Brillance adjustment

[Alan Mayo]

Photo called Tresco was taken in RAW (DSCO1342.ARW) and is clearly overexposed.  Using Mac or iPad Photos editing I can create a good image and get good blue sky mostly using the brilliance control (better than the image below shows) but in Affinity Photo I cannot get the sky to be blue when starting with the RAW file. The images below are jpeg versions because of your limit of 2GB. Any advice on how to use Affinity Photo to bring out the blue sky from a .ARW RAW image would be appreciated. Alan

[v_kyr]

42 minutes ago, Alan Mayo said:

Photo called Tresco was taken in RAW (DSCO1342.ARW) and is clearly overexposed.

Related to the Sony RAW files, which Sony cam did you used (model/type)?

[NotMyFault]

2GB should be enough for a single ARW file, normally these use 80-120 MB max.

To recover overexposed sky in RAW:

• use exposure, shadow & highlight in combination with histogram to get all highlights back into visible range - even if image looks far too dark then
• use RGB/32 or RGB/16 as target format in develop assistant
• Try tone map persona, but set compression to 0, then gradually increase compression / local contrast.
• often curves allow to get good results.

 

[Alan Mayo]

Thanks for your response. You're right about the file size, I misread the 2GB max as 2MB max.  I'm afraid your explanation is a little beyond my present understanding of Affinity Photo and I wondered if you had the time to look at my RAW file that I've uploaded and give me some step by step advice on how to bring out the blue sky. DSC01342.ARWDSC01342.ARW

As I said earlier I can do it in Apple Photos, but not in Affinity Photo. 

[Alan Mayo]

The camera is a Sony RX100 V1

[NotMyFault]

Thanks for uploading the raw file.

In this case, i would simply use an hsl adjustment, see screenshot.

In  Develop Persona, i reduced brightness a bit.

i like the image in original colors. Saturating the sky may look unnatural.

 

[thomaso]

41 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

i would simply use an hsl adjustment

Doesn't this require a.) finish develop first and b.) a mask to avoid bluish highlights in the leaves reflections?

I wonder why APH seems to open the sky with very neutral (grey) values whereas other apps do recognize blue without colour correction but highlight correction only, as the OP mentioned for Apple Photo and I do experience similar with CaptureOne and Lightroom.

Below in both apps only highlights were reduced, no colour. – Does one of you have an idea what does cause the difference in the missing sky colour (blue) in APhoto? (regardless of the less contrast in the dark tones (e.g. center of palm tree)

 

[NotMyFault]

On 6/1/2022 at 10:11 PM, thomaso said:

oes one of you have an idea what does cause the difference in the missing sky colour (blue) in APhoto?

Its a bug of the Serif RAW engine. Sky is totally de-saturated. We had similar effects with several other RAW formats.

If you use the Apple RAW engine, you need only a little bit (actually heavy -1.4) brightness reduction and the blue comes out really well.

I compensate this by a curves adjustment later, which even strengthens the blue.

@Alan Mayo I suggest you file a bug report about the strong difference in RAW engines.

 

PS: There are more issues.

If you choose Apple RAW, this seems to already include LENS correction (before activating it in Photo). So if you have Apple RAW, don't activate Lens correction, because this would double the barrel distortion and eliminate the edges

 

Attached you find my versions with both RAW engines.

 

Develop:

exposure -1.4

Lens: off

Correct CA (estimated from image)

Defringe (threshold set to 50%) -> this will eliminate the dark blue halo around the tree, too when using HSL

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by NotMyFault
Large image removed due to space restrictions

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Its a bug of the Serif RAW engine. Sky is totally de-saturated. We had similar effects with several other RAW formats.

If you use the Apple RAW engine, you need only (...)

Oh, that is indeed a fundamental difference, thank you. With the Apple RAW engine, the sky is quite blue, now with less adjustment to the highlights, even before all clipping is removed.

[RichardMH]

One of the best Windows raw convertors for Sony ARW files that I've found is the free Capture One Express for Sony. I believe there is a mac version. On Windows it does set up a tif file to move an image to Affinity Photo which is the only real drawback. It handles highlights well and has a rather good auto adjust that is way better to use than the AP version. And a catalogue.

[thomaso]

14 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Its a bug of the Serif RAW engine. Sky is totally de-saturated. We had similar effects with several other RAW formats.

If you use the Apple RAW engine

I wonder whether this Gray Sky Issue is related to a known Pink Sky Issue "afp-4444" (spring 2021) which colours overexposed highlights in pink/magenta:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&tags=afp-4444

According to this untagged report (April 2022) it is not solved yet in the last app update but may get avoided by using the Apple RAW engine. @Dan C

[Alan Mayo]

Thanks to NotMyFault, I got a good result using the ipad version of Affinity Photo as you suggested, but no joy on the Mac version - it seems that others  have recognised the problem with ARW files.  

[NotMyFault]

2 hours ago, Alan Mayo said:

Thanks to NotMyFault, I got a good result using the ipad version of Affinity Photo as you suggested, but no joy on the Mac version - it seems that others  have recognised the problem with ARW files.  

Did you check the file i uploaded? I got this good result on MAC using Apple RAW (which is better in 99% of the cases, and gets updated to new Camera models more frequently and sooner ). You can select the Apple RAW engine on MAC, under Assistent / Develop Assistant before you open the RAW file. DSC01342_apple.afphoto

[Alan Mayo]

I did upload your files thanks, good result as you say. Could you clarify your explanation of Apple Raw Assistant for me? I'm not sure where to start on this, is it in Apple Photos on the Mac?

[Old Bruce]

Just now, Alan Mayo said:

Could you clarify your explanation of Apple Raw Assistant for me?

This is in Affinity Photo for Mac OS. Go to View > Assistant Manager... Hit the Develop Assistant button.

And this will pop up, it is for the raw files in the Develop Persona. Choose the Apple (Core Image RAW) from the RAW Engine menu.

[Alan Mayo]

Thanks to Old Bruce and NotMyFault, my problem has been solved. Hooray for this forum!

[Dan C]

On 6/2/2022 at 12:20 PM, thomaso said:

I wonder whether this Gray Sky Issue is related to a known Pink Sky Issue "afp-4444" (spring 2021) which colours overexposed highlights in pink/magenta:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&tags=afp-4444

According to this untagged report (April 2022) it is not solved yet in the last app update but may get avoided by using the Apple RAW engine. @Dan C

I don't believe this is the same issue, as that report is specifically regarding pink/purple tones - however I can certainly see that the Serif LABS engine is falling behind here, so to speak - so I'll be logging this RAW file with our developers to help to continue to improve our engine.

I hope this helps