LR/ACR and Canon Highlight Tone Priority

Hey All,
I recently acquired a Canon 1D Mk III which, among other things, offers the Highlight Tone Priority function.
I've read different things about how this "works" and how it may affect Canon RAW files. Since I shoot only RAW, it's meaningful to me to understand what's going on with this function and if I as a RAW shooter gain a real benefit from its use.
From what I've read, I gather that with HTP enabled, and the ISO set to, say, 200 (the lowest ISO for HTP use) the camera actually reads the analog data for ISO 100 from the A/D Converter/amplifier, then applies a curve in digital processing to boost the exposure for the dark and midtones, while curving down the boost into the highlights. I don't have an expert analysis of this but more opinions of those who've run tests and analyzed the results.
One of these testers believes that for RAW, a flag is set in Exif that directs RAW converters to apply this flag -- in other words the actual RAW data is in this example the (underexposed) ISO 100 data and the converter, in our case Lightroom, knows to apply some kind of curve on initially rendering the data. In other words, in this opinion, the RAW data is the unchanged ISO 100, a stop underexposed relative to the desired ISO 200.
So, I'm hoping that those "in the know" in the Adobe world can give me a definitive answer so that I and other Canon RAW shooters can make an educated decision as to whether we want to use this tool or not!
I'd really like to hear from someone on the Adobe team about this, or one of you all who works with the team!
Thanks,
Tony

I don't mean to cause a problem with this statement...but here it goes any way:
For all those who have a cam with HTP, test this for yourself. You will see a noticeable difference between shooting in RAW with HTP on and off. (YMMV)
If we can see the difference, and it is a good one (in our favor of better image quality) than why do we need info from Adobe about this? We should just be happy it Does work and continue to confidently take our photos.
I have never used DPP to see if there is a difference between RAW w/HTP and the same image from LR.
edit:
I suspect the reason that it does work with LR is that HTP possibly works in the image pipeline in the camera. Meaning it does it's magic before it writes the raw file. So any luminance/tone-curve/iso trickery is done before the actual raw phase. The raw data has already been shifted (similar to RAW shot at ISO 3200, which we already know is 1600 underexposed 1 stop than pushed in camera before writing the file)

Similar Messages

1D MkIII Highlight Tone Priority & Aperture

Let's just say that Aperture does not currently understand the Canon Eos 1D MkIII's new 'Highlight Tone Priority' setting. Any of the images with HTP set to 'on' are approximately 1-stop underexposed. When I compare them to either the in-camera JPEG or a DPP version of a CR2 file, they are too dark. You can even see Aperture updating the thumbnails as they are processed; the ones with HTP = 'off' aren't updated, and look fine.
Is there any known workaround for this, short of waiting for Apple to update the RAW engine? This is a bummer, as I really needed Aperture to weed through 700 soccer images from this weekend...
Thanks in advance for any help,
Jeff

It sounds like it's Canon "secret sauce", which modifies what's captured even in the RAW (CR2) file between HTP-on and HTP-off (which is interesting, because so many of these types of features only affect the camera-produced or vendor-software-output JPEG file.)
From an article by Rob Galbraith, at http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-8739-8970
"A Highlight Tone Priority image is processed differently in the camera, regardless of whether the camera is set to CR2 or JPEG. Specifically, the amount of gain applied during the analog-to-digital conversion step is less. For instance, if the camera is set to ISO 200, the amount of gain applied is similar to or the same as ISO 100, which means more of the highlight detail captured by the sensor is preserved during this early in-camera processing step. This is the main reason the camera can't be set lower than ISO 200 when Highlight Tone Priority is enabled; it requires the extra highlight headroom it gets by applying a level of analog signal boost to the sensor data that is commensurate with a lower ISO setting.
After that, it's all secret sauce: Canon isn't publicly describing what is done to the image once it's in digital form, but it obviously involves a modified tone curve that's meant to give Highlight Tone Priority ON photos the same overall tonal look as Highlight Tone Priority OFF ones, but with more detail and smoother gradation in the highlights."
Interesting.

Unsupported for highlight tone priority enable RAW of 1 Ds MK III

I have used Aperture for a while and been very impressed with the feature of this software. However, I notice that Aperture does not fully support RAW file of 1 Ds MkIII. There is a problem in Aperture with 1Ds MK III RAW format when the "highlight tone priority enable" is turned on in the camera. The Aperture will shift the histogram of the picture to the left side, causing the picture to look darker.
Have anyone here has this problem?

Yes, it has been discussed before. If you shoot with highlight tone priority, Aperture will show the photos as underexposed by about 1 stop. Which is, frankly, what the camera is doing. You need to do extra PP work in Aperture if you go this route.

Acr and canon 70d

Hi,
i have just purchased a canon 70D camera and use lightroom 4 and elements 11 and neither of these support the camera for my raw files.
I much prefer to use ACR for my post editing and wondered if there will be an update in the very near future.I am not currently planning on upgrading to
lightroom 5 at this time.
Regards Adrian

Adobe needs to profile each camera’s raw sensor to convert raw to an image with the proper colors, and Adobe only updates their current version of software for new cameras.
If your camera-model is newer than your software version, then you’ll need to upgrade or update your software to a version that was released after the camera became available and Adobe added support, which includes the possibility of updating to the latest DNG Converter 8.2 once it is released (at the same time that ACR 8.2 and probably PSE12 are released), and converting your native-format raw files to DNG-format raw files that can be processed with older ACR and LR versions.
The issue, at the moment, is that the pre-released versions of ACR 8.2 RC and DNGC 8.2 RC from Adobe Labs pretend that the 70D raw files have camera profiles from the 6D so only the final versions of DNGC 8.2 and ACR 8.2 will have the new 70D camera profiles and the look of the images might change, slightly.
I prefer not to use DNG format for anything so I always update my LR and ACR to the latest version.

ACR and Canon DPP

Another question about ACR from the same greenhorn:
Is there a way to get ACR to recognize changes made to a CR2 file in Canon's Digital Photo Professional? I have a bunch of CR2s with retouching and color/etc. corrections made in DPP that I would like to convert to DNGs, but I really don't want to redo all my edits in ACR.
Thanks again,
Andrew Slayman
P.S. I am using ACR 4.4.1 with PS CS3 on Windows XP.

No.

Canon MKIII Highlight tone recovery V ACR recovery

I can see the point of using the 1D MKIII's HTR feature with JPEGS for high contrast range subjects to hold important highlight detail.
What is the consensus re in-camera HTR for RAW, versus no in-camera HTR and using highlight recovery in AR V4 on RAW files? (less chance of shadow noise with ACR as highlight specific adjustment)
Are Canon merely reducing the exposure at the highlight end and increasing overall exposure from shadows up the scale hence their advisory notice that HTR technology may increase shadow noise?

>Personally, I would prefer to have the histogram show the true status of the exposure and not some shifted value
>What is "true status"? The in-camera histogram is based on the camera settings, which have no impact on the raw data. I would prefer raw histogram shown in-camera, at least as an option, but I don't think many customers share this preference.
This issue has been covered many times. Since the histogram is derived from the JPEG preview with most cameras, you should set the contrast to low. Contrast affects the quarter tones much more than the extremes of the histogram. If you want to see the channels without white balance, at least with Nikon cameras, you can upload a special white balance to the camera where the red and blue multiplers are set to unity (UniWB). Also you can upload a TRC to the camera to undo the gamma encoding, but I've never tried this.
If you do a bit of experimenting, you can correlate the camera histogram with the raw file and have a pretty good idea of what is going on with the raw file, and you can gain quite a bit of control over the histogram. Some cameras indicate clipping in the histogram when there is none in the raw file, and this can be corrected with the proper TRC.
IMHO, a raw linear histogram is not a good idea, since the data would be scrunched up on the left. A log base 2 histogram would correspond to f/stops and that would be my preference and also corresponds with human luminance perception, which is log.
>The exposure with HTP On is the same as with HTP Off, but the ISO will be halved with HTP On (that's the reason for HTP working only from ISO 200 up). The loss in the raw data is the least significant bit. As the 1DMkIII creates 14-bit raw data, this loss is practically meaningless (assuming that the extra bits or at least the first of them is not random).
If you halve the exposure, shot noise will be increased by a factor of 1.4 across the tonal range. Usually dynamic range is limited by the noise floor, rather than by quantization. The 14 bit ADC wouldn't address the increased shot noise, but it might reduce the read noise.

ACR 7.3 Highlight Clipping Indicator

Just updated to the release version of ACR 7.3 and notice some weirdness with the highlight clipping indicator.
The file is from a Nikon D3 set at ISO 3200 with Nikon 24-70 f2.8 (shot at f3.2)
Open the file and all looks OK (it's noisy but what do you expect at ISO 3200). Set enable lens correction and the highlight indicator shows clipping with all other controls set to zero. OK I thought, lens correction is correcting for fall-off at the edges of the frame. Now go to the adjustments panel and just move the highlight conntrol to the left, you would think that the clipping would be reduced or maybe even eliminated - no the highligh clipped area increases in size. Zoomed in to 100% to see if it was a display anomoly, and no the clipping stays the same. The reverse of the shadow clipping I reported back in June.
Would have thought that moving the highlight slider to such an extreme value would have reduced the clipped area not make it grow.......
Here are some screen shots:
Image as opened in ACR
Now with lens adjustment applied
Now with highlight slider set to -85 (all other controls at zero)
Highlight at -85 100% Zoom
Update - something is not right with the displays with this latest version of ACR, opening up the shadows on the same image and the highlight clipping indicators actually show them decreasing
Another Update: These shots were taken in mixed lighting, colored gels adding to the mood of the icerink that were periodically changing color, ranging from Blue, Green, Red and combinations. Using the white balance picker on the white background the highlight clipped areas went away, but changing the color balance destroyed the mood of the scene as negated the color lighting effect. But should a change in color balance effect the highlight clipping so dramatically? Basically it looks like the highlight clipping indicator is being effected by contrast rather than the actual highlight values?
Running Photoshop CS6 13.01 (x64) on Windows 7 x64
Mike

We were discussing this in another thread several months ago
So, under certain conditions and when some camera profiles are used (both Nikon and Canon), it can happen that trying to reduce clipped area with sliders actually increases that area. It's caused by the profile as made by the factory (Nikon, Canon) and isn't ACR issue. I think I also posted a graphical representation of one profile showing why it happens. If not, I can post it
The fact is - sRGB / Adobe RGB gamut is smaller than gamut of raw image, so some colors are clipped even if they are not clipped in raw color space, sometimes in slightly unexpected way. However, if Adobe standard profile is used, clipping is performed according to ACR workflow which also has some drawbacks, which we also discussed in another thread on raw image from Olympus camera, several months ago
Showing area with RGB 170,165,180 as clipped is unexpected - can you post the sample ?

ACR and dynamic range tests

I have been looking at dynamic range tests on dpreview.com for different cameras. I'm particularly intrigued by the "RAW headroom" graphs. They have things like "ACR Best: Exp. -0.85 EV, Shadows 0, Bright. 70, Contrast -25, Curve Linear" (Pentax K10D), "ACR Best: Exp. -1.3 EV, Shadows 0, Bright. 70, Contrast -50, Curve Linear" (Canon 30D) "ACR Best: Exp. -1.0 EV, Shadows 0, Bright. 70, Contrast -50, Curve Linear" (Canon 400D). The "RAW ACR Best" curves for all these cameras are very different, and I don't think I understand their real meaning, so here are a few questions:
- What is a "linear curve" in ACR? Does it mean no curve at all is applied to the RAW data, and so what we see is the actual sensor response? Or, does ACR apply a standard curve to RAW data from all cameras, even when a "linear curve" is selected? Or even yet, are there different default curves (even with "linear curve" selected) for different cameras in ACR, and what implications would this have when comparing graphs from different cameras?
- Since these cameras have most likely been processed with different versions of ACR (since they were released at different times), could ACR's algorithms and defaults have been changed in any way that might prevent these tests from being readily comparable? For example, the noise reduction and highlight recovery algorithms might have been improved in the latest versions of ACR.
Thanks,
Marcos

>- What is a "linear curve" in ACR? Does it mean no curve at all is applied to the RAW data, and so what we see is the actual sensor response? Or, does ACR apply a standard curve to RAW data from all cameras, even when a "linear curve" is selected? Or even yet, are there different default curves (even with "linear curve" selected) for different cameras in ACR, and what implications would this have when comparing graphs from different cameras?
ACR will not give you the actual sensor response with no white balance or gamma encoding; for this purpose you need a specialized program such as DCRaw. If you convert into sRGB or aRGB, the image is encoded with a gamma of 2.2, whereas a gamma of 1.8 is used for ProPhotoRGB.
If you want to linearize the tonal response in ACR you can set the sliders on the basic tab to zero (Exposure, Brightness, Contrast to and Shadows). Curves was added in ACR ver 3.X and you should also set the curve to linear. The Medium and Strong Contrast in the curves tab adds to the Contrast slider in the basic tab, and I think that the two were not merged for reasons of backward compatibility. In all cases, the resulting image is gamma encoded. To learn more about these controls, I would recommend Bruce Fraser's Real World Camera Raw for PSCS2 book. The Exposure and Black sliders set the black and white endpoints respectively. The contrast control applies an S curve around the midpoint, which is set by the Brightness control (see p 81). Jeff Schewe is revising the book for PSCS3 due out shortly.
Dynamic range is limited by the noise floor and improvements in noise reduction in the current version of ACR could affect the results. Phil's dynamic range measurement uses highlight recovery with the Exposure slider (negative values). ACR 4.1 also has the Recovery slider, but he apparently does not use this control.

Is there a profile for Canon lenses 8-15 mm and Canon 800mm ?

Can we upload a profile for Canon 8-15 and Canon 800mm lenses?
If so where is it?

Ask in the PS/ ACR/ LR forums.
Mylenium

Phtoshop CS and Canon CR2 (400D)

I have CS on Windows.
I have read this in the FAQ:
====
Q: I have Photoshop 7, with Adobe Camera Raw 1; will there be an update to support the new cameras? What about Photoshop CS and Camera Raw 2.4?
A: Only the current version of Photoshop will receive ACR updates. However, when a new DNG converter is released, Camera Raw 2.4 in Photoshop CS and all versions of Camera Raw 3 in Photoshop CS2 will be able to open files supported by the new version of DNG converter. Photoshop 7 and ACR 1.0 do not support DNG, therefore you will need to upgrade to the latest version of Photoshop.
====
And I don't understand it - though I suspect it may offer me a (partial?) answer to my problem. Adobe's efforts at explaining are useless.
Go to Camera Raw latest plug-in and it says it is not compatible with CS.
Go to Camera Raw 2.x which is compatible with CS but it does not support Canon 400D CR2.
Go to Camera Raw 3.x which DOES support 400D CR2 but is not compatible with CS.
Nowhere (that I can find - and I've spent hours looking and half that time getting "this page not available for scheduled mantenance") does Adobe deign to explain what to do other than tell me I need to upgrade to CS3 (as do customer services).
The answer above seems to imply that some technical combination of Camera Raw 2.4 and a "new" DNG Converter will somehow allow a back level version of Camera Raw (2.4 - which will work with CS I gather) open new/later camera raw files (e.g. 400D CR2).
Can someone confirm that this is the case and provide idiot-proof advice on which "new" DNG converter I need to perform this simple magic? Thanks so much.
(Gee - it's not like CS, CS2, CS3 are all THAT different, are they? Why can't they just make Camera Raw back-compatible? Seems to me like a deliberate blackmail strategy to "encourage" expensive upgrades. But I'm just a p'd off cynic.)
Hey-ho
Thanks,
George

G Sch - thanks for your further clarification - very helpful.
Jim - thank you, indeed, for your patience. Though it is perhaps not quite as saintly as some of your friends imply given the obvious validity of John Joslin's comments that "there are plenty of examples outside the rarefied air of the Adobe world where such backward and forward compatibility is achieved." Shame on me for not being sufficiently au fait with this rarified world that your friends thought I was testing your patience unreasonably, and thanks again.
Thank you, John J, for recognising there is a real world out here beyond the dubious business ethics of Canon and Adobe, where such compatibility is not just expected but taken for granted and EASILY achieved. (As I implied - I want to be a customer, not a well to be dipped into at every turn until I'm dry.)
As for Ramon - well I don't normally respond to such sneers but - well, how does it feel to be on that hook Ramon? They've certainly got you, haven't they! So every time you buy a new camera, you fully expect a) to be moved for no reason whatsoever, other than they can do it to you, to a new and different and incompatible raw file format, and b) have to allow for the expense of being forced to upgrade your PS software or else stop using it and throw away your investment in it. Hope it feels good. Me? I don't see anything unreasonable in my expectation - but then I haven't fallen for an apparent Adobe (and Canon) con trick - until now ;-) - and I won't again (unlike some, it seems).
Funnily enough I (and probably you too, Ramon) have bought many new bits of hardware (called PCs) over the years and have run many different operating systems and all of them, even my Win 3.1 and Win98 ones (and I can still run Win98 on my latest PC, by the way) still run apps that can open and generate files (e.g. .doc) that I can use on all of these PCs. That may not be the best analogy - but yes I did acquire a camera that was not available when CS was - but who'd have expected Canon to have different raw formats for 300D, 350D and 400D? Shame on me for not doing my research. And seeing as CS, CS2 and CS3 are not completely DIFFERENT applications but evolutionary, who'd have thought they'd make an ARC for CS3 that was deliberately not compatible with CS, just to extort an upgrade fee from me. Oh - sorry - you'd have thought it, Ramon, that's who.
One does wonder how it is that buying a new camera effectively has an "Adobe tax" tied to it, and who benefits from the tax. (If Canon had any sense they'd stop their end of this so there was no opportunity for Adobe to levy the tax - but where is the 'tax revenue' spent, I wonder?)
Perhaps my expectations are unjustified, and someone can/will produce excellent and justified technical reasons why the Canon raw formats changed and why CS3 is so utterly different from primitive old CS that there are good reasons why backward compatibility would ruin the company (after all I said I'd pay a few bucks for it when I needed an ARC update). But Adobe aren't showing any signs of explaining this, and nor is anyone else - so until then I'll continue to treat them with the contempt they appear to treat their "customers" with. I made an investment in CS and they have not just utterly failed to respect that and seek to protect my investment, they have gone out of their way to render that investment worth less. I'll be using the native Canon tools and other photo apps from now on, rather more than PS, even given the DNG route.
Well that's 5 minutes more of getting it off my chest. :-)
I have the information I sought - thanks, Jim and others - so if I don't come back I'm sure you'll forgive me if I leave you all to it.
(Probably best to just let it all lie, now, eh?)

Elements 11 and Canon CR2 Compatability

Will Elements 11 open Canon CR2 files or Will I still need to convert to DNG?

Each camera is supported specifically, so it depends on the model of the camera, how new it is, compared to the version of the camera-raw plug-in that PSE11 is using. If the camera is newer than the plug-in then it won’t be supported because Adobe didn’t have a chance to profile ti before the plug-in was created.
You can update your PSE11 to the latest compatible version with Help / Updates in the Editor module.
If your camera is a 70D then it will be supported with ACR 8.2 plug-in version (use help/about plugsin/camera raw to determine the version) but because PSE12 comes out in a few days/weeks, as does ACR 8.2, then perhaps PSE11 will not be updated to ACR 8.2 and you’d need to buy PSE12.
What camera model are the CR2 files from and what version of the ACR plug-in are you using?
Here is a web-page at Adobe that lists the version of ACR (and other programs) for each model of camera they support raw files from:
http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/camera-raw-plug-supported-cameras.html

RAW vs JPEG in LR3+PS ACR and PS Filter

I have a custom made lens profile (Canon 17-35 2.8 on EOS 5D) made with RAW files.
It works fine for CR2 (RAW) files in LR3+Photoshop ACR and Photoshop filter,
but
- fails (doesn't appear in list) for JPEG files (same body/obj combo) in LR3+PS ACR
- is OK with PS filter.
Something I can do ?

No. By default, PS prefers non-raw profiles if both matching raw and non-raw exists for the lens (the matching raw profile does not show). There is a flyout menu to revert such preferences. That said, in the case that matching raw profiles existing but not non-raw profiles, PS takes the route of pragmatism to still give user a choice of applying the raw profiles (In general, the geometric and vignette correction would still be good even if it is raw), but the user would need to know this is not the best choice.

Snow Leopard and Canon Printer Drivers - significant unhelpful change

Is there any work around for the following? I have a new mac book pro
with snow leopard. Which means I downloaded the new Canon driver for
Pixma 9500. And am now using Lightroom 3 rather than 2.
An option that used to exist no longer exists. It used to be when I
chose a paper profile (say Canon Premium Paper Pro) I could still
manage color options in the driver. I could adjust slightly the reds
or if it were black and white I could change the tone (warm tone/cool
tone). Now, which I chose a paper profile, those options are "blanked out." I
can't use them. Is this because of Snow Leopards CUPS functionality rather than the IJ.
Given how many variables there are with printing and getting the right
image, I really wish I had the option of adjusting my printer output even when I'm using a paper profile.
The options exist if I let the printer manage the colors (as opposed to
using the profiles) but the image is much farther off to begin with and
requires much more experimenting. I have not reloaded Elements 6 and Canon Easy Print Pro. I wonder if it will let me fiddle with color options? Or Elements 9 with an updated Canon Easy Print Pro.
I'm disappointed that I've lost this option by upgrading my hardware and software. I'd be grateful for any advice or feedback.

I don't have Lightroom to confirm this but maybe the application is contributing to your issue.
Looking at the menus of the v10.36.2.0 driver, which is the latest version of the Canon driver you would be using with the Pro 9500, there is the Quality & Media menu and the Color Options menu. Through the Q&M menu you can select the Canon paper types and then via the Color Options menu you can adjust the colors.
But if you open the Color Matching menu and change the setting from Canon Color Matching to ColorSync and then select a paper type you then find that the sliders in Color Options are not available. Maybe Lightroom is set to use ColorSync and thus the adjustment in the Color Options menu is not available for you.

Living in Japan and I'm an American who just signed up with Soft Bank the phone service here and spent a TON of money on an iPhone. I can't figure out how to connect my bank account at home to my app account so I can Skype my family. Please help!!!!

Living in Japan and I'm an American who just signed up with Soft Bank the phone service here and spent a TON of money on an iPhone. I can't figure out how to connect my bank account at home to my app account so I can Skype my family. Please help!!!! I don't have a credit card nor do they gove debit cards to foreigners here, or at least it's really hard so I'm using my bank at home and still have a debit there. My phone number is 8 numbers plus the country code which is strange! Another thing is I was given a phone email that I was told to use for texting but I'm not sure how that works!! It's so frustrating too because no one speaks English here and I'm not very tech savvy. God bless you if you can help :)

whichever app store you are connecting to, hyou need a credit card with an address in that country. Also, itunes gift cards must be in local currency too.
If you are in japan, you need to use the japan app store

Screen has a bluish tint after fast user switching and then warning tone

Hi all I'm having a bit of a problem that I hope someone can help me with. First the details, I have a MBP bought in late '07 and running Tiger. I was doing full backups using "Backup" and I also had Safari, iTunes, and Word open. I briefly switched to my other account using fast user switching and when I returned to the original account the whole screen had a blue tint to it. Like the color profile was off. This has happened before and a restart usually cures it, I haven't restarted yet but I am fairly certain it will correct the problem this time too. But is there anyway to prevent this? My second question is the one I'm more worried about. It also has happened before but usually when using more CPU intensive applications. When I went to System Preferences and opened up the display preferences in an attempt to correct the previous problem I heard a very loud tone. Like some type of warning tone, it was loud enough that it startled me. I had iTunes playing and after the tone the music got very quiet but relaunching it brought it back to normal. I'm just wondering is this some type of warning tone? Is it something I should be concerned about? Besides the music everything else seemed unaffected, although the previous times that this has happened usually when using handbrake there was noticeable problems after the tone (like applications crashing). All of these problems are gone after the computer is restarted though. Does anyone have any insight on these issues? Thank you.
-James

OK I ran TechTool and everything passed except for the volume scan. Then I checked this with Disk Utility and the HD failed for a few minor reasons, like invalid block count. I repaired it using the fsck -fy command in single user mode. The computer seems a little faster now. I don't know if this error is related to the beep in any way, I may try talking to an Apple genius to see if they know. Since it seems like pretty minor errors I'm not too worried about it but it does seem to be happening often. The last time I had this error was when I posted a question here about it which I just checked was on March 1st. So this error happened again after a little more than 2 weeks which seems excessive to me. Any thoughts?

LR/ACR and Canon Highlight Tone Priority

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