Image display in ACR and CS5

[Snarkbyte]

I'm having some problems with brightness and color display of images in Adobe ACR and PS CS5. Compare the two screen captures below: the first taken in from ACR, and the second from Canon DPP. Both images were captured from displays of the same RAW file. The DPP image is brighter, richer, and closer to actual colors as I remember from the actual scene. This is an annoying problem, as when I adjust colors and brightness in ACR or CS5 and convert/to JPEG, the resulting image is too bright, and the colors are over-saturated. Any ideas about what causes this, and how to correct the problem would be greatly appreciated.

The ACR capture:



The DPP capture:

[carregwen]

Would you like to do a small experiment? Upload the RAW file to http://www.mediafire.com. I will do an edit in CS5, and you can do one in DPP (I don't have it). We can compare the results. You will have to PM the link to me.

[Snarkbyte]

I've uploaded the RAW file and associated sidecar XMP to mediafire at the following addresses:
RAW file: http://www.mediafire.com/?kd4w7c8wrjfj1e7

XMP file: http://www.mediafire.com/?e04f4wth4wbcwov

I hope this works, but let me know if you have any difficulty with the download. Thanks for your help... greatly appreciated!

[carregwen]

Al

Thanks for the download. The reason I asked for the download is that I think the end result is more important than any comparison between RAW editors. Although there may be a problem of accuracy of colours compared to what you saw. But then I, nor anyone looking at it, was there either.

All of the RAW editors are different - they do not work in the same way. So, DPP will produce a different interpretation of the RAW data than CS5 will. It probably applies to all shots.

This is the best I can do with it using CS5. I'd like to see the DPP version if you have done one. I must say the image quality is not good. It looks like camera shake - I see it was taken at 1/10sec - I presume you used a tripod? Here is a 250% screen-grab of the far mountain-top in the centre to show the problem:



here is your original you posted above


And here is my edit - I used content-aware to remove the cables.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Al,

I am not qualified, or equipped, to provide a definitive answer, and I haven't looked at the files, but here are my observations on what is written above, for discussion ...

Firstly, I can see how this would be annoying, so you do really need an answer

I agree, as a casual observation; the DPP image looks better of the two.
Niether iamge has any meaningful EXIF data, which makes me suspicious that possibly; more is going on than you think.

When you first open a RAW image in ACR, it uses a previously saved set of defaults for many of the image parameters you mention, now I have no idea how those were generated, but I bet they're not appropriate to the image under scrutiny. What happens if you click "Auto" in ACR?

Equally, DPP is probably doing something similar, and it may even be it is applying some automatic, and/or (camera set) scene based corrections.

I also wonder how you are saving from CS5, some methods can do bizarre things to the jpg files created and this differs depending on certain options set.

I further wonder, since you mention colour, whether there is any peculiar color profiles involved during processing that differ from those used for display - this is where the lack of EXIF thwarts any further investigation.

As I warned at the beginning, this is not an answer, just areas worth discussing/exploring further, I hope it helps,

[Snarkbyte]

The image quality is poor because I used a monopod for the shot, which obviously needed a tripod (yep, I'm a complete newbie to photography... I make lots of newbie mistakes). I can provide better quality shots if you like, but I wasn't concerned with sharpness as an issue, so I just grabbed the first RAW file available to illustrate the problem... I didn't pay much attention because the image blur isn't visible at 700px anyway, but the color difference is.

Oddly enough, DPP has no provision for resizing an image, so producing a 700px JPEG requires use of a some other application (the images I posted previously were screen grabs using Windows 7 Snipper). Using an app other than DPP would just introduce another variable in the mix, so I'm not sure that would be of much use. I've been using CS5 to produce the JPEGs I've posted to date, but the JPEG images viewed via Windows Explorer appear different from the ACR/CS5 display. When a JPEG produced by Photoshop is viewed in PS, it looks the same as the RAW image displayed by PS... but all other image viewing applications I have show the colors as they appear in DPP. That same JPEG viewed by any other application will appear brighter and more saturated. Ugh!

[Colin Southern]

Hi Al,

As Dave alluded to, DPP honours picture style metadata tags, so if you have - say - landscape picture style selected then it'll attempt to emulate those preferences into a RAW file edit. On the other hand, ACR ignores picture style metadata tags - but - also has it's own set of presets.

So with ACR the default presentation is usually nothing like what you see on the in-camera JPEG - but then again, it's really only the finished result that matters.

[Colin Southern]

the JPEG images viewed via Windows Explorer appear different from the ACR/CS5 display. When a JPEG produced by Photoshop is viewed in PS, it looks the same as the RAW image displayed by PS... but all other image viewing applications I have show the colors as they appear in DPP. That same JPEG viewed by any other application will appear brighter and more saturated. Ugh!

Usually this is a colour management issue. Before saving a file to JPEG from CS5, be sure to first click Edit -> Convert to Profile, and then ensure that the target profile is sRGB, and not Adobe RGB or Prophoto.

[Snarkbyte]

Niether iamge has any meaningful EXIF data, which makes me suspicious that possibly; more is going on than you think.

Thanks, Dave. After poking around a bit, I realized that I've been using Adobe Bridge to download the images from the camera, and storing the image settings in the sidecar xmp files. It is at least concievable that this is the source of the problem, so tomorrow I'll try downloading some RAW files from the camera using the EOS Utility and see what happens. In all probability, this is a case of newbie ignorance, and the answer is likely buried somewhere in the PS documentation regarding "Settings" or some such. It does seem peculiar that you don't see any EXIF data... I haven't been able to view EXIF data from PS either, but when I create a JPEG file from CS5, the resulting JPEG does show the EXIF data under the Windows Explorer "Properties" tab. Neither the original CR2 or XMP files show any EXIF data in the Windows "Properties" tab, so it must be hidden in the files somewhere. The screen capture images wouldn't be expected to have any EXIF, of course.

[Snarkbyte]

Thanks, Colin! Sorry, but I'm out of time for the evening... more news tomorrow. I'll keep you posted on the results of my investigation, and I really, really appreciate the help from everyone. This place rocks!