Help with Understanding Linear Files

[montero]

I hoping someone can address this. I shoot with a D30 and I use a Expo disc all the time for white balancing. My monitor is calibrated using Prove It software. When I view my pictures in BB which is ICC aware, my pictures look great. Color is really good.

Now let's say I have a picture of a building with lots of blue sky. I like the colour of the sky-- it's really blue. But once I convert to a linear file and process it through Linearsharpen, the sky becomes less blue and doesn't look like anything that I see in BB. I'm having trouble understanding why the colours don't look the same even on the same screen.

What am I missing? Is it because the linear file is now in Wide Gamut colorspace? Maybe the sky really wasn't as blue as BB shows it to be??? I'm totally confused.

J

[Roger_Cavanagh]

J,

Two things you might try...

The first is to boosting saturation with the action in LS, or using Fred Miranda's Digital Velvia, which I prefer.

Or you could try my LinearSharpenMenu (links on this page http://www.rogercavanagh.com/scripts/index.htm). This offers essentially the same processing as LS342, but with some extra options including one for lower gamma adjustment, which might not lighten the sky as much.

Regards,

[gmitchel]

Have you considered using Fred Miranda's LP Batch action for Photoshop. It sure simplifies working with linear files.

Glad to see there's a few of us who use linear RAW files. :)

Mitch

[montero]

Thanks for the responses. I also have Fred Miranda's action and it does the same thing. I have to play around with Digital Velvia for the colour to be sort of the same as what I see in BB. Is there any explanation why the colours in BB and what I see in photoshop after processing a linear file are different?

Thanks once again.

J

[Roger_Cavanagh]

montero wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I also have Fred Miranda's action and it does the same thing. I have to play around with Digital Velvia for the colour to be sort of the same as what I see in BB. Is there any explanation why the colours in BB and what I see in photoshop after processing a linear file are different?

Thanks once again.

J

J,

Check the colour profile settings in BB Preferences, read the help file to choose appropriate settings. I can't offer more specific advice. I always shoot raw and always use linear conversion (Mitch, you are not alone :) ), and I know the colour in the BB preview will be different from my end result in Photoshop. So I don't worry about differences. Personally, I wouldn't bust a gut over it, especially bearing in mind that BB by default shows a preview not the actual image.

There's nothing wrong with Fred's Linear Pro, but, most of the time I prefer the results from LS. In any case, I defy anyone to come up with any two methods that produce identical colours - JPG's are different from TIFF are different from Linear Pro are different from LinearSharpen are different from every D30 profile I've ever tried, and pretty soon there'll be a new Adobe option (assuming it covers the D30).

No one method will give 100% accurate colours (neither does film) and I think that the "best" method probably depends, to some extent, on the subject. I spent a good deal of time comparing LS with other options http://www.rogercavanagh.com/linear_comparisons2/index.htm and for me, LS is the preference, despite the extra processing required.

Regards,

[gmitchel]

Roger:

Which version of Fred's action were you using for your comparison?

Did you use Fred's custom linear ICC profile?

Glad to see we agree that RAW files are the way to go. :)

If only we could persuade Canon to give us a RAW file option for the D60 sans an embedded JPEG. (Grrr!)

Cheers,

Mitch

[Roger_Cavanagh]

gmitchel wrote:
Roger:

Which version of Fred's action were you using for your comparison?

Hmm, sloppy of me not to note it in the article, :eyes but I think it was 1.2.

Did you use Fred's custom linear ICC profile?

Oh, yes

Glad to see we agree that RAW files are the way to go. :)

If only we could persuade Canon to give us a RAW file option for the D60 sans an embedded JPEG. (Grrr!)

Cheers,

Mitch

It does seem somewhat over the top, but even the much smaller one in the D30 is a waste of space. I've never, ever used it for anything - stupid design decision by some eejit not living in the real world.

Regards,