Topaz

Here is one using Photo AI

Archibald wrote in post #19498431
OK, thanks for the info. I have never varied the color profile in LRC. This is new to me.

If you click on these boxes you have access to your camera profiles and others. You can add them to your favourites (star in the upper right hand corner) and they will be in the drop down list. If you create custom profiles or purchase ones like from Color Fidelity that is where wind up as well.

Archibald wrote in post #19498522
Thanks! It is a corner of LR where I never go. I've been using Lightroom since version 2 and still don't know it. Lol.

So I started to read about it and there is a ton of confusing stuff about it online, confusing because there are things with similar names that are quite different. But OK, there are places that declare changing Adobe Color profile to Camera Matching gives MUCH better results. I'm looking at the comparison and see only a subtle difference. And there is no definitive answer in Camera Matching either because there are several different styles to choose from.

I almost always work the Clarity and Vibrance sliders, and often the Temp and Tint ones too, and that probably distorts the profiles enough to make them unrecognizable.

Anyway, it's good to know this feature is there. I plan to get some experience with it, and after that I'll undoubtedly see some benefits.

Adobe's old default was Adobe Standard. It was flat by design as we were supposed to edit, etc. One day C1 Pro came out with a video saying how much better their product looked "out of the box". Six months later Adobe introduced Adobe Color Some people want instant results and sometimes a first look can sway a decision. I find Adobe Color somewhere between Canon Standard and Faithful.

Many did not like Adobe Color when it first came out but I didn't mind it and have warmed up to it. Adobe colours are a bit warmer/yellow and Canon leans more towards a reddish tint. I like this guy because he is a C1 Pro die hard but always has good balanced reviews and comparisons.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=_UophX56H6o

If I was a portrait photographer I'd likely use ColorChecker Passport for my profile. It saturates blues, purples and pinks (primarily) so they do not look as what I remember seeing. They look more saturated than Canon colours. While I was testing it I took a picture of my wife's hand and she was wearing a teal sweater. It looked more blue using the Colorchecker profile. I even showed it to her and she picked the Canon profile because the sweater looked correct.

However the skin tones are quite exceptional. Very clean and natural looking so it is all about what is important for what you do.

edmidlifecrisis wrote in post #19498503
It is some times necessary when printing. OTherwise I usually don't mess with it either.

Yes that is all about matching your calibrated monitor to the printer which I have not looked at for a long time. People like Andrew Rodney (the digital dog) have written books as thick as the bible about profiling and matching devices.

Dave63401 wrote in post #19498668
I just went to Topaz website. This is what it says in the FAQ.

Can I Still Use My Program If I Don't Buy Upgrades?

Yes! Your user license gives you access to any version of the program you own. If you decide not to buy future updates to your program after your initial upgrade license expires, you can continue to use your program. If and when you decide that new features of our programs are worth having, you can buy a new 12 month upgrade license at that time.

Edit: That said, I would recommend looking at DXO Pure Raw or PL 6. For me, for the majority of my images, it is proving to be a better mousetrap! YMMV

That was what I expected. I used Sharpen AI after one year and updates expired. The concern was Photo AI but it would be the same. You can keep using it.

I try both PureRaw 2 and Photo AI. Best one gets the job that day. I'll see what the renewal cost for Photo AI is this fall and where they have gone with improvements.

RDKirk wrote in post #19498606
As far as reducing noise goes, I don't push my sensor very hard, so I'm satisfied with the noise reduction in Canon DPP and Photoshop.

I have used Topaz tools for over a decade (and had a couple of articles published in Professional Photographers Magazine (PPA)) a good while ago on some of their products.

I do use Sharpen AI when necessary. I don't use it routinely, but on a case by case basis as needed, particularly for motion sharpening. It does a wondrously better job correcting motion blur than Photoshop. I suspect motion blur is something AI figures out very well.

I'm amazed by how good Gigapixel AI is. I would have exclaimed with great ponderousness and gravitas only a couple of years ago that no software could ever interpolate detail...but Gigapixel AI does an amazing job at it most of the time. I have especially found it useful in sharpening--actually adding detail--to old family photographs that I've scanned to digital. It makes old Polaroid and Instamatic photographs look very close to digital shots.

I've never really gotten into Gigapixel but since I have the standalone app and it's on PAI I think I'll play around with it when I get home. I hate testing on my 14" laptop. I need my 27" screen for that.

Pagman wrote in post #19498778
I have Topaz AI and use it all the time firstly with my Nikon bodies I had and now with my Sony A77 ii, I start off with my RAW filles opened up in LR5 then after some basic enhancements - Blacks and Whites and Colour, I then export it straight into Topaz. In Topaz I tend to compare the different modes of de noise by having multi windows open zoomed into the default 100% using the ticked auto settings.

Sometimes I leave the default import sharpening on in LR (Think its set to 25 on the slider) as I don't see any harm from doing this.

Quite happy with what it does - the only thing that does annoy me is the monthy reminder to either postpone or upgrade (pay) for the updated model despite mine being payed for at the initial AI install.

P.

For LR5 the sharpening default is 25. In the LrC version when Adobe's default became Adobe Color they increased that to 40.

If you use the Plug-in Extras method and it opens as a DNG back in Lightroom it will apply the sharpening default automatically which is your case is 25. It's like importing a brand new RAW file. Using Edit In retains your Lightroom edits.

drsilver wrote in post #19498446
Does the DNG plugin copy over all the EXIF data to the new file? With the 'Edit In' functionality, I lose my GPS data. That's easy enough to copy back from the CRx file in LRC, but it's an extra step.

Luminar products strip all the EXIF data out. No camera info, no exposure info, even date information goes away. Can't put that back from LRC. Deal breaker for me.

I have read it is a DNG within a TIFF wrapper. I copied this a long time ago. Your GPS data should be retained unless someone else answered this.

Noise reduction is indeed not applied on the raw data, it is applied after demosaicing. The advantage of starting from a raw file is that you can do it as early in the process as possible. If you let Lightroom generate a TIFF file and apply noise reduction on that TIFF file, then you apply noise reduction later on in the process.

There certainly is an advantage of letting the noise reduction software start from a raw file and create a linear RGB DNG. This DNG may not be a raw file, but it does behave like it in Lightroom. Just like Lightroom-generated panorama or HDR DNG files do. That means that you can still set the white balance and apply a raw profile, for example. If you use a TIFF, then both the white balance and the raw profile are set before the TIFF is sent to the noise reduction software, and so they cannot be adjusted any more on return.

I got it backwards. It has been a long time since I looked that this. It's a TIFF inside a DNG wrapper. I think the DNG part contains all the metadata.

https://community.adob​e.com …/tif-vs-dng/td-p/12717698

digital paradise wrote in post #19498852
Adobe's old default was Adobe Standard. It was flat by design as we were supposed to edit, etc. One day C1 Pro came out with a video saying how much better their product looked "out of the box". Six months later Adobe introduced Adobe Color Some people want instant results and sometimes a first look can sway a decision. I find Adobe Color somewhere between Canon Standard and Faithful.

Many did not like Adobe Color when it first came out but I didn't mind it and have warmed up to it. Adobe colours are a bit warmer/yellow and Canon leans more towards a reddish tint. I like this guy because he is a C1 Pro die hard but always has good balanced reviews and comparisons.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=_UophX56H6o

If I was a portrait photographer I'd likely use ColorChecker Passport for my profile. It saturates blues, purples and pinks (primarily) so they do not look as what I remember seeing. They look more saturated than Canon colours. While I was testing it I took a picture of my wife's hand and she was wearing a teal sweater. It looked more blue using the Colorchecker profile. I even showed it to her and she picked the Canon profile because the sweater looked correct.

However the skin tones are quite exceptional. Very clean and natural looking so it is all about what is important for what you do.

Thanks for all the info and interesting background. As you say, we're supposed to edit. That's what I do, so that is why I can ignore the color profile. Still, there are subtleties here that could be very important for things like portrait work. More to learn.

Archibald wrote in post #19498901
Thanks for all the info and interesting background. As you say, we're supposed to edit. That's what I do, so that is why I can ignore the color profile. Still, there are subtleties here that could be very important for things like portrait work. More to learn.

NP. I find this stuff interesting. I don't often change colours in a file but I will use the masks to brighten/darken the subject/background, do some selective sharpening, etc. I got nut with the masking for my B&W conversions.

I use Auto to avoid the manual clipping of whites/blacks, etc and then I review it. I'll try a few different profiles for the overall look.

Dave63401 wrote in post #19498668
I just went to Topaz website. This is what it says in the FAQ.

Can I Still Use My Program If I Don't Buy Upgrades?

Yes! Your user license gives you access to any version of the program you own. If you decide not to buy future updates to your program after your initial upgrade license expires, you can continue to use your program. If and when you decide that new features of our programs are worth having, you can buy a new 12 month upgrade license at that time.

Edit: That said, I would recommend looking at DXO Pure Raw or PL 6. For me, for the majority of my images, it is proving to be a better mousetrap! YMMV

Thanks Dave, much appreciated.

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=19503528