[timautin]

Hi,

Starting to play with the K1 and Pixel Shift, I need to change my habits, as Adobe Camera Raw does not handle Motion Correction. I'm giving RawTherapee a try. At the beginning I was just using RT to handle Pixel Shift, export the image into a TIFF, and do my processing in ACR. But doing so, I lose all the dynamic range offered by the camera :/ .

So I'm trying to do all the processing with RT, but either I'm missing something, either it does quite a bad job for this task compared to ACR.

Here are for instance 2 crops of an image, with highlights recovery at the maximum in both ACR and RT. The ACR image (1st) is clearly better. I just used the highlights slider of both softwares.

Are you guys experiencing the same thing?

Attached Images

   

[Trickortreat]

You will never recover overburned highlights, just let them clip. Pulling the highlight slider all the way down just induces unnatural artifacts.
One more thing i'm seeing here is that the rawtherapee photo is brighter. Dial EV compensation to 0 and lightness slider to 0, and contrast slider also. Pull blacks down to increase contrast and make some local contrast adjustments. I'd like to take a whack your photo but i doubt that my hardware could handle it
Having trouble with 20MP files as it is

[Homo_erectus]

I've been reading about methods of highlight recovery in RT for a while now, in search of a method that works well and is reasonably amenable to presetting. No luck yet. In my experience, the only raw processor that handles highlight recovery in a less manageable (and successful) way is Silkypix. That being said, I can usually do a fairly good job of recovery in RT but it takes a lot of time. I end up iterating changes between the 5(!) tools RT offers for highlight recovery until I achieve some reasonable result. This can take five or ten minutes in worst cases. I still run into images that I can't do anything useful with in RT but I can trivially fix in C1 or LR. I'll be watching this thread in the hope that someone posts an excellent method for highlight recovery in RT though!

[shardulm]

I have always struggled recovering highlights (having tried LR, AfterShot Pro, PhotoDirector, PDCU, did not try RT). The thing is all the sliders that let you handle highlights pretty quickly introduce artifacts not giving much leeway into actually correcting the highlight problem.
I have come to a point where I have started to underexpose shots that will result in clipping. I found that it is much possible and less time consuming to recover details from a pitch dark looking pixel than taming a burnt pixel. Does anyone here feel the same way?

[Homo_erectus]

Yeah, I simply try to avoid blown highlights as much as possible but it's not always possible and when it isn't avoidable it tends to be in worst case scenarios which makes the recovery issue even more of a challenge.

And, in a lot of cases, I don't really care if there are blown areas as much as I care that the transition from detail areas to blown out areas happens in a pleasing and non-eye catching way.

[Trickortreat]

Thing is - people think that they can recover blown highlights. You cant. If you blow out your higlights you have no data to work with. There is no colour information for those regions of your file. Highlight recovery is a tool that works when you dial up yoi ev compensation and want to pull your existing highlights in a more appropriate luminance range. Blown highlights have no data and best programs can do is aproximating. Some do it better than others but at the end of the day you just get wrong colour blotches.

[todd]

There are different "methods" for highlight recovery in RT with the "Highlight Reconstruction" options, with "blend" being most often the best choice, but sometimes the wrong choice. "Color propagation" sometimes works amazingly well. Then there are "Highlight Compression" sliders in the exposure section, and the Highlights slider further down in the Shadows/Highlights section... It's definitely not a one slider fits all situation. The highlights options in RT can definitely be overused and result in various undesireable outcomes fme, especially as different tools in RT are brought into use too. I usually use a combination of the tools mentioned and not aggressively.

[wildman]

Better? If so I just ran it through PS in the usual way like any other file.
I don't have a clue about pixel shift.

[Homo_erectus]

Thing is - people think that they can recover blown highlights. You cant. If you blow out your higlights you have no data to work with. There is no colour information for those regions of your file. Highlight recovery is a tool that works when you dial up yoi ev compensation and want to pull your existing highlights in a more appropriate luminance range. Blown highlights have no data and best programs can do is aproximating. Some do it better than others but at the end of the day you just get wrong colour blotches.

But also, if you are shooting raw, most cameras, and raw converters, will show that highlights are blown well before they are actually blown. You can check this quickly by simply lowering the exposure adjustment in your raw converter. If details magically appear in formerly "blown" out areas then the image is *not* blown. If those areas just turn from white to gray well, there's nothing there except totally blown pixels and that's the case you are talking about. I am not talking about the times where the highlight details are actually totally blown to white.

[house]

I find the highlight recovery of Rawtherapee to be great. Push it to far and you get artifacts though, which is expected.

Under the Exposure tab use the Exposure module and dial back the exposure a bit. I find it better to lift the image using other tools if required. Then click the Highlights recovery toolbox and select color propagation. I find color propagation works for most images but it can result in strange effects if pushed to far. Then pull the Highlight compression until satisfied.

Color propagation highlight recovery is almost magic.

[shardulm]

Thing is - people think that they can recover blown highlights. You cant. If you blow out your higlights you have no data to work with. There is no colour information for those regions of your file. Highlight recovery is a tool that works when you dial up yoi ev compensation and want to pull your existing highlights in a more appropriate luminance range. Blown highlights have no data and best programs can do is aproximating. Some do it better than others but at the end of the day you just get wrong colour blotches.

I am tending to agree.. and as much as it may be possible with a combination to the sliders I sometimes wonder if its worth sweating over those highlights.

[Trickortreat]

When there is too much blown out highlights im my images i tend to go to black&white (or sepia or any other monochromathic filter) they seem to threat that kind of photos a helluva lot better.

---------- Post added 05-11-17 at 09:25 PM ----------

But also, if you are shooting raw, most cameras, and raw converters, will show that highlights are blown well before they are actually blown. You can check this quickly by simply lowering the exposure adjustment in your raw converter. If details magically appear in formerly "blown" out areas then the image is *not* blown. If those areas just turn from white to gray well, there's nothing there except totally blown pixels and that's the case you are talking about. I am not talking about the times where the highlight details are actually totally blown to white.

Yep i know.. that was exactly what i was talking about

[The Squirrel Mafia]

I'm going to guess that your RawTherapee is set to the Default processing profile. Try using the Neutral processing profile. If all you're going to do is open & convert a pixel shifted image, then the Neutral processing profile will leave it as it was caught on the sensor with no adjustments whatsoever. Then you go to the Raw tab, set the Demosaicing setting to Pixel Shift, do other correction settings if necessary, & export the image. After that, you can use ACR to process your image.

I do have some Pixel Shift processing profiles to download. They provide a decent start. Chances are that you might even end up liking what you see right off the bat. You can play with the Highlight reconstruction, Exposure compensation, Highlight compression, Black, Lightness, & Contrast settings in the Exposure tab to see what they do.

If you need more info, you can visit my RawTherapee thread in this forum or visit the RawTherapee forum. They can definitely show you more tricks.

[awscreo]

I'm going to guess that your RawTherapee is set to the Default processing profile. Try using the Neutral processing profile. If all you're going to do is open & convert a pixel shifted image, then the Neutral processing profile will leave it as it was caught on the sensor with no adjustments whatsoever. Then you go to the Raw tab, set the Demosaicing setting to Pixel Shift, do other correction settings if necessary, & export the image. After that, you can use ACR to process your image.

I do have some Pixel Shift processing profiles to download. They provide a decent start. Chances are that you might even end up liking what you see right off the bat. You can play with the Highlight reconstruction, Exposure compensation, Highlight compression, Black, Lightness, & Contrast settings in the Exposure tab to see what they do.

If you need more info, you can visit my RawTherapee thread in this forum or visit the RawTherapee forum. They can definitely show you more tricks.

How do I export raw? Or you mean tiff for example? I think when I tried opening that tiff in lightroom i felt like I'm not getting the full DR of the exposure/sensor, but I guess I'm not doing something right.
I'm hit and miss so far with RT, I loved it for few images, but for few others (especially with high contrast recorded) I also found highlight/shadow settings to be more complicated than in LR. I'm far passed the +100/-100 stage of processing, but I do pull the shadows sometimes a little bit, and it feels that LR does a better job with it (at least in my limited experience). I'm fascinated by RT though, it looks so scientific

[Trickortreat]

How do I export raw? Or you mean tiff for example? I think when I tried opening that tiff in lightroom i felt like I'm not getting the full DR of the exposure/sensor, but I guess I'm not doing something right.
I'm hit and miss so far with RT, I loved it for few images, but for few others (especially with high contrast recorded) I also found highlight/shadow settings to be more complicated than in LR. I'm far passed the +100/-100 stage of processing, but I do pull the shadows sometimes a little bit, and it feels that LR does a better job with it (at least in my limited experience). I'm fascinated by RT though, it looks so scientific

You will not get full dr from tiff, you need to work with raw in both rt and lr.
Shadow pulling is easier in lr but with a combination of more tools the result can be achieved in rt.
I'd help you process the file and give you the pp3 you could work with but i dont think that my celeron with 4gb ram and integrated graphics could handle k1 pixel shift files. Try posting your raw (not tiff) on pixels.us there should be someone with better hardware than mine