Fun with MM DNG - 4 XingPing bridge

[jonoslack]

Hi Dave, Useful tip on the sharpening!

Thanks from here as well

I can concur, the clarity slider is definitely more complex than I described and many people hate the new Algo. LR for me just seems to do everything wrong. Clearly this is a familiarity issue on my part as are problems with the new algo for many people (I can't get to grips with the old or new one). At least the manual approach in PS is what it is, a bit crummy, but reliable (I used to be able to do a USM using layers but forget how now, it took me a long time to trust the USM wouldn't be changed suddenly) Old habits do die hard but hopefully a little nuts'n'bolts understanding is helpful.

There are some cool edge detection and filtering algo's out there, I'm sure things will improve immensely for large format printers, over the coming years. Sandy McGuffog always has useful knowledge on his blog about how digital works.

I really dislike Lightroom - I've been using it for 5 months now, and I thought that familiarity would breed a little more satisfaction, but it just breeds contempt. The processing seems to me to be brutal unless you spend hours setting up presets - the brushes without edge detection are worthless, the clone tool is still useless. Personally, I suspect that these are intentional limitations to force you to get PS as well.

The one advantage it had over Aperture was that it was quite a bit faster . . . that advantage has been taken away with LR4.

I just can't wait for Apple to get support for the MM in Aperture, then I'll be back to my normal workflow with a sensible editor.

BAH!

 

[davemillier]

I think it is what you are used to a lot of the time.

I used to use Bibble and didn't think much of lightroom when it first came out. But it has improved and improved and I don't use any other software at all now. LR has reduced me from something like a 20 pieces of software for imaging to one piece of software.

I'm in the process of converting my website from hand coded html to Wordpress cms and one of the things I have to do is re-create my galleries from scratch. My old workflow consisted of a chain of applications and it used to take an hour or so to produce a new gallery. I did 6 last night in 30 mins all done entirely within LR...

I am constantly amazed at how good it is as I learn new things and new tricks. I do still have Bibble and Capture one V4 as well as a bunch of free raw converters but I would never contemplate using anything else now (or any camera that wasn't supported).

LR4 is a bit different in the dev tab and I am having to re-learn how to process as the old instincts no longer work.

Maybe people also have different experiences on different platforms? I don't know how close the windows and mac versions are.

Thanks from here as well


I really dislike Lightroom - I've been using it for 5 months now, and I thought that familiarity would breed a little more satisfaction, but it just breeds contempt. The processing seems to me to be brutal unless you spend hours setting up presets - the brushes without edge detection are worthless, the clone tool is still useless. Personally, I suspect that these are intentional limitations to force you to get PS as well.

The one advantage it had over Aperture was that it was quite a bit faster . . . that advantage has been taken away with LR4.

I just can't wait for Apple to get support for the MM in Aperture, then I'll be back to my normal workflow with a sensible editor.

BAH!

 

[jonoslack]

I think it is what you are used to a lot of the time.

I used to use Bibble and didn't think much of lightroom when it first came out. But it has improved and improved and I don't use any other software at all now. LR has reduced me from something like a 20 pieces of software for imaging to one piece of software.

I'm in the process of converting my website from hand coded html to Wordpress cms and one of the things I have to do is re-create my galleries from scratch. My old workflow consisted of a chain of applications and it used to take an hour or so to produce a new gallery. I did 6 last night in 30 mins all done entirely within LR...

I am constantly amazed at how good it is as I learn new things and new tricks. I do still have Bibble and Capture one V4 as well as a bunch of free raw converters but I would never contemplate using anything else now (or any camera that wasn't supported).

LR4 is a bit different in the dev tab and I am having to re-learn how to process as the old instincts no longer work.

Maybe people also have different experiences on different platforms? I don't know how close the windows and mac versions are.

Hi David
I understand your point - but I know Lightroom pretty well . . . and, as I say, I've been using it several hours a day all this year - I've undergone all the workflow changes you mention over the last few years but with Aperture , so that LR doesn't hold out any new options with respect to DAM features - it just provides notably less good localised adjustment tools (both in terms of brushes and healing/cloning), less good cataloguing tools, and (I think) less good printing than Aperture. It used to be faster, but no more. It's much better at noise reduction . . . .but I use NIK on the rare occasions I need it (which is better than both).

So - it's not a case of 'what I'm used to'. Lightroom and Aperture as DAM products can be made to do the same job - whereas nothing else really handles that side as well.

I was really considering a final move to LR4, because of their better camera support, and because I needed to use it for the new Leica cameras - so the truth is that 'used to it' has made it less rather than more attractive.

Of course, I realise this is subjective stuff (at least, some of it is), I also realise that for windows users LR is the only show in town - I still don't like it though!

all the best

 

[davemillier]

I've never used Aperture (or indeed a Mac, apart from some testing one occasion) so I can't do that comparison. And I agree the 2012 process in LR4 is slower. It does speed up if you go back to the 2011 process.

I can't say I've noticed any particular failings of the local adjustment tools but i don't use them that much. I do like the gradient tool though. Bibble 4 has supposedly fancier local adjustments but I could never get them to work particularly well and being limited to a max of 8 cloning regions per image is a bit of a problem for spotting dust...

One think I can say for sure as an occasional Ubuntu user, is that Lightroom is an awful lot better than Darktable...

Hi David
I understand your point - but I know Lightroom pretty well . . . and, as I say, I've been using it several hours a day all this year - I've undergone all the workflow changes you mention over the last few years but with Aperture , so that LR doesn't hold out any new options with respect to DAM features - it just provides notably less good localised adjustment tools (both in terms of brushes and healing/cloning), less good cataloguing tools, and (I think) less good printing than Aperture. It used to be faster, but no more. It's much better at noise reduction . . . .but I use NIK on the rare occasions I need it (which is better than both).

So - it's not a case of 'what I'm used to'. Lightroom and Aperture as DAM products can be made to do the same job - whereas nothing else really handles that side as well.

I was really considering a final move to LR4, because of their better camera support, and because I needed to use it for the new Leica cameras - so the truth is that 'used to it' has made it less rather than more attractive.

Of course, I realise this is subjective stuff (at least, some of it is), I also realise that for windows users LR is the only show in town - I still don't like it though!

all the best

 

[jonoslack]

I

I can't say I've noticed any particular failings of the local adjustment tools but i don't use them that much. I do like the gradient tool though. Bibble 4 has supposedly fancier local adjustments but I could never get them to work particularly well and being limited to a max of 8 cloning regions per image is a bit of a problem for spotting dust...

Yes, but I think that's the point - if the local adjustments in LR were any good, then you might use them (as they are in Aperture!).

 

[wentbackward]

Ok, back on the printing again, it's Sunday morning and the kids are off to a birthday party sans-photographer I haven't yet printed, but here's the modified process (simplified somewhat). There are some learnings worth splitting this into a few comments.

1. Turn off all sharpening and clarity adjustments. RAW-> TIF (600dpi). Note: If you're using SilverEfex, you MUST do this before you do your editing.

2. I did do some capture sharpening: Nik RAW sharpening (25%), it is so light I wonder if it's really worth the risk of affecting the whole pipeline.

3. Noise Control - I gave up! This is a really serious point for B&W enthusiasts. The grain on the MM is so silver like, it's really like working with a scan. After upsizing the image numerous times, the shadows were showing a corser grain (in the shadows) that is very much like scanning silver at 4800dpi. And just like B&W film, I reckon the whole file looks like noise to things like Nik Define or Noise Ninja. I tried and tried but even at the lowest settings with very careful selection of what I wanted to target, both peices of software turned the images to total mush. In the end with film I simply leave the grain in as almost any form for digital processing looks fake in comparison to actually seeing it. In a morning I have come to the same conclusion with the MM files (at least base ISO file). The grain is lovely, leave it alone. Note: this is completely subjective, personal preference. fwiw, it seems to me that gursky leaves the grain alone on his images.

3. Sizing. You must do this in two steps:
3a. Crop image to appropriate dimensions (in my example it is 10:7 - Sorry this is all at my own expense so it's an IKEA frame, anyone who has bought an IKEA bed or light will know they have their own standards)
3b. Calculate image size less the matte (if any) as you'll need to resize the canvas prior to printing. Now resize/resample the image.

Note for epson users: I'm using 600dpi for Canon. Adjust the above to be 720dpi for Epson.

Note for all users: Work at the full 'finest' resolution your printer driver demands. The files are HUGE but the process is mechanical. Make notes and delete those files. Don't try to view these 600/720dpi files in LR!!

The remainder of work for me today is output sharpening, final proofing + levels or curves in PS then print (from PS) using my own custom profile. The print will be mounted & dried, laminated with matte texture and mounted in the IKEA frame under glass (because they glued the bloody glass in otherwise I'd laminate glossy and have no glass).

Here are some crops along the way (I felt the image looked too much like a sketch so I've increased the tonality and darkened down somewhat from my original posts).

Also note that the PNG's displayed here have darker blacks and are more Jaggy than the 1GB TIF I am working with.

600x600 crop of the image prior to hitting the printing pipeline:

more to come..

 

[wentbackward]

ok, I was very reluctant to post these before, but I think they will be useful. So here's some help if you are not sure what you are looking at:

- These are 100% crops of an image enlarged by a ratio of over 27:1 (that is the printed image will be 27 times larger than the negative/sensor)
- In addition they will appear on paper about 3 times smaller than you will view them on your screen, as the printer resolution is much finer than your display
- They will be much finer and smoother in print
- These are PNG conversions, as such they blacks are blacker and the highlights look much more blown than they will appear in print (or indeed when looking at the TIF)
- They have not been sharpened for output yet
- They have not been corrected using levels/curves

The purpose of looking here is to full appreciate the full tonality of the print, low level acutance and to look for any problems that might occur. All I see a fine smooth tonal renderings of the details in the print.

I can tell you these crops are beautiful. Painterly, lovely tonality, lovely separation in the leaves especially. Look at the tree trunk, it's like an artists brush has touched it.

Also look at the noise/grain. The final output sharpening is going to make some of the grain pop out, the downside of making the details pop. I think seeing the fine details will be more rewarding, the final grain will not be distracting, perhaps even subconsciously pleasing, as our eyes see this way in low light.

Above: could there be some light chroma smearing in the ACR algos, I wouldn't expect it on a luminance only RAW? Or lens abberations (I doubt for this lens)?

Above, can still see some slight jaggedness, but once printing will reduce considerably.

First image and above: Amazing how sharp those curves are. If this were 100% native resolution image I'd say oversharpened, fix it. It must surely be perfect resize algos at work. As this is for printing then deleting (not archival), it should be fine. Nik's output sharpening (which I will use) is adaptive and should not damage this further.

The girls shoulder is definitely blown as are a few other details but there is a lot more tonality in the original than the damage done by the dithering algo conversion to PNG here.

Again remember these are all from an image file which is now > 1GB and 22677 × 15591 in size. They will all appear 3 times smaller in print than on your screen.

 

[Biglou]

Once again thanks to Jono for providing this.

Am I the only person in the world who finds luminance aliasing horrible? Surely, I can't be! I have issues with my Foveon cameras because of this, I have issues with the NEX series which makes them impossible for me to use. The Leica is not on my radar because of price but even if it cost £100, there is no way I could live with the aliasing.

I feel exactly like you.
The most i can enlarge my M9 pictures is 200%, but 100% still is much better.
I am sure there are ways to " dissolve " this aliasing for large prints, but have no information on the programs involved.
Analog film on the contrary can be enlarged without losing the qualities of the picture.
One very good reason to keep using film.

 

[Farnz]

If you get close enough to a masterpiece you will see the brushstrokes. But it is still a masterpiece.

Pete.

 

[jonoslack]

If you get close enough to a masterpiece you will see the brushstrokes. But it is still a masterpiece.

Pete.

Hi Pete you are surely right (and I'm sure you are speaking in general terms!)

ok, I was very reluctant to post these before, but I think they will be useful.

Useful indeed, You've done a fantastic job here - I hope you have yourself a print which is hangable!

A big thank you from me - it's taught me a lot about how to process the files - and I'm sure it will be useful to us all when the camera appears.

all the best

 

[wentbackward]

Just a quick update, have been having problems with Nik Output sharpener, each run takes about 25 minutes and then dies. I've tried everything I could but obviously something I'm doing in the background. Local contrast and regular sharpening are not going to give the same results so I didn't print.

I'll try installing on a different machine tomorrow. I must surely get this printed soon. I really want to post the final result and thoughts here!

 

[wentbackward]

For those who are interested, I have managed to get my Nik software sorted and have sharpened the image ready to go. This was the first weekend I've had some free time for 3 weeks.

Will try to print during the week. My goal is to squeeze everything I can from the print and produce a close to 1m wide print that you can put your nose against. Actually the print I made earlier can handle that level of viewing. A friend who has printed cibachromes for many years came over to my studio yesterday and was mightily impressed with the earlier print. I think she now quite fancies an M-M!!

 

[Spiritshooter]

After processing the file in PSCS6 (All sharpening off) and then just very minimal capture sharpening with Nik, I printed the image 42" H x 64" L. +/- on my Epson 9900 using ImagePrint 9 and their gray profile for Epson Hot Press Natural. I did note that any contrast correction articulates the jagged artifacts.

As a side note, with IP 9 I do not upsize the image in PS or LR. I take the native image as it comes out of the camera which was approximately 14.5"x21.7" at 240 dpi. It is then opened in IP9 and the output size is selected. The RIP does the rest.

I then scanned the attached section of the print on my crappy desktop scanner 8-1/2" wide and uploaded.

For reference, in the final print, the top of the girls head to to top of the bridge rail is 2-1/2" high.

As you can see, the artifacts are clearly visible in the scan, especially in the tree branches cited previously. The print looks outstanding printed on Epson Hot Press Natural.

The print is clean, detailed, looks amazing....

UPDATE: (I have edited this post),

I didn't realize that when I blew up the area below that I actual had doubled the size of it. The effective print size now being 84"x128".

Looking at the actual print, I can only see the jagged lines with a loop. To the eye, at the huge print size, the image is clean.

 

[Spiritshooter]

Here is an iPhone shot of the print sitting on the floor of my office.

 

[jonoslack]

As you can see, the artifacts are clearly visible in the scan, especially in the tree branches cited previously. The print looks outstanding printed on Epson Hot Press Natural.

The print is clean, detailed, looks amazing....

UPDATE: (I have edited this post),

I didn't realize that when I blew up the area below that I actual had doubled the size of it. The effective print size now being 84"x128".

Looking at the actual print, I can only see the jagged lines with a loop. To the eye, at the huge print size, the image is clean.

HI There - thank you - that's a grand job - I'd love to look at the print - apart from the jaggies you seem to have got lots and lots of details, and if a 64" print looks good unless you use a loupe . . . well, I guess that one can construe that's the maximum size for close up viewing!


I'd live to see the print in person - I've only blown it up to a measly A2+ size - but I suspect it'd be a long drive!

Thanks again - I'm sure this is of interest to lots of people

all the best
Jono

 

[Spiritshooter]

I'd live to see the print in person - I've only blown it up to a measly A2+ size - but I suspect it'd be a long drive!

Thanks again - I'm sure this is of interest to lots of people

all the best
Jono

I made a second print that is approximately 36" H. x 54"L and it is simply amazing. I can't imagine most folks printing larger than this. I emailed you privately and will send you the print if you would like.

Thanks

Mike

 

[Spiritshooter]

One thing that I think that needs to be put into perspective is the following;

The tree branches that show the artifacts are literally the thickness of a hair when printed to a size of 36"x54". With a loop, I can see the artifacts. At this size and the loop, we are virtually coming very close to seeing at the pixel level.

Personally, I think that this is an amazing camera. In fact, this image made with the 75 Cron is probably sharper than most of the images I have shot with medium format backs and lenses. It is mind boggling that Leica can produce a 35mm sized sensor that produces such an amazing file.

 

[jonoslack]

HI Mike
Many thanks for this - it's a pity that David Millier (who was writing off the camera on the basis of the artefacts) is unlikely to see you messages.
I can't see how you can possibly avoid jaggy artefacts on any black and white sensor without an AA filter - unless you apply some sort of software smoothing (which rather destroys the point!). It's also good to know that the lens is up to the job (and my handholding as well!).

all the best - and thank you again for the very kind donation.

 

[Spiritshooter]

HI Mike
Many thanks for this - it's a pity that David Millier (who was writing off the camera on the basis of the artefacts) is unlikely to see you messages.
I can't see how you can possibly avoid jaggy artefacts on any black and white sensor without an AA filter - unless you apply some sort of software smoothing (which rather destroys the point!). It's also good to know that the lens is up to the job (and my handholding as well!).

all the best - and thank you again for the very kind donation.

Always a pleasure. I am anxious to see the final firmware and how the camera performs in its final iteration.

Thanks