LR4/ACR7, they killed the specular highlights!

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi,

Been working with CS6 which of course includes ACR7 raw engine which is the same as the new one in LR4. One of the biggest features of the new engine is its highlight control. It really is incredible. However the problem I'm having is that they seem to have killed the facial tones as a result. Highlights on the face now lose colour, go desaturated/greyish compared to the old 2010 version of the ACR engine.

I've prepared a couple of RAW's where this is apparent. You will need ACR 6.7 RC (in CS5) or ACR 7 in CS6 beta to view these properly. I don't think you can view snapshots in LR4.

In both versions I've prepared two snapshots (last tab on the right), the first is how I processed the picture originally using the previous engine. The second snapshot is using the new Process engine, 2012. Have a look at the faces at 100%, specifically the highlights.

Can you see what I mean about the colour disappearing in the highlights with the new version? Some people don't seem to be able to see it but you people are perfectionists and purists, to me the difference is very very apparent, the facial highlights look awful in the new version. My wife agrees and she's no photographer.

http://www.timelessjewishart.com/013.dng (left side of face and neck)

http://timelessjewishart.com/0129.dng (highlight above right eyebrow)

This third shows the problem worst of all, it's not mine, it's a RAW sample from the 5DIII off Imaging Resource, I'm posting it up as an example only as IR don't have anything that I can see on their website saying that I cannot do this. If what I'm doing is wrong please let me know! http://www.timelessjewishart.com/5D3_IR.dng

If you can spare me the time to have a look I'd appreciate it!

Ben

[Jerome Marot]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

You will need ACR 6.7 RC (in CS5) or ACR 7 in CS6 beta to view these properly.

ACR 6.7 is still in beta and the effect you describe is not visible under ACR 6.6 (I tried). You may want to write to adobe, this appears to be a bug and should be corrected for the final version.

It don't understand what is the problem for the IR file. Under ACR 6.7, only the reflections in the dress are overexposed (and can't be recovered, but that is to be expected). The face appears fine in PS. Apple's preview also displays the file just fine (expect for banding noise in the background).

[Mark Hampton]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

Hi,

Been working with CS6 which of course includes ACR7 raw engine which is the same as the new one in LR4. One of the biggest features of the new engine is its highlight control. It really is incredible. However the problem I'm having is that they seem to have killed the facial tones as a result. Highlights on the face now lose colour, go desaturated/greyish compared to the old 2010 version of the ACR engine.

I've prepared a couple of RAW's where this is apparent. You will need ACR 6.7 RC (in CS5) or ACR 7 in CS6 beta to view these properly. I don't think you can view snapshots in LR4.

In both versions I've prepared two snapshots (last tab on the right), the first is how I processed the picture originally using the previous engine. The second snapshot is using the new Process engine, 2012. Have a look at the faces at 100%, specifically the highlights.

Can you see what I mean about the colour disappearing in the highlights with the new version? Some people don't seem to be able to see it but you people are perfectionists and purists, to me the difference is very very apparent, the facial highlights look awful in the new version. My wife agrees and she's no photographer.

http://www.timelessjewishart.com/013.dng (left side of face and neck)

http://timelessjewishart.com/0129.dng (highlight above right eyebrow)

This third shows the problem worst of all, it's not mine, it's a RAW sample from the 5DIII off Imaging Resource, I'm posting it up as an example only as IR don't have anything that I can see on their website saying that I cannot do this. If what I'm doing is wrong please let me know! http://www.timelessjewishart.com/5D3_IR.dng

If you can spare me the time to have a look I'd appreciate it!

Ben

Ben I gave up on acr / sns and PS. Just use dpp the canon program. Try them in that then export to PS. This is for normal processing. Broken images deserve acr.

[Ben Rubinstein]

DPP isn't an option for me Mark, not with 1000's of images from a wedding and with little highlight recovery, batch or dodge/burn tools.

[Ben Rubinstein]

Jerome, I've made a PSD with the two versions overlaid as layers and arrows pointing to the problem areas. The forehead area is the worst. Hope this helps?

http://www.studio-beni.net/5D3_IR.psd

[Jerome Marot]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

Jerome, I've made a PSD with the two versions overlaid as layers and arrows pointing to the problem areas. The forehead area is the worst. Hope this helps?

I am still not sure I understand what the problem is. On layer 2012 highlights are certainly more blocked than on layer 2010, but that is not the whole story: if I use the highlights/shadows command, I can restore color on most of the highlights of layer 2012. Could it be that the 2012 version simply needs highlight recovery set up a bit higher to come to the same results?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

Jerome, I've made a PSD with the two versions overlaid as layers and arrows pointing to the problem areas. The forehead area is the worst. Hope this helps?

http://www.studio-beni.net/5D3_IR.psd

Hi Ben,

Do you mean that you cannot achieve the same result, regardless of the settings in process 2012, or that the conversion from process 2010 to 2012 gives different results?

Process 2012 works rather differently (as Julianne Kost explains in the help file of LR4), but with a bit of learning can produce the same (or better) results compared to process 2010. In particular the various tonecurve controls address different/smaller ranges of the histogram, and some work more non-linear than others depending on which direction (brighter/darker) you adjust. The Whites control regulates the highlight clipping, but in a different way than the highlight recovery did, and Exposure will act non-linear while trying to avoid highlights going gray when you reduce it and there is clipping in the Raw data.

Cheers,
Bart

[Ben Rubinstein]

You can't ever recover that colour in the highlight zones in 2012, not with the whites tool, the highlight recovery, the saturation, etc. I've tried to equalise the two images but it is taking a whole lot more work with the 2012 version and the colour still never returns. It's like they're applying the old 'recovery' tool as default in the highlights and although far more subtle, the effect is still ugly, oh and you can't turn it off. Seriously, download the RAWs for yourselves, have a look at the different snapshots so you can see what I'm matching too and see if you can get that natural colour back into the highlights. I wish I knew how as in general 2012 is superior.

[Mark Hampton]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

DPP isn't an option for me Mark, not with 1000's of images from a wedding and with little highlight recovery, batch or dodge/burn tools.

it has batch I think Ben - I dont dodge and burn on it though - but looking at the image tbh - just colour correct it - the highlight correction is a bit strange - how does it print - is it noticable when in print ? you may find it looks rubbish on screen and ok in print - you may not.

I have a wedding of my wifes sister to do - was going to batch on Dpp - I contact print all the files - spend a bit of time marking them up and then do a batch in Dpp - crop / spot etc in PS.

hope you find a work around.

cheers