Sinar back processing

[carstenw]

Having just received and started using an almost-new eMotion 54LV, and having struggled with workflow for a few days until settling into a nice rhythm, I thought I would start this thread for the Sinar owners on this forum to write about their problems and solutions.

My current workflow is very simple, drag the images to my incoming folder (converting to DNG), load them up, and go through them, setting Brightness, Contrast, WB, and Saturation. The rest of the settings I find good on default so far. Then I load them into Lightroom where I can process a little further, without having lost any sharpness or gotten any noise from its lousy algorithms in those two areas.

Some outstanding problems: Lightness levels: I am on the road and I find it hard to judge the lightness of the results. Any tips are very welcome. Noise: I rarely see noise, but sometimes I expose a little low. I would enjoy tips on how to control noise with eXposure.

I also would like to change the default settings. The Saturation is set to -10 by default, for example. I would like to set this to 0 or even 10, and save that. Is there a way?

How can one process multiple images at the same time, setting WB etc?

Is there some way to speed up export? This part of the process takes a very long time.

I look forward to any tips!

 

[thomas]

Lightness levels: I am on the road and I find it hard to judge the lightness of the results. Any tips are very welcome.

I assume you talk about the luminance level in editing, not exposure, right?
This is actually a colour management topic (and a very tricky) one. It depends very much on the viewing conditions and the environment you are working in - and, too, in the quality of your display and the calibration, of course.
A few points just to start with:
- avoid direct light on the display (a shade is worth its weight in gold)
- avoid too high contrast on the display
- set the entire environment as neutral as possible; this includes the settings in your applications as well: avoid too dark backgrounds, avoid coloured backgrounds (this applies to the desktop as well)
- load test charts and desktop backgrounds from colormanagement.org
- always have a look at the RGB values in the midtones and compare them visually to mid grey
- for further editing you sould have a printed test image (with grey scale, colour patterns and real world images) and the same image on screen viewed in Photoshop under the respective softproof settings; the German "cleverprinting" booklet comes with such a print and I think it's very well worth the few Euros.

Bottom line is: you can't edit images accurate if you just rely on the display but the display itself is not set accurate and isn't used under appropriate conditions.
Welcome in the digital world

 

[Graham Mitchell]

Then I load them into Lightroom where I can process a little further, without having lost any sharpness or gotten any noise from its lousy algorithms in those two areas.

Which operations do you use Lightroom for?
Why use contrast, brightness and saturation in eXposure? A well made curve should give you great results and is preferable.

I would enjoy tips on how to control noise with eXposure.

If you mean noise reduction, there is a tool you can switch on which works well if you need it.

I also would like to change the default settings. The Saturation is set to -10 by default, for example. I would like to set this to 0 or even 10, and save that. Is there a way?

I assume you are stil talking about eXposure. The default should be '0' and you can deselect the tool altogether. I believe that you can change your defaults but I never needed to use this feature.

How can one process multiple images at the same time, setting WB etc?

You can select the thumbnail of the image with correct settings, 'copy', then select the thumbnails you want to change and hit 'paste'.

Is there some way to speed up export? This part of the process takes a very long time.

It's not very fast but the results are better than other apps so I suppose it's worth the wait. Only a faster machine will speed up the process, afaik.

 

[Paratom]

Carsten,
in the contact sheet you can easily save/load parameter sets. A parameter set can be just one parameter (for example WB) or a set of different settings.

If you are working on the image you can allways go in the "film strip" on the thumbs, mark one thumb, copy all parameters of this one image and apply them to other images (you can do this with shortcuts).

Also you can define three custom tone curves which you can apply to the images.

I often shift brightness to +30, and do use a tone curve which is a little flater than the film curve.

 

[Georg Baumann]

:clap: Congrats Carsten!

 

[PeterA]

Firstly wecome to Sinar land Carsten -we ar esmall in number but big on brains! LOL I will go thropugh each of yoru points and make comment if I can add any value..

My current workflow is very simple, drag the images to my incoming folder (converting to DNG), load them up, and go through them, setting Brightness, Contrast, WB, and Saturation. The rest of the settings I find good on default so far.

I always start with WB - and I find that the white balance tool ( picker) is fantastic if you have a neutral grey or similar to choose from somewhere in teh image. Otherwise - you have the Temp slider...

Then I load them into Lightroom where I can process a little further, without having lost any sharpness or gotten any noise from its lousy algorithms in those two areas.

Lightroom is ok - I use CS4 - but that is choice

Some outstanding problems: Lightness levels: I am on the road and I find it hard to judge the lightness of the results. Any tips are very welcome. Noise: I rarely see noise, but sometimes I expose a little low. I would enjoy tips on how to control noise with eXposure.

The perception of Lightness (you mean luminence?) - as indicated by Thomas is very much affected by the overall setting that you are using your laptop. Also the laptop screen is never going to give you as good a calibration for proofing as a calibrated monitor. ( you knwo this anyway I bet)

Regarding noise - I only shoot base ISO with MFD back - and never see it unless as you say ..you are underexposing..which may be a function of teh actual CONTAX metering and how the back reponds to teh metering

try adjusting the EV so that you arent shooting as per meter ( presumably AE?) and getting underexposure. It isnt straneg to get underexposure using older type bodies - I get the same with my 205TCC and Mamiya RZ - just use the EV adjustment and check your histogram on the back until you nail it.



I also would like to change the default settings. The Saturation is set to -10 by default, for example. I would like to set this to 0 or even 10, and save that. Is there a way?

hmm cant help here my default is 0 ..

How can one process multiple images at the same time, setting WB etc?

explained well by teh other guys.

Is there some way to speed up export? This part of the process takes a very long time.

Again as Graham indicates - it is a function of computer speed.

Enjoy!

 

[bdp]

Hi Carsten,

When you import images from a CF card, a group of settings (a 'parameter set') is applied by default. This parameter is called 'cf-card_import.set' and the values in this set can be changed so every time files are imported from a CF card or the back's internal memory the settings you have defined in this parameter set are applied by default. To do this, select a picture already in your contact sheet and make all the settings you would like for future imports in the process tab, such as WB, brightness, curve, sat etc. Then right click on the image in the contact sheet and select save parameter set. Now click on the cf-card_import.set and select yes when it asks you if you are sure you want to replace this parameter set with the new one. Here is a picture that might help:

 

[bdp]

As the others have said, processing multiple images is easy - cmd-c and cmd-v in the contact sheet does it all. To copy just some settings from one image to others, save the parameters of the image as a new parameter set, then select the other images and click manage parameters. You can then apply one or more of your saved parameters from a set to the selected images. Enable or disable the ones you do or don't want by clicking on the little icons on the left. The ones that won't be applied are crossed out. Another pic:

 

[bdp]

Also, noise reduction has a bug in version 6.2.0. It is applied at the wrong time in the processing of images, meaning that the result is noisier than it should be. The next version of eXposure is meant to address it. I have seen a beta that works well, and the NR is amazing. However if you are working on the DNG in Lightroom or ACR then the NR isn't applied anyway - I'm pretty sure it's just applied to a TIF or jpg at the time of export. Indeed, turning NR off halves the export time for each image. Export time depends very much on the processor, and newer isn't necessarily better. My old G5 tower with dual 2.5 non-Intel processors would take 5 minutes per picture to export, 2.5 minutes with NR turned off. But my wife's 2008 model Intel 2 x 2.8 tower only takes 38 seconds per picture, 19 seconds with NR off! BUT, I have just bought a 2 x 2.93 Nehalem tower and it is SLOWER than the 2008 model. Exports take 65 seconds per picture with NR on, nearly double the previous generation Mac Pro. Maybe Snow Leopard will improve things, and maybe eXposure isn't optimised for the new processors yet.

Another thing, if you want features in eXposure I strongly encourage you to contact the software development team at [email protected] to make suggestions and report bugs. That is what this email address was setup for and they will only improve things if enough users ask for them. I have been harping on about more ACR-like features such as fill light and recovery, along with Hue/Sat/Lum sliders to make processing easier in the one app.

If you do accidently overexpose an image a bit, I have found some negative EV helps bring back highlight detail, much like a recovery slider. You can then increase the brightness or curve to brighten the midtones again. Hope all this helps.

Ben

 

[jlm]

are you viewing the histogram? (Using Capture One, which may or may not apply), that is useful when setting "exposure", which moves the entire curve to the right or left. you can also drag the high and low value sliders to quickly set brightness and contrast (this widens the curve, finally you can drag the midpoint slider to change the gamma; all of this is visible live in the image. you can also display a traditional curve and manipulate that to get a shoulder, etc.

 

[Paratom]

Thanks Carsten for opening this thread , I have allready learned things Idid not know.
I feel stupid now, but didnt know about the import-set - and was allways thinking that I should be able to set/change the defaults. Now I know.
This will save me quite some time in the future.

 

[Paratom]

one more comment-if you feel vignetting to be a problem you could allways use wide shading and compensate that way for the vignetting.

 

[carstenw]

Wow, lots of good tips, thanks everyone!

First: Graham, I use Lightroom only for minor fine-tuning, if at all, and didn't refer to it in any of my questions. I also use it for photo-management, exporting, slideshows or galleries, and so on, but not for WB et al. LR really sucks with both my cameras (my other camera is a Leica M8) when you want to nail WB, clear up minor noise, sharpen, and so on.

Thomas, thanks for the tip about the editing environment and the monitor shade; I will have to get one. I have trouble judging the light in my photos, even when my screen is freshly calibrated, simply because my experience at this level is minimal.

Graham, I use brightness, contrast and saturation because I am familiar with them, and am trying to get on familiar ground. I don't know that much about using the curve to set up an image. I have played with it a little, but found it hard to control. Do you use curves for each channel? How do you use the curve?

Thanks Georg

Peter, I think the engine is the same in LR and CS4 (which I also own), so editing in ACR vs. LR shouldn't be very different. Of course, in CS4 itself there is more control, but I am not there yet.

At the moment I am using a Huey Pro for calibration, which is okay, but not the best on the market. I want to move to something which also handles prints when I get a chance, but do not want to spend the money right now, so it'll have to wait a little.

Thanks for the many tips, Ben, I will have to work my way through them when I get some time, maybe tomorrow. I am in the middle of a family reunion here, so time is tight

Jim, the histogram is on the Capture tab, whereas the processing is on the Process tab. Although you can move around windows in the interface in general, I haven't found a way of moving these two tabs apart yet. Here is what my interface looks like, after some rearranging:

View attachment 18798

I start a session by going into the browser tab, setting my contact sheet to my CF card, copying the photos on the card into the Incoming folder, and setting that as my contact sheet. Then I switch to the Controls tab, where I start in the Capture tab, to get a glimpse of the histogram, and then I move to the Process tab, moving the contact sheet out of the way to maximize my image size, and I edit all photos, then export to 16-bit TIFF, which I import into Lightroom mostly for photo management, exporting, creating galleries, etc.

Any tips for improvements here is welcome.

Tom, I didn't try the white shading methodology yet, but I will!

 

[Graham Mitchell]

Graham, I use brightness, contrast and saturation because I am familiar with them, and am trying to get on familiar ground. I don't know that much about using the curve to set up an image. I have played with it a little, but found it hard to control. Do you use curves for each channel? How do you use the curve?

It is no different to a Photoshop curve, so I assume you are not using Photoshop much? There must be many tutorials on the curve tool online which should help.

 

[thomas]

I have trouble judging the light in my photos, even when my screen is freshly calibrated, simply because my experience at this level is minimal.

Takes time and some prints (colour managed prints form a good lab) ...
This is why I'd recommend to buy the "cleverprinting" booklet - helps a lot!
Too, if you are not so familar with colour management by now it is a good introduction.
Color management is a must - the sooner you start with it the less you will re-edit your files later on when you have a better display and are more experienced.
I addition: you need at least one medium that gives you an accurate representation of what you are actually seeing. Anything else is botching. Sounds hard... but it's simply true.
But right now I think you have different priorities on the list and that's quite reasonable...

As to brightness and contrast these adjustments do basically the same as a curve but with much less control (e.g. "contrast" is the same as a classical "S" curve). As long as you feel more safe with basic adjustments by now keep that workflow.
As to the entire digital workflow I highly recommend:
Bettina & Uwe Steinmüller
Die digitale Dunkelkammmer
dPunkt Verlag
Lots of tutorials about raw processing, Photoshop (incl. curves, layer techniques), sharpening (!), archiving...
But they kept the book clean; it's not overkill. Everything is explained in a way so that beginners will likely understand it all but at the same time it's enough stuff to work with it 2 years or so.

 

[David K]

Carsten, as Peter said, welcome to the shrinking world of Sinar users My workflow uses eXposure only for conversion to DNG. All other adjustments, including WB, I do in Aperture and, if needed, in CS4.

 

[Graham Mitchell]

Carsten, my normal workflow is to export a 16 bit TIFF from eXposure with no adjustments at all except WB (so that means a flat curve too). Then I import to Photoshop, where I am very comfortable with adjustment layers, etc. In other words, I use CS4 for practically everything. The only real exception is when I need to use highlight recovery - in that case I will use CS4 to process the DNG, or in some cases use CS4's conversion and HLR as a masked layer, using it only for the recovered parts of the image, to get the best of both worlds.

 

[Georg Baumann]

.... my normal workflow is to export a 16 bit TIFF from eXposure with no adjustments at all except WB (so that means a flat curve too). Then I import to Photoshop, ....

Not sure what version eX is at now, but the one I was using a year ago was a joke!

Hence I did the same, more or less...

Forget about eXposure Carsten, get some legacy software http://www.brumbaer.de/Tools/appls/eMotionDng.zip and use it to convert, all you need!

 

[Graham Mitchell]

Not sure what version eX is at now, but the one I was using a year ago was a joke!

It's good software now, with high image quality when converting (better than anything else I've tried so far). I don't see the point in duplicating all of Photoshop's features in a raw processing app, but each to their own.

 

[Georg Baumann]

It's good software now, with high image quality when converting (better than anything else I've tried so far). I don't see the point in duplicating all of Photoshop's features in a raw processing app, but each to their own.

Hmmm....

]Carsten, my normal workflow is to export a 16 bit TIFF from eXposure with no adjustments at all except WB (so that means a flat curve too). Then I import to Photoshop, where I am very comfortable with adjustment layers, etc. In other words, I use CS4 for practically everything.

Carsten, as Peter said, welcome to the shrinking world of Sinar users My workflow uses eXposure only for conversion to DNG. All other adjustments, including WB, I do in Aperture and, if needed, in CS4.

Yeah, agreed, each to their own....

Trouble is, with such a "dedicated hardware" if you get my drift, I would have expected much better competence in the resulting software, which is not the case in my view.

Same with Hammelbach...ahem, Hasselblad, their software sucked big times, still does, and I understand that this is a major investement to perform if you even consider to make such a commitment, and apparently, they only "considered" and spent some, but did not go full whack!

....<consultant head on>.... anyone making a serious move now, variety of possibilities, and in that shake up climate, has a good chance to gain competitive advantage! Phase One made a good move I think! .... <throwing consultant head away>....