Lens correction profiles

[pvandck]

Hello everyone. I'm new to this forum and Affinity Photo (though I'm not new to digital image editing and RAW file processing).
I have a couple of questions about lens correction profiles in version 2.3.1 for Windows.
I cannot find profiles in the drop-down list for Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM, and Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG DN (Art 021) for Sony FE. I use these lenses fairly frequently in studio and manual corrections are not really feasible. Is there any chance these lens correction profiles could be added to the list, please?
Is there a way I can update the lens correction profiles or import them myself?
I would be most grateful if someone could answer these questions for me.

Many thanks!
 

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @pvandck.

Affinity Photo uses Lensfun for its lens support. If your lenses are not supported by the latest version of Affinity Photo, please see this page:

https://lensfun.github.io/calibration/

[David in Яuislip]

You can do this the proper way per Alfred's link or you can cheat and borrow a similar profile
Try attached xml in the Lens Profiles Folder - see Help if you're unfamiliar with this. I see a reduction in barrel distortion, comments in xml show what I did

Sigma35mmf1-4dgdnFaux.xml

[pvandck]

2 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

You can do this the proper way per Alfred's link or you can cheat and borrow a similar profile
Try attached xml in the Lens Profiles Folder - see Help if you're unfamiliar with this. I see a reduction in barrel distortion, comments in xml show what I did

Sigma35mmf1-4dgdnFaux.xml 7.15 kB · 0 downloads

Thank you very much for your reply.
I actually have lens profiles in Camera Raw, but I don't know if they would work with Affinity. I shall try.

[pvandck]

8 hours ago, Alfred said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @pvandck.

Affinity Photo uses Lensfun for its lens support. If your lenses are not supported by the latest version of Affinity Photo, please see this page:

https://lensfun.github.io/calibration/

Thank you Sir for this information. I will take a look at it and see what I can do.

[David in Яuislip]

18 minutes ago, pvandck said:

I actually have lens profiles in Camera Raw

I suggest you try both, lcp files can be used with Photo. Whenever I have compared them in the past the lensfun profiles came out better although it's subtle. Good luck

[pvandck]

4 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

I suggest you try both, lcp files can be used with Photo. Whenever I have compared them in the past the lensfun profiles came out better although it's subtle. Good luck

Thanks.

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

lcp files can be used with Photo

How?

[lphilpot]

15 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

How?

I don't remember if I just copied them there or if there was an Affinity process that put them there but I have a number of custom LCPs in C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\2.0\LensProfiles (on Windows). I created them using the Adobe Lens Profile Creation tool.

Photo is able to use them:

That Rikenon lens is an old film SLR lens which was not in Lensfun, so it has to come from my LCP file. A quick Google / AP Help search didn't turn up any procedure, but there it is...

[David in Яuislip]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

How?

From Help

"Preferences
Preferences comprise a series of miscellaneous options that are applied across your application. They can be used to set up your own way of working.

General options
<snip>
For automatic RAW lens correction, include lens profile updates for new cameras. Place the downloaded Lensfun XML file or Adobe Lens Correction Profile (LCP) in the opened folder."

[pvandck]

On 2/17/2024 at 6:36 PM, walt.farrell said:

How?

I'm working in Windows, so if you have your .lcp file, copy it to the following path... Users/profile name/AppData/Roaming/Affinity/Photo/2/LensProfiles
That's it.
Open your raw file in the application and apply the lens correction for the appropriate lens. I found my "Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM" file easily, in the the obvious place. The other profile (for Sigma 35mm F1.4... Art 021) I had to search the list for because it was for some reason placed in an odd order. But it was there, and it works. And because I don't want to search for it each time, and it's not identified automatically (I don't know why), I just marked it as a "favorite".

[walt.farrell]

50 minutes ago, pvandck said:

so if you have your .lcp file, copy it to the following path... Users/profile name/AppData/Roaming/Affinity/Photo/2/LensProfiles

Thanks.

Note: It's better to use the button in Photo's Settings, though, as the location will differ depending on the kind of installer you use, and the OS. The button will always get you to the right place

[David in Яuislip]

1 hour ago, pvandck said:

The other profile (for Sigma 35mm F1.4... Art 021) I had to search the list for because it was for some reason placed in an odd order.

If you open the lcp file in a text editor you will see this a few lines down from the top
stCamera:LensPrettyName="SIGMA 35mm F1.4 DG DN A021"

Replace all instances of 
SIGMA 35mm F1.4 DG DN A021
with
35mm F1.4 DG DN | Art 021
so they read
stCamera:LensPrettyName="35mm F1.4 DG DN | Art 021"

the lens will then be automagically recognised by Photo. I'd post the lcp but think they may be subject to Adobe copyright

[David in Яuislip]

Looking at the lcp and lensfun corrections the former still shows a fair bit of barrelling and is basically useless

[lphilpot]

36 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

Looking at the lcp and lensfun corrections the former still shows a fair bit of barrelling and is basically useless

You could always try making your own LCP...? Or is this one you made?

[pvandck]

6 hours ago, lphilpot said:

You could always try making your own LCP...? Or is this one you made?

You're right, it doesn't look up to much there.
It's an Adobe profile for Camera Raw, and I've been using it with the old PS CS6. I can't say I've noticed any barrel distortion with it using Camera Raw. I'll have to look more closely at that.
It's quite likely that lcp files perform better with Adobe software, while xml files do better with other software like Affinity. Not all RAW processors are the same.
Thanks very much for the feedback and observations.

[David in Яuislip]

14 hours ago, lphilpot said:

You could always try making your own LCP...? Or is this one you made?

Life's too short for that, I use Photolab which has superb lens distortion corrections plus Viewpoint which allows additional perspective correction. Anyone interested in such corrections would be advised to try the trials. The lcp comes from Adobe and was installed with the DNG converter.

 

8 hours ago, pvandck said:

t's quite likely that lcp files perform better with Adobe software,

I think it's likely that Photo doesn't implement the lcp correction properly. I don't have any software that uses lcp's other than Photo but I would be amazed that Adobe would produce something that makes the issue worse eg in the image below the lcp version looks more barrelled than the uncorrected one to my eyes

[pvandck]

3 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

Life's too short for that, I use Photolab which has superb lens distortion corrections plus Viewpoint which allows additional perspective correction. Anyone interested in such corrections would be advised to try the trials. The lcp comes from Adobe and was installed with the DNG converter.

 

I think it's likely that Photo doesn't implement the lcp correction properly. I don't have any software that uses lcp's other than Photo but I would be amazed that Adobe would produce something that makes the issue worse eg in the image below the lcp version looks more barrelled than the uncorrected one to my eyes

I think the answer to this is that Affinity doesn't apply the lcp file correctly.
I've just looked at some photos I took this afternoon for this purpose, and applied this lens correction in Camera Raw (PS CS6) and it works perfectly, leaving no barrel distortion.
Meanwhile the same same lens correction (same lcp file) applied in Affinity actually increases barrel distortion.
So I suppose my question now is, does Affinity Photo work correctly with any other lcp file? Or is it really meant to work correctly only with xml files?
If I get a chance later I'll post some images for comparison.

[David in Яuislip]

11 minutes ago, pvandck said:

Meanwhile the same same lens correction (same lcp file) applied in Affinity actually increases barrel distortion.

Yes, that's my conclusion. This is one for the folk in Nottingham to fix

[pvandck]

On 2/17/2024 at 3:02 PM, David in Яuislip said:

You can do this the proper way per Alfred's link or you can cheat and borrow a similar profile
Try attached xml in the Lens Profiles Folder - see Help if you're unfamiliar with this. I see a reduction in barrel distortion, comments in xml show what I did

Sigma35mmf1-4dgdnFaux.xml 7.15 kB · 4 downloads

 

On 2/17/2024 at 6:07 PM, pvandck said:

Thank you very much for your reply.
I actually have lens profiles in Camera Raw, but I don't know if they would work with Affinity. I shall try.

I've just been looking at this xml file. It's for an older version of the lens (Art.019). The newer version of this lens (Art.021) has 2 different profiles - one for Sony and one for Lumix. What I need is an xml file for Art.021 (Sony).
As you may have seen from my post earlier this afternoon, the lcp file doesn't work properly with Affinity Photo.
Oddly enough, the Lumix version of this LCP, when applied to the Sony images in Camera Raw, produces the same effect as the Sony version lcp file in Affinity... it actually increases the barrel distortion.

[David in Яuislip]

9 minutes ago, pvandck said:

It's for an older version of the lens (Art.019)

No it's from a different lens, the 35mm F1.2 DG DN | Art 019, I just took a flyer to see what would happen. I think it's better than no correction and in some cases may be ok but it isn't suitable for architectural shots. What you need doesn't yet exist in lensfun

[lphilpot]

4 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

19 hours ago, lphilpot said:

You could always try making your own LCP...? Or is this one you made?

Life's too short for that, I use Photolab which has superb lens distortion corrections plus Viewpoint which allows additional perspective correction. Anyone interested in such corrections would be advised to try the trials. The lcp comes from Adobe and was installed with the DNG converter.

I also use the LCPs that came with the DNG converter, but there was no profile for two of my lenses (Ricoh Rikenon P 50mm f/1.7 and Canon EF 70-200 F/4 USM). So I made custom LCPs at several focal lengths. All together took maybe a couple of hours.

[pvandck]

10 hours ago, pvandck said:

I think the answer to this is that Affinity doesn't apply the lcp file correctly.
I've just looked at some photos I took this afternoon for this purpose, and applied this lens correction in Camera Raw (PS CS6) and it works perfectly, leaving no barrel distortion.
Meanwhile the same same lens correction (same lcp file) applied in Affinity actually increases barrel distortion.
So I suppose my question now is, does Affinity Photo work correctly with any other lcp file? Or is it really meant to work correctly only with xml files?
If I get a chance later I'll post some images for comparison.

Camera = Sony A7R2
Lens = Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG DN (Art 021)

Here are a few images to illustrate the lcp problem:
Unadjusted image
Adjusted using Sony lcp file in Camera Raw
Maladjusted using Lumix lcp file in Camera Raw (for curiosity and comparison)
Maladjusted using Sony lcp in Affinity Photo Persona

[pvandck]

Just to add, I've now tested the Sigma lcp on the same image in RawTherapee 5.9. It seems to work just fine there too, including the vignetting corrections. 🤔