Posted by Steve Balke on October 19, 2009 at 8:51 PM
Normally I just import my raw images into Lightroom and go from there with noise reduction, etc. However, support for the Canon 7D in Lightroom 2.5 (and in Photoshop CS4 11.0.1) is “provisional”. Apparently this means that although raw files can be read, results will not necessarily be very good.
I decided to use the supplied Canon software (Digital Photo Professional 3.7.1.2) to convert the raw files from the 7D into tiff files and import those tiff files into Lightroom. The tiff files were noisy (as expected) but I confidently applied Dfine 2.0 to them and then Sharpener Pro 3.0 within Lightroom…….and obtained terrible results. The images were still noisy and looked like they had a bad case of dandruff. Upon examination I could see that these white spots were really individual pixels that appeared brighter than others. These bright pixels were even evident in the originally imported files when I looked closely enough.
To make a very long story short I discovered that the apparent source of the problem was that Digital Photo Professional was applying both noise reduction and sharpening to the raw file which were in turn affecting the tiff file. When I purposefully set luminance noise reduction, chrominance noise reduction (in the NR/Lens/ALO menu) as well as sharpness in the Raw menu all to zero, the tiff file produced by Digital Photo Professional was really noisy (at an iso of 1600). However, now my noise reduction and sharpening programs were much more able to deal with the problem. The bright pixels disappeared and I could better adjust the compromise between noise level and sharpness. The best high iso result so far is this little white throated sparrow (iso 1600, 400 mm, 1/200s, f/5.6). After applying Dfine, Viveza and Sharpener Pro it looks good to me: I see a uniform fine noise level and good detail on the bird. I invite your judgment and all comments are welcome.
I’m posting this note to see whether what I observed was just my system or if some of you have encountered the same problem. More generally, I’d like to know any suggestions on how best to deal with workflow for the 7D raw files while we await Adobe’s generation of the necessary camera calibration file (which is expected to be several weeks away). It would also be nice to have more than one method of dealing with camera raw files so we can compare the new Adobe calibration file with the tiff file from the Canon software.
Note: Looking at the small version of the image associated with this post I don't think you could evaluate it. I'll repost it in the Avian gallery with the large version.
Posted by Ed Cordes on October 20, 2009 at 10:38 PM
I am still learning the 7D. What I have done is to open in DPP with default NR but no sharpening. Then send to CS4 and process there. I find DPP much better in controlling noise and color than ACR.
Discussion
1 repliesI decided to use the supplied Canon software (Digital Photo Professional 3.7.1.2) to convert the raw files from the 7D into tiff files and import those tiff files into Lightroom. The tiff files were noisy (as expected) but I confidently applied Dfine 2.0 to them and then Sharpener Pro 3.0 within Lightroom…….and obtained terrible results. The images were still noisy and looked like they had a bad case of dandruff. Upon examination I could see that these white spots were really individual pixels that appeared brighter than others. These bright pixels were even evident in the originally imported files when I looked closely enough.
To make a very long story short I discovered that the apparent source of the problem was that Digital Photo Professional was applying both noise reduction and sharpening to the raw file which were in turn affecting the tiff file. When I purposefully set luminance noise reduction, chrominance noise reduction (in the NR/Lens/ALO menu) as well as sharpness in the Raw menu all to zero, the tiff file produced by Digital Photo Professional was really noisy (at an iso of 1600). However, now my noise reduction and sharpening programs were much more able to deal with the problem. The bright pixels disappeared and I could better adjust the compromise between noise level and sharpness. The best high iso result so far is this little white throated sparrow (iso 1600, 400 mm, 1/200s, f/5.6). After applying Dfine, Viveza and Sharpener Pro it looks good to me: I see a uniform fine noise level and good detail on the bird. I invite your judgment and all comments are welcome.
I’m posting this note to see whether what I observed was just my system or if some of you have encountered the same problem. More generally, I’d like to know any suggestions on how best to deal with workflow for the 7D raw files while we await Adobe’s generation of the necessary camera calibration file (which is expected to be several weeks away). It would also be nice to have more than one method of dealing with camera raw files so we can compare the new Adobe calibration file with the tiff file from the Canon software.
Note: Looking at the small version of the image associated with this post I don't think you could evaluate it. I'll repost it in the Avian gallery with the large version.