1DsMKII RAW conversions 'over sharpened'

I've turned the sharpening to zero yet still the conversions are looking way over sharpened with nasty artifacts and a distinct 'digital' look that is quite nasty. Anyone else seeing this? Have I missed a setting somewhere?
Lawrence
QUAD Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I'm with Lawrence. At the end of the day it comes down to the final output. I'll keep playing with Aperture but I can't use it for anything until that is fixed. I need my conversions to work for all images not just some. The one that I was testing was shoot at ISO 1600. When I do the conversion with Photoshop and CaptureOne the files look great. It would be nice if Aperture let you send the RAW file to photoshop to convert. In my tests Aperture will only send the file as a tiff or psd but already converted via Aperture.
-Peter

Similar Messages

Aperture RAW conversion and noise

I've been using Aperture for many years and have recently learned something useful about how to tweak the RAW conversion settings. Until recently I just left them at the default settings for my camera, a Panasonic GH2.
Anyhow I've not been entirely happy with shadow noise (otherwise I reckon it's a great camera). Many web sites say that a degree of shadow noise is normal for this camera, so I didn't figure mine was any different. I tried a variety of noise reduction approaches but none really made a worthwhile improvement.
Until a few days ago when I tried tweaking the 'Raw Fine Tuning' settings - and I found a way to make things *much* better.
Please note that the following comments may only be relevant to Panasonic RAW files, and maybe only for the GH2. I don't know if they apply to other cameras (though I think they may.
It turns out that for the GH2, the default 'Raw Fine Tuning' setting includes 'Sharpening' of 0.78 and 'Edges' of 0.79. This is fairly aggressive sharpening, but I didn't really realise what it was doing to noise until I discovered that was significantly increasing shadow noise -even at base ISO!
If I set these both the sharpening sliders in the Raw Fine Tuning section to '0', the 'grain' in the shadows is much smoother - a massive improvement.
But, of course, the image is a bit less 'sharp'. Well, this isn't much of a problem with 16+ megapixel cameras. Unless you are making huge enlargements from originals, and really look closely at the finest details at 100%, it makes very little difference if you give up this 'sharpness'. But the reduction in noise is actually very obvious indeed. It's much better!
Most of the sharpness I need on these less noisy images can easily be added by including the 'Edge Sharpen' adjustment, either at the defailt settings, or marginally toned down a bit. I'm currently using Intensity 0.7, Edges 0.3 and Falloff 0.4. This leaves most smooth areas untouched, so the 'noise' or 'grain' in smooth areas is as it comes from the sensor. By toggling the Edge Sharpen on and off, I can easily confirm no change in 100% or 200% loupe views.
That level of edge sharpening is a bit subtle, but actually achieves most of what I got from the Raw Fine Tuning sharpening sliders. It will be applied only to in-focus contrasty things like eyelashes or hairs or other defined edges, and very nicely.
So I'm sharing this in case other people also find it helpful. I strongly suggest removing the default sharpening entirely, and only using the Edge Sharpening slider in a cautious manner if you want to enhance sharpness.
Some related web pages:
http://www.jonroemer.com/blog/2011/01/aperture-3-too-sharp-tweak-the-default/
http://www.twin-pixels.com/raw-processors-review-aperture-bibble-capture-one-dxo -lightroom/
PS - there is a different issue with the default Raw Fine Tuning 'Boost' and 'Hue Boost' sliders, both of which are set to 1' by default. It turns out that these introduce a very large amount of contrast and exposure gain - turn them down to zero and the image goes quite dark and flat! The Aperture user guide says something about Hue Boost changing colours when Boost is set to '1' and this is the case. So I've experimented with turning them both to zero, and instead using a custom curves adjustment to achieve a similar level of exposure and contrast to the default conversion and the camera's default JPG image. By fine-tweaking the curves one can get better control of blown highlights and the overall contrast. I'm not sure if the colours are 'better', but I think so. I am fairly sure that I get smoother transitions in the mid-tonal ranges with this approach rather than just using Apple's default settings. Maybe they are a but strong for my liking. Certainly I can make curves that rarely require the 'Recovery' slider to fix over-boosted highlights. Anyhow, you may also find that this tweak helps a bit. Interestingly on a Canon RAW file the effect is not nearly as great in exposure terms, but there is also a definite colour change.
PSS - the end result is that I have set my camera preset for RAW fine tuning to zero settings for boost, hue boost, sharpening and edges. I then add contrast as needed using curves, and sharpen only with a little edge sharpening. I've then saved a few Presets with slightly different contrast curves and all with a little edge sharpening. I can very quickly select the level of contrast needed, and I am very confident that my results are quite a bit better, with better tonal gradations and much less noise.
Hope this helps
Chris.

Nice observations, Chris. I think the RAW Fine Tuning is often overlooked, even though it's a vital first step in RAW processing, and really the whole point of shooting RAW in the first place. Too much boost yields horrible skin tones in my experience. I have a default of .50 Boost and Hue Boost, Sharpening and Edges at .25, Moire .50, Radius 12.0 and Denoise .25. I've found these are "mid range" settings for the Canon 5Dii, and first make small adjustments to the Fine Tuning brick before moving on to exposure adjustments.

Raw conversion to JPG better with DPP than ARC 5.X

I started testing conversion from raw to jpg with Canon's Digital Photo Professional and ARC 5.x (CS4) and noticed a much better conversion with DPP. At low ISOs does I don't see much difference, however at 800+ it is very noticeable. I hate to give up the work flow of Bridge and ACR and go back to using DPP. Is there anything that can be done to improve this?

Quoting from an old post of mine, with apologies to all who have read it before:
This has been covered ad nauseam here. Please do a forum search for more details.
Camera manufacturers, Canon and Nikon in particular, perform in-camera RAW to JPEG conversions designed to generate the over-saturated, over-contrasty and over-sharpened images that appeal to most amateurs.
Their stand-alone RAW conversion software also performs the same conversion to your RAW images.
Noise is also hidden by compressing the shadows so you don't see much of the noise inherent in the image.
Adobe Camera Raw, ACR, on the other hand, comes with default settings designed to give you the most detail possible
(even if this sometimes means revealing some of the noise hidden by the camera manufacturers in their RAW conversion software), as well as the most natural images.
That being said, you can calibrate your camera to ACR and come up with your own settings to produce exactly what you want, including the JPEG-look of the camera manufacturer, and save that as your profile.
The key is to learn how to use ACR properly and to calibrate your camera to ACR.
The camera calibration refines the settings by letting you adjust for the exact sensor response of your individual camera unit rather than the average of a sampling of such unites provided by Adobe.
The ACR defaults are nothing more than a suggested starting point.
The color temperature won't necessarily match either.

"Unable to save the raw conversion settings. There was a write permission error."

I just built a new workstation for processing photos using PS CS5. I use external drives to store my images as I find it easier for backing up as well as for when I want use my laptop for sorting, etc.. I copied over all my old "Collection" files, and of course, had to "fix" them once on the new machine. Once pointed in the right direction, the collections all fill out correctly.
When I go to process a collection though, I encounter an odd problem I can't seem to sort out. I can delete files, rename files, copy/paste to the external drives, etc.. What I can't seem to do is add Labels, Ratings, or modify RAW settings. I mean, I can use ACR to make adjustments, I just can't seem to save them.
The system just ignores label, rating commands completely. When I try to save an ACR adjustment I get this error. "Unable to save the raw conversion settings. There was a write permission error."
The files are NOT write protected. I'm set up as the owner of my workstation, with complete control of the system. I can't seem to find any useful information about this error because the "write permission error" seems to only be happening on installs, so that's all I can find help for.
My system:
Intel Core i7 970@ 3.20GHZ
24.0 GB RAM
64-bit OS - Windows 7 Pro
DX58S02 Motherboard
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

Thanks for replying. I've been going crazy trying to fix this.
To answer your first question; I use sidecar XMP files. If everything from my archive was shot in RAW I'd try converting to DNG and see if embedding the changes directly in a file worked. Unfortunately, a lot of my old stuff was shot in JPG, so sidecars seems to be the best choice.
When I add labels, ratings, as well as change RAW settings on files I place on my workstations HD everything works. It's only when I try to do these things with the same files on removable drives that I run into trouble. The drives I use are Transcend 640GB StoreJet 25ms connected via USB.
I don't think it's a UAC problem. At least, to my understanding, doesn't that control how your machine alerts you to program changes? I looked into how to change ownership, and did so, but that didn't work. Here's a link to what I mean: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/windows-7-access-denied-permission-ownership/
I'm stumped. I also hate the idea that I'll have to go through various folders to find images from already created collections, copy them to a new folder on my HD and then work on them. Then I'll have to put them all back... ugghhhh

Aperture 2 vs Aperture 3 RAW conversion

I am new to Aperture and have been reading up on it. One point I thought was interesting was that v3 RAW conversion was considered improved over v2. I could understand that there could be a variance during the initial release of v3, but at some point v2 conversion would have been updated.
Is there a difference between v2 and v3 RAW conversion?
If so, how big of a difference? Would it be better to use Canon RAW converter instead?
Thanks,
Kenn

You need to eyeball the various conversions using your own typical photos. Each different camera model is a different RAW conversion, and each individual's brain/eyes see them differently. With the Nikon D2x I prefer Nikon's conversion over Aperture's and Aperture's over Adobe's - but Aperture's workflow is superior by a lot so I use Aperture.
If I was selling a thousand dollar large landscape print (I wish) shot on a D2x I would do the RAW conversion using Nikon Capture NX 2 rather than using Aperture, but that is just my personal preference with that particular camera model. And I see the difference as tiny, small enough that for most photography the workflow is more important.
HTH
-Allen

Do you change the default RAW conversion settings?

I have used Sony (and formerly used Panasonic MFT) cameras (a900, a850) for two or three years and never had any reason to change the default RAW conversion settings. Five weeks ago I started using Sony's new a77, and for the first time am not satisfied with Aperture's default RAW conversion. (I recalibrated all my monitors -- twice -- thinking that something in my color workflow had got busted.) The default a77 RAW file conversion results in an overly-saturated, "Disneyfied" picture. I have found that by sliding "Boost" almost to zero, and cutting "Hue Boost" by half, I end up with a much more life-like, atmospheric, picture -- and one that closely matches the default rendering of RAW files from the a850 and a900.
1. Do you change the default RAW conversions settings? Why?
2. To what units, specifically, do the scales of these controls refer?
3. It seems that Hue Boost provides a range of settings that corresponds to the print settings "Perceptual" (= zero hue boost) to "Relative Colorimetric" (= full hue boost); does that make sense?
The User Manual, as usual, provides a solid concise explanation of the RAW Fine Tuning Brick.
Any experience you can share is appreciated. Thanks.
(Added:
(It seems conceptually wrong to me to have these controls be part of the RAW converter. Are there other adjustments in Aperture that do the same thing?)
--Kirby.
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger

William -- many thanks for your help. I will almost certainly change the default for my a77 (as well as for the Nex-7 I used for a week).
Are there is any other adjustments mathematically similar to the "Boost" or "Hue Boost" sliders in the RAW Fine Tuning Brick? I ask for two reasons:
- Mostly I'm just trying to figure out what they do, and strengthen with knowledge my quiver of Aperture effects. According the the User Manual, they change the overall contrast, and the amount to which the hue is changed as the overall contrast is increased.
- In practice, it makes sense to me to have the RAW conversion produce the "flattest", least "effected" image possible -- to leave _aesthetic_ adjustments to me. I don't want to use the RAW Fine Tuning controls as part of my workflow; I want to know how to get the same increase in contrast and control of hues using other adjustments (that, specifically, don't require de-mosaic'ing). Apple seems to indicate that the use of the RAW Fine Tuning controls may be the best approach:
For images that consist of saturated primary and secondary colors, such as an image of flowers in a lush garden, shifting the hues to their true values has a desirable visual effect. However, this is not visually desirable for images containing skin tones.
The implication is spelled out in the sentencesthat follow: use the max setting for flowers, and the minimum setting for portraits. Isn't it odd that this recommendation is left to the RAW converter, and is buried deep in the User Manual?

Fuji X-trans raw conversion

I have both the Fuji X-E1 and the X100s. The conversions of the raw files in ligtroom, while much better than they were, still have a way to go to match raw conversion from programs like Photo ninja and Iridient. I'm wondering if Adobe is working on improving the raw conversion of X-Trans files in lightroom. Love lightroom, but the raw conversion of fuji files is still problematic in areas of fine detail, like tree branches and leaves. The effect is something like an halo around these features, and is worse once the files is sharpened.

I'm very interested in this topic, too. Actually, I'm sure there are tenth of thousands of photographers interested, including professionals. I just purchased Lightroom, but this is a great chance for Adobe's competitors to get clients. Let's see if Adobe answers to this thread, and if they will do something to fix the poor X-Trans (but also micro 4/3 like Olympus OM-D E-M1) support. They have the experience to do something in very short times, let's see...

Fuji Raw Conversion Software as External Editor in Lightroom

Anyone know whether Fuji's Hyper Utility RAW conversion software (if I remember the name correctly) will work as an External Editor in Lightroom. (Just read an article by a Nikon photographer who uses Capture NX this way in Lightroom and wonder whether the same is possible for Fuji.)

Thanks; I guess my question (which I did not state clearly) is whether if, at the end of processing in HV-S3 and "Save" the saved file (likely a TIFF) will automatically appear in the Lightroom Library associated with the original RAW file; this would be the chief advantage over just opening the folder with the file in HV-S3 to begin with, but it occurs to me that this may be a dumb question (as I've just downloaded and begun to use Lightroom and can't experiment with HV-S3 yet as it has not yet been released, but will be shortly). Thanks again.

Awful canon raw conversion for photos with dramatic (i.e. underwater) non-standard white balance

I'm shooting underwater (and white balancing as I shoot using a white disc) with a canon s90, and have noticed that the raw conversions done by aperture are way worse than those from jpegs when I shoot in raw+jpeg and those done by raw processing using the canon digital photo professional software. In particular, reds are pretty much lost. It may be a false lead, but I notice that in aperture, the rgb histogram shows a dramatic spike of the red channel on the far right (possibly clipping?) that doesn't show up in the rgb histogram in the canon software.
I'm not sure whether this is related to the plethora of threads about canon raw processing and overly green output. Has anyone else experienced this or have any ideas? I could batch convert to tiff in the canon software but I'd really rather not do that... For one thing the 16bit tiff files are so much bigger than the raws and it is an annoying extra step. Also, note that I can't just batch fix the white balance because (a) I'm having a hard time getting aperture to do it properly (possibly b/c the red channel is clipped as far as the aperture UI is concerned?) and (b) The white-balance changes from picture to picture as I change depth, which is the whole reason I white-balance as I'm shooting in the first place..
I've attached two versions of a picture, one of which I processed the raw in aperture and one of which I processed the raw (and converted to TIFF to give to aperture) in the canon software. I then exported both as small jpegs from aperture.
Canon Digital Photo Professional (correct):
Aperture RAW processing (very wrong):

>Is MS Picture Viewer a colour managed application? I don't know, but don't think so. Lightroom is however which might be the cause of your problems.
Not in XP. In vista it is color managed. From the sound of it, the problem is a bad monitor profile but you might also have a corrupt Lightroom database. You need to recalibrate the monitor and NEVER use canned profiles from the monitor manufacturer. They are almost always corrupt. As a very last resort, you can use sRGB as the monitor profile (delete any profile found in the windows display properties) but only to hold you over until you can really calibrate it. The other problems with weird errors are pretty worrisome though. Do you also get them when you start a fresh catalog?

RAW conversion, iPhoto vs Aperture

I currently shoot in RAW, save the folder to my desktop, convert files in ACR and import into Photoshop for edits; I then create a master edited TIFF for each saved image a, plus make 3-5 variations (composites, B&W, etc) of every master image . When all that is in the (renamed) desktop folder, I then import that folder into iPhoto where finished files are routed to Smart Folders.
For added security I routinely backup all the RAW files using Export to an external HD.
The ideal workflow (for me) however, would be to use Nikon's free NX2 software to convert the RAW files into TIFF, do basic editing and import both the RAW and TIFF conversions directly into iPhoto. So far, I can't get that to work without going through the extra step of NX2>Desktop>iPhoto.
Am I missing something in iPhoto, or maybe it can't handle that?
Would Aperture allow that direct NX2 > Aperture import? I'm a little unclear on the Aperture RAW conversion process, so could I import RAW files folder into Aperture and then convert those RAW files to TIFF and edit them within Aperture? That way the only time I'd have to go outside Aperture would be to do something in PS that Aperture can't handle.
Brian

No
You simply have to set your editing program as the external editor for iPhoto - in the iPhoto preferences you can choose to send RAW to the external editor or not - if you do then once you edit the photo you must save it to the desktop and import the modified photo into iPhoto creating a new photo - if you do not pass it as RAW then you save in the editor and it is returned to iPhoto and the database properly updated
As to the process iPhoto uses - all originals are saved unmodified - RAW , TIFF or JPEG. as they are imported a small JPEG preview is generated for quick access by iPhoto and other programs - with RAW an additional large JPEG preview is saved -- when you edit in iPhoto the edit steps are saved and applied to the preview and to the thumbnail - future edits steps are also saved so you always start yoru edit with the unedited original and add edits so you never are but one step form the original eliminating the multiple editing losses that cause some people to use TIFF rather than JPEG -- hence my comment
Both can import and convert your RAW photos and both provide lossless editing so using giant TIFFs would not be necessagy
and
Unless you have very unusual requirements your work flow seems uncessary and overly complicated to me
as to
but if I want to see the original RAW file, and the edited versions stored within iPhoto
If you want to see both then they both have to be there - since iPhoto always keeps the original and while editing in iPhoto you can view it at any time by depressing the shift key most people prefer to simply their work flow and save the disk space and let iPhoto handle this
It really sounds like you do not want iPhoto and yoru best choice is to shoose a different photo manager that works like you want - or learn and understand iPhoto (and most if not all Digital Asset managers - DAMs - which work much like iPhoto) and use it the way it works
You can use what you please and do what you please, but if you use iPhoto you are making life very difficult by going against its standard procedures
LN

RAW conversion comments

I respect a photographers personal opinions regarding their perceptions of differing quality levels in RAW conversions but in the commercial world these perceived differences between Aperture and say ACR are so minimal they certainly do not qualify as a deal breaker.
In the real world of commercial photography, design and printing, photo images are ultimately used as 8 bit CMYK files or when used for Giclee printing as 8 bit RGB files. These files go through so much retouching and manipulation after the RAW conversion that the esoteric quality differences talked about in these posts are irrelevant.
The proper use of any Camera RAW converter is to balance the image before outputting it as a 16 bit TIFF or PSD for refined manipulation in Photoshop. This would include refined levels adjustments sometimes with layer masks and appropriate sharpening at the final output size.
We typically use the RAW converter to:
1- Pull back highlights that appeared to be blown
2- Open shadow detail that appeared to be plugged
3- Correct color casts and saturation
4- In some cases add special effects such as conversion to rich B&W
Very few serious professionals in either the commercial or fine arts world are going to use the RAW conversion as their final image.
We can argue forever about the pros and cons of this or that RAW conversion quality, but in the real world Aperture's solution, while not absolutely perfect, does an excellent job within a program that enhances real world productivity.
Dual 2ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Tom...
With respect, your logic is hard to accept. You state that in the commercial world, images are typically so heavily manipulated that initially quality of RAW conversion is non-issue.
I am surprised that no one has bothered to challenge this idea. So I'll step up.
If my RAW conversion out of ANY program is going to introduce banding artifacts, 'parquet flooring' patterns, or other noisy type data into solidly colored areas, that will need to be fixed in this manipulation of which you speak. Who could justify having to do this sort of thing when there are perfectly good RAW converters out there that don't add this particular headache to the workflow?
Your message states that "Apertures solution, while not absolutely perfect, does an excellent job within a program that enhances real world productivity."
That statement stands as a contradiction when you consider that extra 'fixing' may need to be done to some images coming straight out of Apertures RAW conversion.
I suspect that you (and others) are not seeing problems because evidence is mounting to support the idea that Apertures RAW conversion works better for some flavors of RAW than others. So, perhaps some people are seeing consisten image trashing, and some not. If this is the case, one could easily understand why some are 'satisfied' and some are positively livid.
However, I digress. I still don't agree at all with the idea that in the commercial world a substandard RAW conversion would make an acceptable starting point for any commercial image, regardless of how much manipulation down the track its going to go through. I can't see any art director being satisfied knowing this was going on in their shop.
"Aperture - sure it mangles your images, but it does a heck of a job keeping track of them!"
Jim

Poor raw conversion from Fujifilm X100 .raf format in Lightroom 3 and 4

I'm seeing very poor results when doing raw conversion from Fujifilm X100 .raf format. Who can I contact about this? Is there anything I can do?
See below for what is supposed to be a white curtain, lit by stage lighting. It results in a blown out blue channel, serious loss of detail, and very ugly gradient.
(Lightroom 4.2, Camera Raw 7.2 on LEFT --- Fujifilm X100 in-camera jpg on RIGHT)
And for more detail:
(Lightroom 4.2, Camera Raw 7.2 on TOP --- Fujifilm X100 in-camera jpg on BOTTOM)
(Lightroom 4.2, Camera Raw 7.2 on LEFT --- Fujifilm X100 in-camera jpg on RIGHT)

The blue light is so intense that it is, or almost is, saturating the sensor.
The camera’s built-in raw conversion handles this by shifting the color to cyan—clipping the blue and allowing the green to contribute more. I doubt there was cyan lighting in the scene, only blue.
Adobe does not shift the hue, but this makes the blue seem over saturated. Adobe’s conversion may be more colorimetrically correct, but less pleasing in this case of intense lighting that the sensor cannot accurately record.
It is a difference in camera profile used between the camera and Adobe. Since Adobe does not supply camera-match profiles for much more than Nikon and Canon cameras, you’re not going to be able to fix things other than managing the over-saturation using HSL or WB or other things like lower-vibrance, higher saturation.
You could try making your own camera profile using an X-Rite Color-Checker Passport or the color-checker and the Adobe DNG Profile Editor:
http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1257

Bad D3 RAW Conversion - Clipped color in shadows...

...and other issues.
Well. My thread was deleted last time and I didn't get any reasons as to why. What is up with this place? Good thing I always copy my message before posting. Never know when the internet is going to go kaboom... (or somebody is going to delete your thread.)
I just shelled out $200 for this product and the moderators are deleting my threads?!
I think I smell fish.
- Issue 1.
Aperture's raw conversion for the Nikon D3 is clipping the color from shadows.... generally. (About 99% of the time.) It is possible that the couple of images I haven't seen the problem occur in have color detail just above the clipping threshold.
This really makes for some ugly images.
Aperture team: How about we get an update to fix this?
I just spent 5 hours importing and organizing ~3k images into my existing library now that Aperture finally supports the D3 but now I can't use it. Unfortunately I have been forced to use Bridge for the last couple of months due to no D3 support. Through this, I have become accustomed to its (Bridge's) speed and ACR's RAW conversion. Now Aperture flies and it is MUCH appreciated but the raw conversions are a little noisy and the colorless shadows is a BIG problem.
In the samples below, watch the shadow on the brown wall behind her as well as the shadow areas on the neck in the close up. Note that the red strap in the file with the color clipped has almost no red left.
I have another image I took that I was playing with to see how far I could pull the file and still retain shadow detail. The image is in color and looks alright when opened with ACR but when I open it in Aperture, there is almost no color at all in the image. This leads me to believe that Aperture's D3 raw conversion is throwing away color information at a specific level.
I have a couple of sample images side by side here:
http://www.uberfoto.com/images/misc/temp/colorclipfull.png
http://www.uberfoto.com/images/misc/temp/colorclipcrop.png
- FYI, I don't have any of these issues with D200 NEF's.
- Issue 2.
The RAW sharpening has absolutely no affect on any of my D3 images. I bring up the camera model because it could be a specific camera issue. I haven't heard of anybody else having this problem.
- Issue 3.
Where are the CA removal tools?
I don't mean this in any sort of rude way. My intention was to bring up some issues that I have come across and see if I could get some feedback.
-Josh

The email I received was strictly regarding my post being deleted. I have not heard anything in reference to the RAW 2.0 problem.
Here is a comparison of the same image. One exported from Aperture and the other opened in ACR and saved as a JPG.
http://www.uberfoto.com/images/misc/temp/colorclipAP-ACR.jpg
http://www.uberfoto.com/images/misc/temp/colorclip_AP-ACRzoom.jpg
Another thing I noticed is that Aperture preview generator does not clip the color data like the raw converter does. Previews created after image adjustments retain their color in the shadows while the full composite view displays in monochrome. This is an image I took in the studio where the PW died and the flash didn't pop so it was very dark. The original image was nearly all black with no discernible details until I pulled the exposure back up. The ACR conversion looks nearly identical (discarding small differences in brand interpretation) to the "Preview" in AP2.0.
http://www.uberfoto.com/images/misc/temp/colorclipraw.jpg
http://www.uberfoto.com/images/misc/temp/colorclippreview.jpg

Contact Sheets / Proofing and useful Aperture RAW Conversion

All,
I wanted to appeal to all of you pro photographers out there to share about how you handle the proofing stage (contact sheets) with your clients. I'm curious about how you all make this process as efficient as possible.
Ok, say you have taken 1000 pictures for a wedding or some other event (forget the accuracy of that number, its just a round number for discussion sake). You need to present your photos to your client, but you need to present a subset of the 1000 photos for a few reasons:
1) Not all photos you are going to take are going to be great. I've heard a general quote by some pro photographers that their "keeper ratios" (the percentage of pics that are really good from a shoot) run around 10%-20%. Fair enough, I don't want to debate this percentage, but it gives us a target number of 100 photos to present to a client from a 1000 picture shoot.
2) Your client is probably not going to be happy if they have to sift through 1000 photos. I recently had a friend who paid several thousand dollars for a wedding photographer who sent them 1000 photos to choose from. They weren't particularly happy with this, and told the guy there was just too many to choose from. Personally, I felt that this was putting part of the photographer's responsibility on the client, but whatever.
Ok...so for the sake of the example here, we have to get 1000 photos down to 100 photos, so the client can choose what 50 (for example) they want to purchase and have printed, put in their photo book, slide presentation, etc.
Sorry for the long intro, but here is the issue at hand: we want to work quickly for the client, and get them their 100 photos as soon as possible. We also want to put our best foot forward, and give them high-quality photos. But at the same time, we want to work efficiently, and if possible not spend time doing final retouching on photos that the customer doesn't want, but rather focus this time directly on the photos the customer does want.
I have two questions from this which pertain to Aperture's RAW conversion and workflow:
1) Do you do any significant adjustments on photos for the contact sheets you present to clients (the 100 photos now)? Is it just a quick exposure adjustment, or are you retouching all 100?
2) Despite Aperture's RAW conversion problems and other adjustment glitches, is it sufficient quality in your opinion for a contact sheet?
My purpose in asking these questions is that perhaps the Aperture RAW conversion issue can be mitigated if we can get to the point of customer contact and review using Aperture-only conversion and adjustment tools, and then isolate photoshop use for only the final, significant edits. The problems with Aperture's RAW conversion are well-documented, but the question is, could it still be sufficient for small-scale proofs, understanding that for large-scale, high-res images, it won't be suffcient.
Your opinons are valued!
Brad
Powerbook G4-1.33GHz-17" / Powermac G4-1.4GHz Mac OS X (10.4.2) PB: 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600-64MB / PM: 1.25GB RAM, Radeon 9000Pro-128MB

">-DELETE project from Aperture because I can't use the app for the delivery
of finals:
Forgive me if I've forgotten the detail you may have posted elsewhere about this. I have seen you mention this several times, but I am really interested in the specifics behind the problems you have encountered. I have some needs in finishing that are beyond just regurgitating a photo. I'll be basically augmenting my photo with text, borders, special effects, etc. for more professional presentation, and the ability to market a photo in different ways. This is one reason I cannot discard Photoshop from my workflow. Anyway, let's assume for a moment I'm able to do all my editing in Photoshop, and those PSD files are sitting within Aperture. From there, what problems am I going to encounter? I'm tapping your brain here, as the time I have spent in Aperture has been primarily oriented toward everything prior to the finishing stage. "
Hi Brad,
If I've imported images into Aperture that have previously been worked over in Photoshop, none of the layers I may have created in those files will be available to me from within Aperture. This does not break but severely sprains the functionality of Photoshop. I'm keeping the images around because I think I or my clients will need them later, so what might I do with them?:
1) If I'd like to do more work on them I either have to abandon access to the previously created layers and their magic, or export the file from Aperture, work on it outside, import it back into Aperture. Every time I want to work with those layers I have to do the same dance.
2) If I'd like to send jpg or tif versions of those files anywhere I can choose to use the tools within Aperture or Photoshop to do so. Aperture's tools for these conversions are simply not of professional utility: no compressed tifs, no layered tif support, no quality choices for jpgs and no jpg previews. And in either case, using Aperture or Photoshop, the conversions are created OUTSIDE of Aperture and not managed by it.
3) When I decide to archive my older projects I'm faced with the incredible limitation that Aperture will not allow me any remote search of any archive that is not "live" within Aperture. Not even Spotlight will search Aperture libraries!!!!!
So moving already created projects into Aperture has absolutely no advantages and a number of problems, any one of which might be a deal-killer by itself.
If I'd like to use Aperture to manage work that I create going forward I've got those limitations already listed above, but I CAN access layers in PSD that are created from within Aperture. I cannot make layered duplicates of those files in order to work on versions of those images so once again the Photoshop workflow is hobbled.
All of this makes it a bad idea for my projects to make anything but a brief trip in and out of Aperture for sorting/proofing.
Regards,
fp

CS6 raw conversions

CS 6 raw conversions of Nikon Raw files, it makes a blank thumbnail with only the image file name, it does not do this in CS 5, does anyone know the problem?

You can change the Workflow Settings, click the hotlinked text at the bottom of your ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) window.
You can adjust the Resolution, Color Space, Bit Depth, Size, Sharpening and whether or not you want the image to open in Photoshop as a Smart Object.

1DsMKII RAW conversions 'over sharpened'

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