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Affinity Photo 2 - 2.5.3 Free Trial version- Raw Files Underexposed


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High I am new to Affinity Photo 2 (AP2) and this is my 1st posting. System is Windows 10. Performance Settings have Renderer as "Default (Nvidia GEForce GTX1070)" with Hardware acceleration Enabled (Open CL Compatible Acceleration). Affinity RAW Engine set as Serif Labs. Raw Files are .ARW from Sony A7c.

I've run tests to check this out. The In Camera histograms for the test images showed a good spread of tones from left to right with exposure on the camera monitor looking correct. I am 46 years a photographer with 18 years experience of digital.

When importing the images into Lightroom and opening them the histograms again showed a good spread of tones from left to right with correct exposure. The same was true when they were opened in Photoshop ACR.

NOT SO WHEN OPENED IN AFFINITY. The images are under exposed with the histogram graph skewed all to the left. Exposure slider need increasing by 1 to 2 stops which then produces lots of highlight clipping in areas which are not over exposed.

I'm trialing AP2 prior to upgrading my system so I'm hoping I've missed a setting somewhere and someone can solve this problem for me?

Overall not a good start as I have 2 other problems which I will post separately

 

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Maybe you can post such a raw file in question.

The main reason for the difference you see between AF and LrC is the fact that LrC is always pre-developing raw files based on the informations in the raw file and a maybe existing camera/lens profile.

When I open such a file in FastRawViewer, which displays the real raw file without pre-developing, I also see such differences.

Regards,
Otto

Affinity Suite v2.5.x - Windows 11 Pro

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Thanks Otto.

Since I originally posted this I've had an opportunity to try the Files on  a Mac Intel based system. With the RAW engine set to Serif Labs the images open under exposed as per my experience with my Windows 10 device. Change the RAW Engine setting to Apple (Core Image RAW),which I believe is correct for Mac Devices, and the images open correctly exposed?

I've not heard of FastRawViewer. Whilst I do not have a technical knowledge regardng RAW file conversion I have to say that over the years I have used Many RAW converters including those from the camera manufacturers. They all all opened images correctly exposed. That is to say as I expected they would according to what I am seeing on the camera monitor and histogram and my exposure settings for the image concerned.

As I said I'm trialing AP2 prior to upgrading my system.  I am considering Mac as well as Windows so maybe Mac is the way to go.

Regards

Ian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ting to

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58 minutes ago, sonian said:

Change the RAW Engine setting to Apple (Core Image RAW),which I believe is correct for Mac Devices, and the images open correctly exposed?

"Correct" depends on how you want to use the application. You certainly have a choice between the Serif and the Apple Raw engines, and they will behave differently in some cases.

But the Apple Raw engine won't let you Develop to a Linked or Embedded Raw layer, so you lose that function which is only provided by the Serif engine.

As mentioned by mopperle, it would help if you'd attach a Raw image you're having trouble with.

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

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.7, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.7

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On 8/26/2024 at 6:52 PM, sonian said:

High I am new to Affinity Photo 2 (AP2) and this is my 1st posting. System is Windows 10. Performance Settings have Renderer as "Default (Nvidia GEForce GTX1070)" with Hardware acceleration Enabled (Open CL Compatible Acceleration). Affinity RAW Engine set as Serif Labs. Raw Files are .ARW from Sony A7c.

I've run tests to check this out. The In Camera histograms for the test images showed a good spread of tones from left to right with exposure on the camera monitor looking correct. I am 46 years a photographer with 18 years experience of digital.

When importing the images into Lightroom and opening them the histograms again showed a good spread of tones from left to right with correct exposure. The same was true when they were opened in Photoshop ACR.

NOT SO WHEN OPENED IN AFFINITY. The images are under exposed with the histogram graph skewed all to the left. Exposure slider need increasing by 1 to 2 stops which then produces lots of highlight clipping in areas which are not over exposed.

I'm trialing AP2 prior to upgrading my system so I'm hoping I've missed a setting somewhere and someone can solve this problem for me?

Overall not a good start as I have 2 other problems which I will post separately

 

Using the A7R V  sRGB or AdobeRGB RAW files I also encountered all histograms are shift and clipped to the left. +2 to 2.5 stops are required to get a acceptable image. Even than the histogram is incorrect. Using the Sony engine IEDT provides better results, histogram is correct (as shown in the camera) jpeg and RAW look similarly in stops. It looks the labs convertor needs be internally calibrated, shifted +2.5  being 0 than on the outside.  So i started using the sony IEDT tool to correct colours since these are usually minimal.  In case i want to correct highlights/shadow areas, i import the IEDT image in Affinity 2 and use the paint tool.
Could the labs correct this mismatch ? Its quite confusing. Note RAW for most users is adjusting minimal settings to improve the image.

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On 8/27/2024 at 3:32 PM, sonian said:

Thanks Walt

Yes I see what you mean about Apple not allowing development to an Embedded Raw Layer. RAW file attached nothing special Image wise._DSC3522.ARW

 

Are you opening that file with Tone Curve on or off. (Assistant manager settings)

It makes a big difference in the histogram

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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Thanks carl123. On Windows 10,Tone Curve has always been set to "Take No Action". When set to "Apply Tone Curve" there is a big improvement and the images look as I would expect on first opening. I'm busy over the coming weekend but will test further next week. I'll also see if I can use the Intel based Mac again. As I said earlier this didn't seem to have the problem but I'm not sure what the Tone Curve settings were at the time. The Exposure Bias settings below those for Tone Curve don't seem to have any effect?

Thanks AdrianusvdPol. This may be of interest to you but It  seems I was not the only one having this problem. Re IEDT. I have this installed and this was indeed my next step to try this for RAW Development which I will be doing next week.

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, sonian said:

When set to "Apply Tone Curve" there is a big improvement and the images look as I would expect on first opening.

Note that while it's an improvement, it is a generic "one size fits all" Tone Curve, not something tailored to the specific image. So it is likely to look better with some images than with others, and none of them will likely look as good as they could with manual adjustment.

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

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.7, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.7

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