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Raw Photo is very dark


BmrBird

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  • 4 weeks later...

There may be a combination of causes.

One contributory cause, possible with Nikon NEF files is the effect of Active D-Lighting (ADL). This is intended for producing acceptable out of camera JPEGs in high contrast situations but does effect  NEF. Exposure is reduced to reduce the burning out of highlights then the shadows are recovered in creating the JPEGs including the embedded jpeg in the NEF file which is also displayed on the camera monitor. An entry is made in the NEF EXIF such as "Active D-Lighting  Auto".

The in camera histograms are generated from that embedded jpeg so the deliberate underexposure is not obvious to the photographer.

If the NEF file is opened in Nikon's own software such as Capture NX-D that software picks up the EXIF entry and acts upon it.

Affinity does not seem to react to that entry so the image appears dark and the histogram is created from the real raw data.

I see this as something that Nikon users need to be aware of, and not something to be fixed by Affinity.

I agree with other users that something else is going on. ADL has affected files which I submitted on another thread.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After updating to Affinity Photo (Windows 10) Ver 1.8.0.585 and trying the original K3_0317.DNG RAW image, it now displays correctly in both Develop and Photo personas.

Here is a screenshot in Photo Persona, and compared the original I posted 25 Dec 2019 you can see the improvement. From my perspective AP now appears to be functioning correctly.

Annotation 2020-02-29 164526.jpg

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  • 3 months later...

I have what appears to be the identical issue on my Mac with Canon CR2 files:  The picture opens darker than expected in Affinity and differently than it used to.  I can process the files OK, but they open 2 or 3 stops more under exposed than they are (I am recording both jpeg and raw).

This is a change.  I hope it gets fixed.

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Hi Alan, yes, your problem sounds just like the problem I was having. Since installing Affinity Photo ver 1.8.0.585 (Windows) back in Feb 2020, my problem was finally fixed.

I've since updated to ver 1.8.3.641 and everything is still working ok.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all, I seem to have the same issue as Alan. I'm on Mac (OS 10.15.5) with AF 1.8.3 and I work with Canon CR2 files. I recently noticed a change in RAW files handling: they are always way darker in AF. Here are the histograms from the exact same RAW file :

(#1) is from the back of the Camera (EOS 6D ii)

Hist_BackCamera.JPG

(#2) is from the Apple Photo app on Mac (not a single adjustment was made)

Hist_PhotosApp.png

(#3) is from AP Develop Persona (not a single adjustment was made)

Hist_DevPersona.png

(#4) is from AP Photo Persona after creating a pile from this one photo only and degrouping (not a single adjustment was made)

Hist_Pile.png

I don't get why I do not have the same histogram in these 4 conditions. Ok, (1) (2) and (3) could be a bit different because it might not be using the same "development engine", but I would expect them to be much closer, and moreover, why are (3) and (4) not identical?

Thank you in advance, to the whole community!

Edited by S_B
Moved the screenprints around to make the post clearer.
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22 minutes ago, S_B said:

Here are the histograms from the exact same RAW file :

(#1) is from the back of the Camera (EOS 6D ii)

(#2) is from the Apple Photo app on Mac (not a single adjustment was made)

(#3) is from AP Develop Persona (not a single adjustment was made)

(#4) is from AP Photo Persona after creating a pile from this one photo only and degrouping (not a single adjustment was made)

I don't get why I do not have the same histogram in these 4 conditions. Ok, (1) (2) and (3) could be a bit different because it might not be using the same "development engine", but I would expect them to be much closer, and moreover, why are (3) and (4) not identical?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @S_B.

If I had to guess, I would guess that #4 is actually from the Develop Persona and #3 is from the Photo Persona. I'm not sure about #1 and #2.

Can you verify which is which, and edit your post (or repost the text) to clarify that, so we don't have to guess :)

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/15/2020 at 8:52 PM, walt.farrell said:

If I had to guess, I would guess that #4 is actually from the Develop Persona and #3 is from the Photo Persona

The images were correctly labelled: #3 is Develop Persona, #4 is Photo Persona.

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1 minute ago, anon2 said:

The images were correctly labelled: #3 is Develop Persona, #4 is Photo Persona.

I'm curious how you can tell that.

Thanks.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • Staff

We have made fixes/improvements to this area (Raw files can get stuck in Unmanaged mode) of the program in the latest release.

The fixes and how to update are described in these forum posts.

We would appreciate you checking that this issue has now been resolved for you.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi @Patrick Connor,

I don't seem to have any issue in unmanaged mode.

In managed mode, however, when stacking Raw files using the Serif Labs raw engine (with version 1.8.4, I checked) I still get significantly darker images than the ones I get in Develop Persona (without any adjustment, of course) — the histogram gets shifted/gathered to the left. If I change the Raw Engine to Apple (core image raw), then I get the same result in Develop Persona and when stacking raw files.

So, for now, my raw engine is set to Apple.

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  • 3 months later...

I'm now having this problem also (i.e., cr2 raw files from a newly acquired Canon 5D Mk iv are coming out extremely dark - far too dark).   Don't seem to have the same problem with raw files from my 5DSR or 80D.  I've done nothing differently to what I've been doing in previous years in terms of work flow.

Am using AP version 1.8.5.703.

Clearly I am not the only one with this issue.  I am not even bothering to use AP for these files because even with bringing up exposure, lightening the raw file, etc, it still doesn't look quite right.  So.......am back to using Lightroom.

Affinity - PLEASE FIX THIS.

 

 

 

 

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