Information loss when opening in Affinity from Bridge

[Announcement]

Hi all,

I have an issue I absolutely need a solution for. I use Bridge to sort and label my files, and open Affinity Photo through Bridge when I'm ready to edit. I noticed immediately that the Bridge preview was wildly different to what I actually got in Affinity, but for the most part it either wasn't or was only a minor issue. Until now. I shoot concerts and deal with very saturated lighting, and I have an image now where I'm losing significant amounts of information when I open in Affinity. Please have a look at the attached files - file 2 is the Bridge preview, you'll see that the lighting is smooth and that there is no loss of information anywhere. File 1 is what I get when I open the image in Develop Persona - I've lost tons of information throughout the entire image, but the spotlights on the guy on the left side are particularly egregious.

Am I right in guessing it's a color profile issue? I'm not sure how to fix it, though, my color profile is set to ProPhoto. If anyone has any idea how I can fix this I would be eternally grateful, I absolutely need Affinity to import the same level of detail that was actually captured at the scene.

[thomaso]

Am I correct in assuming that Bridge doesn't develop the image but displays a JPG preview saved along with or embedded into the RAW file and thus being developed in the camera before?

For developers' research, it may be helpful to know the camera brand & model and the image file details ... or simply get this or a similarly affected original file uploaded.

Unfortunately this blue colour shift / clipping appears to be related to a known issue with blue light. Possibly this threads contains options to solve it with your image (note, the second is from 2018 and maybe outdated):

[Announcement]

Thanks for your response, @thomaso!
 

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Am I correct in assuming that Bridge doesn't develop the image but displays a JPG preview saved along with or embedded into the RAW file and thus being developed in the camera before?

Yes, I believe Bridge displays a separate JPG preview.
 

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For developers' research, it may be helpful to know the camera brand & model and the image file details ... or simply get this or a similarly affected original file uploaded.

It's shot on a Canon R8. Which image details do you require? It's shot in raw format in Adobe RGB color space, please let me know if there are other details that might be pertinent to the question.

I read through the threads you linked to. It seems this is indeed connected to the blue light color clipping issue. Calebcudjoe's workaround (significantly shifting white balance, then bring it back later) also work for me, but increase my workload significantly when I frequently shoot concerts and therefore will run into this issue frequently. Am I naive if I hope for a solution to this? I don't really want to go back to Photoshop, but considering the volume of images I edit and the resulting huge increase in workload this issue creates for me, I absolutely need editing software that can more accurately interpret the RAW data. (I don't expect Photoshop to be perfect either, but I have never seen an interpretation as extreme as this, with such a large area essentially lost to clipping.) @Lee_T, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if perhaps you could shed some light on this issue? Is there anything to try (I checked my settings, they're already set to what you suggested in the other thread) here that might help?

[thomaso]

29 minutes ago, Announcement said:

considering the volume of images I edit and the resulting huge increase in workload this issue creates for me, I absolutely need editing software that can more accurately interpret the RAW data.

Unless it's fixed in Affinity (no one but Serif might know, if anyone), you'll probably get the most reliable result using Canon's free Digital Photo Professional app. Additionally, this is perhaps the only tool that considers/respects every camera & image setting made for your shootings. And unlike Affinity, Canon's DPP lets you apply your adjustments directly to other files, folders or collections displayed in its File Browser area like a 1-click batch option (… apart from its separate Batch feature).

[Announcement]

20 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Unless it's fixed in Affinity (no one but Serif might know, if anyone), you'll probably get the most reliable result using Canon's free Digital Photo Professional app. Additionally, this is perhaps the only tool that considers/respects every camera & image setting made for your shootings. And unlike Affinity, Canon's DPP lets you apply your adjustments directly to other files, folders or collections displayed in its File Browser area like a 1-click batch option (… apart from its separate Batch feature).

Interestingly, DPP also had some issues with clipping (nowhere near as bad as Affinity, but still). The best course of action currently seems to be to convert to TIFF and work from there instead, that seems to be the best way to preserve the gradient lighting/color that Affinity seems to be unable to do. Thank you for your input!

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Announcement said:

Interestingly, DPP also had some issues with clipping

Oddly, Canon Asia seems to like intense blue light …

https://snapshot.canon-asia.com/reg/article/eng/raw-image-processing-how-to-bring-out-the-blue-in-blue-hour-photos

… while an issue with intense blue (… turns purple) gets discussed, for instance:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4450750
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63422607

[Lee_T]

Hi Announcement,

This is an issue I'm very familiar with, as when I'm not at Affinity towers, I'm usually shooting a concert.

Most cameras have an over sensitivity to blue light, some worse than others, but first party apps usually contain some correction using their own knowledge of their own sensors when processing RAW files so they can look a very different when processed in their software.

Adobe's software is likely also carrying out some process to recover these areas.

The information is still there, Affinity Photo is just showing an accurate representation of that captured information, though we do have plans to improve this in the future.

The solution is is essentially exposing for the highlights when shooting and being wary of the lights whilst in the situation.

Lee

 

 

 

 

[Announcement]

12 minutes ago, Lee_T said:

The solution is is essentially exposing for the highlights when shooting and being wary of the lights whilst in the situation.

Lee

Hi Lee,

thanks so much for responding, I appreciate your input! And I learned something new today - a lot of the under the hood stuff is stuff I have little knowledge of, so I appreciate your clear and understandable explanation. I'll be sure to keep this in mind when I shoot moving forward so that I can mitigate the issue as much as possible on my end, and am looking forward to see what you guys come up with on your side to better deal with the issue in the future!

Thanks again to both you and thomaso for your help!

[thomaso]

21 hours ago, Announcement said:

Calebcudjoe's workaround (significantly shifting white balance, then bring it back later) also work for me, but increase my workload significantly when I frequently shoot concerts and therefore will run into this issue frequently.

In this case it might help* to adjust the whitebalance before shooting, i.e. from blue/pink to green/red.
*EDIT: not for the captured RAW data.

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART182460

Edited November 8, 2023 by thomaso

[Lee_T]

13 hours ago, thomaso said:

In this case it might help to adjust the whitebalance before shooting, i.e. from blue/pink to green/red.

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART182460

This may give a better appearance in the initial preview, but as it's RAW it doesn't affect the data captured.

Lee

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Lee_T said:

This may give a better appearance in the initial preview, but as it's RAW it doesn't affect the data captured.

Thank you for pointing out my misunderstanding. Yes, though a WB (set in the camera before capturing) gets noted in the RAW's metadata and may open a RAW accordingly this WB correction is still just a temporary setting for displaying the unmodified RAW data … and thus doesn't help here.

[James Ritson]

The issue is related to complexity of colour and values falling outside of the gamut being used for colour processing (Photo uses ROMM RGB internally for raw development). I wouldn't advise underexposing whilst shooting to try and mitigate the issue, as that will compromise the quality of your images: rather, it's something that needs to be addressed by Photo's RAW development (it is being looked at).

Magenta solarisation in saturated blue areas is typically seen when one or two of the components (R,G,B) have negative values—from user reports, this is the most common form of artefacting. Other issues can occur as well, such as worsening of colour fringing and banding around intense areas of light.

There are a handful of solutions that exist for this issue, and thanks to the open nature of the VFX community they are fairly well documented. I've recreated one of these solutions (a colour matrix shift that protects 'core' values based on a threshold) as a macro. If you want to continue developing your RAW images in Affinity Photo, you're welcome to try it and see if it helps?

To use it effectively, you need to develop your RAW images to a linear unbounded colour format. This is easily done via the Develop Assistant settings. Here are the steps:

1. Install the macros (drag-drop the .afmacros file onto Affinity Photo's user interface)
2. Without opening a file, go to the main assistant settings (the robot icon), then click the "Develop Assistant" button to go to the RAW development settings
3. Change RAW output format to "RGB (32 bit HDR)". Important: leave Tone curve set to "Take no action"
4. Open your RAW file and perform any initial editing, then develop it
5. Run the "Gamut Compression (sRGB)" macro. You can also try the Tone Mapping variant, which will compress the dynamic range. This may be useful for scenes with intense lighting. The ROMM variants are for if you want to edit in a wider colour space—the usual caveats with colour management apply here...
6. The image will be corrected, then converted to 16-bit per channel precision so you can continue regular editing

Here is a screen recording of the process as well:

 

I've included the old gamut shift method in the macros as well, as you may find that you prefer the result depending on your own imagery (it tends to produce a more saturated result).

 Hope that helps,
James

 

 

JR - Out of Gamut Colours Fix.afmacros

[James Ritson]

Just a quick thread bump to inform you that I've improved the method used for this colour correction (it now uses gamut compression as detailed in an ACES paper). The result is noticeably higher quality and more 'pleasing' than the previous thresholded gamut shift method. I've updated the screen recording and .afmacros attachment in the post above. Hope it helps!

[calebcudjoe]

Try it if you like but by far the best way i've found to fix this issue is by using selective colour. since the issue is magenta being read poorly by AP and photo and video editors in general, then you just need to remove excess magenta from the image. when red appears to be messed up it's actually being converted as magenta in AP so if you go to magenta on selective colour and reduce magenta ( ie add green) it should fix it, similarly, when blue appears mesed up it's actually magenta in the blue so again if you reduce magenta it should fix it. adjust these two till it looks like the colour of the light/ till the super saturation disappears. iyou can tweak either of these further by adjusting the luminance of the channels left. you can tweak either of these further by adjusting the luminance of the channels left as well as blue saturation an HSL layer if the colour is still off adjust it however you feel like from there

 

[Announcement]

I just wanted to drop in here and say that I really appreciate the responses that have trickled in in the months since I posted this issue! I've had a relatively long break from shooting concerts (life tends to happen), but I'm jumping back into it now and will test the suggestions that have come in since I last grappled with this stuff!

In any case, converting to TIFF in Bridge, then working on the TIFF file in Affinity has worked pretty well for me. It's a workaround rather than a fix, but I'm putting it out there in case it is useful to someone else as well.

Thanks again to everyone who's dropped by and made excellent suggestions!