust to get bright , well exposed and contrasty files .
Anyone to help ?
Thank you in advance .

Wheelie

[Pekka]

Can you share any examples? How do the histograms look?

Is you monitor black point calibrated?

LS 3.42 output resembles low contrast Canon conversion in histogram, perhaps you're accustomed to high contrast conversions?

LS files need often some extra saturation.

"bright , well exposed and contrasty files"?

To me
"bright , well exposed" = you get what exposure gives you.
"contrasty" = combination of lens and lighting. There is no point to touch these with conversion.

[wcapald]

Hi Pekka, I took a range of exposures and converted the shot which was perfectly exposed, with blue skies, blossom on the trees, and the picture was vibrant in Breezebrowser. When I converted the file from a linear TIFF with LSharpen I get very lack lustre results. However a JPEG conversion in another window in Photoshop is perfect. Surely the whole point of shooting in RAW is to have native images off the chip, which if exposed correctly should need little further manipulation. If linear TIFFS need further tweaking it just extends the workflow, especially if you are converting 500 images or so. Is there an easy way to correct these images back to their original vibrant colours to continue to use LSharpen, say as a plugin I can record to adjust curves or something, or should I look at alternatives? Thx in advance. Wayne

[Dale]

wcapald wrote:
Just converted files from Breeze to linear TIFs, run LSharpen in PhotoShop6 and my pix are washed out and nowhere near the contrast in Breeze. My working space is set to AdobeRGB98 so should be OK. Any clues to what I'm doing wrong? Help!!!!!!

I find by adding more saturation that I get very good results. The colors I have found when using LS 3.42 to be the best compared to other conversion actions. I use Digital Velvia Pro to increase the saturation. You can check it out at:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/DV/index.html
Dale

[pigasus]

Pekka,

I've been having the same problem with washed out results. For comparison, I did a nonlinear raw conversion using the low settings for saturation, contrast and sharpness. And compared it to the linear conversion run through LS. The LS version looks drained of colour in comparison.

So I started playing the actions step by step. What I found was that the last two channel mixer steps in the post 342 action seemed to suck the life out of the images. Particularly the next to last one. I tried running the action without these two steps. The results had more punch but, of course, for some photos the colours were off.

In desparation I have applied your LS actions without the conversion component to non-linear raw files. Results are pretty good. But I'd much rather be working in linear raw.

[wcapald]

I have been speaking to Roger Cavenagh who contributes to this forum and the solution he suggested was I try was to get hold of Fred Mirandas Digital Velvia plug-in and try using it on the medium setting. Hey presto all my 16 bit linear TIFF pictures now look just like the original RAW pictures did in Breezebrowser. So with Pekkas LS342 for brilliant conversion and sharpening, plus this plugin combined in an action, I still don't have to spend hours fiddling with each image to get brilliant results. Give it a go and see.

[pigasus]

Thanks for that! Yes it does work for me too. I had been using Digital Velvia, but applying it after making levels corrections. The effect wasn't nearly as good as applying it immediately after LS. Now, it seems to me that I should be able to combine the effects of the channel mixer and curves steps in the two action into a fewer number of steps (the less Photoshop adjustments the better).