Chromatic aberration

[Thom79]

Hi

I've a question regarding "chromatic aberration". When I'm importing the RAW files from my Nikon Z6 in Affinity, I often have quite strong visible purple chromatic aberration (visible in screenshot of attached PDF). Earlier I was working with photoshop or lightroom and I never had it that extreme. I had no correction enabled... neither in Affinity, neither in Photoshop. Also when opening in Capture One or in Nikon-Capture-NX-D: Absolutely no chromatic aberration visible.

Is something wrong in my Affinity settings? First I thought that Photoshop already changed something in the RAW picture. But this isn't the case. And as I don't see this chromatic aberration in all other programs, I think it has to be something Affinity specific.

Operating system: Nikon Z6, Windows 10, Affinity 1.8.3.641

Attached also the RAW if you want to play around with it.

Thanks already in advance for some help.

Thom

Affinity.pdf

DSC_0036.NEF

Edited May 20, 2020 by Thom79

[user_0815]

I'm no technical expert, it looks like at that level of detail the lens profile needs some manual tweaking. To get rid of it, I adjusted the settings to 340° hue, 20px radius, 100% tolerance and 10% in the bottom slider.

[Thom79]

Thanks for your reply. I was also able eliminating it with "Farbsäume entfernen".

In other words: The question is not how to eliminate it. The question is: Why do I have this purple aberrations when opening the RAW in Affinity (without doing any lens correction) while I don't have it in PS, Lightroom or Capture NX-D (also without any lens correction)

[user_0815]

Oh, ok. I guess every software has its own lens profile and this profile does not eliminate it completely. But someone else might know more about that than me.

[Jowday]

16 hours ago, Thom79 said:

Thanks for your reply. I was also able eliminating it with "Farbsäume entfernen".

In other words: The question is not how to eliminate it. The question is: Why do I have this purple aberrations when opening the RAW in Affinity (without doing any lens correction) while I don't have it in PS, Lightroom or Capture NX-D (also without any lens correction)

Because Affinity Photo is a remarkably inferior RAW converter. It is a lot of components and algorithms Serif didn't make themselves glued together with their own code but without a vision. I just checked out chromatic aberration removal in Photo myself and it doesn't remove it almost. Instead it blurs the image. Two wrongs still doesn't make a right! Opened in other programs I found no trace of chromatic aberration and colour noise in the same image.

The worst thing is probably it gives one the impression that the RAW module is developed by hobby photographers with anything but high standards and no serious experience. I don't know why Serif tries so hard to add EVERYTHING to Photo (and not Designer) with just a record small team with a growing number of products. The average feature quality just drops vertically and now the speed of development of the entire Affinity range dropped significantly the hope of remedies is fading.

[Jowday]

4 hours ago, PatrickM said:

That's why I don't use APhoto as a raw converter anymore. I needed a DAM to replace Lightroom and all the ones I tested are better (including the app provided by the camera manufacturer). However, there are a few features I prefer in APhoto (Photo persona) that I still use to edit some "tif" files. Regarding the improvement of some features (Windows), I agree (e.g., selection tools, alignment), and no response from Serif, and still no new roadmap.

They really missed a chance here. Some of the open source RAW converters have also merged a lot of components together but without what professional companies can do: not just gluing them together but making them work together and deliver crisp or organic results via excellent user interfaces. Serif managed to make a somewhat better interface but with a disastrous rendering of the RAW data themselves. The rendering on Windows of details is the worst I have seen. On Mac and iPad I believe another demosaic algorithm is used (from a OS X library) with far better results but again - it is code and libraries from others tied together with rubber band. I wouldn't understand what the hell happened if I had a licence for both Mac and Windows and got different results from two machines. The lack of their own algorithms and vision just shines through.

The worst problem is all the people who are just using the RAW converter believing it is just conversion. Who doesn't know how incredible results one can get from a camera with a good RAW interpreter like DxO PhotoLab or the free editions of Capture One for Sony and Fuji shooters (a lot of people). There is a reason why I keep ALL RAW files and did for almost 20 years. The out of camera images are fine but the way DxO, Capture One, Nikon and Adobe software progressed I can pull old images out of the library and re-develop them with massive (!) improvements.

Still, Photo is budget software and I really wouldn't expect results comparable to the professionel alternatives. I just didn't expect the poor results and it to be such a mish mash with even different engines from OS to OS. It is a mess.

[Thom79]

Wow a lot of answers and somehow a depate on principles. I've just found out that in "Capture NX-D" (the Nikon Software) this aberrations are removed from the RAW file with the option "Farbquerfehler". To be honest it's ok for me when Affinity shows the photo as it is (without any corrections). In my opinion this is much better than a software which is doing a lot in the packground and you don't have any idea what the software is doing with the picture. It can be OK when the software is doing always he correct way... but it's not ok when the software is doing too much on the RAW file and you don't like what it's doing.

I just started using Affinity and I really like it! Furthermore I prefere to support Affinity much more than the big ones (such as Photoshop or Lightroom... I don't want to pay a monthly amount... I want to buy the software --> so I'm sorry to Photoshop or Lightroom... for me you are PAST).

As long as Affinity is improving step by step it's absolutely OK for me. So this is also a request to Affinity to improve the removal of chromatic aberration. It's ok when aberrations are visible when you import the picture (and when the picture is 100% as it is out of the RAW)... but there should be an option which really removes it (I know there is one... but it is not really doing the job). Furthermore when I use the lens correction it really blurs the image (this his not the case when I disable the lens correction). So please go for it and make this better.

Edit: I also know that it's possible to remove aberrations  with "Farbsäume entfernen". But this should be easier. So just a flag you can enable and than aberrations are removed. In principle as you already have it... but it should work better.

I really want to have everything in ONE software... RAW import and picture editing. And it would be great if Affinity will be excellent for both parts!

Edited May 21, 2020 by Thom79

[Jowday]

26 minutes ago, Thom79 said:

Wow a lot of answers and somehow a depate on principles. I've just found out that in "Capture NX-D" (the Nikon Software) this aberrations are removed from the RAW file with the option "Farbquerfehler". To be honest it's ok for me when Affinity shows the photo as it is (without any corrections). In my opinion this is much better than a software which is doing a lot in the packground and you don't have any idea what the software is doing with the picture. It can be OK when the software is doing always he correct way... but it's not ok when the software is doing too much on the RAW file and you don't like what it's doing.

I just started using Affinity and I really like it! Furthermore I prefere to support Affinity much more than the big ones (such as Photoshop or Lightroom... I don't want to pay a monthly amount... I want to buy the software --> so I'm sorry to Photoshop or Lightroom... for me you are PAST).

As long as Affinity is improving step by step it's absolutely OK for me. So this is also a request to Affinity to improve the removal of chromatic aberration. It's ok when aberrations are visible when you import the picture (and when the picture is 100% as it is out of the RAW)... but there should be an option which really removes it (I know there is one... but it is not really doing the job). Furthermore when I use the lens correction it really blurs the image (this his not the case when I disable the lens correction). So please go for it and make this better.

Edit: I also know that it's possible to remove aberrations  with "Farbsäume entfernen". But this should be easier. So just a flag you can enable and than aberrations are removed. In principle as you already have it... but it should work better.

I really want to have everything in ONE software... RAW import and picture editing. And it would be great if Affinity will be excellent for both parts!

 

If it satiafies your needs then all is good🙂 of course.
All in one software.. would be nice. Not always the best choice. I tried with Photoshop but had to purchase Capture One Pro for Fuji and Olympus cameras. These cameras renders images in an organic way Photoshop just can’t touch. And it doesn”t try. I use Photoshop for Nikon full frame pictures and DxO Photolab for high ISO pictures from whatever camera. These program have their individual strengths and they improve the image quality in a major way. They were all one of the best investments I ever made.
So if you are happy, great. Just a heads up;  keep your eyes open. These programs are anything but alike.

Happy shooting 😀

[John Rostron]

19 hours ago, Jowday said:

These cameras renders images in an organic way

Do you mean 'free from artificial chemicals'? If not what do you mean? I find that 'organic' is often used to confer some vaguely positive note. (Or, as Ko-Ko put it in The Mikado: "Merely corrobarrative detail intended to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing statement.")

John