Do clipping really mean loss of detail?

[Dito_Budi]

Whoops, my bad. Unfortunately the original raw & xmp files have been deleted

[Vladimir_Podlesnykh]

_6I_9419_art3.jpg.out.arp (12.4 KB)

[sherebiahtishbi (Sherebyah Tisbi)]

@priort

In the case of this image it a gamut thing … The overexposure tool in DT can be set for gamut exposure or a single RGB channel …by default I think it’s set to full gamut

yes, it is.

[sherebiahtishbi (Sherebyah Tisbi)]

That’s really a nice edit!

[sherebiahtishbi (Sherebyah Tisbi)]

Oooh…that’s fall in full summer!

[sherebiahtishbi (Sherebyah Tisbi)]

Great edit!

[sherebiahtishbi (Sherebyah Tisbi)]

@RG.photos

A good way to see if an image is fundamentally “blown out” versus just slightly overexposed is to examine things like trees or other fine details in the background, especially if they’re out of focus comparatively. The sky is often the first thing to clip when doing daylight photography, and if there’s pixel bloom, you wont see smooth, accurate edges and colors for fine details, instead they will be jagged or “chewed up” on the transition between the bright sky, and the dark trees.

I will also mention (although I use Rawtherapee instead of Darktable, so your mileage my vary) that “clipping” doesn’t always relate to luminance. You could be seeing Out of Gamut warnings due to your selected colorspace. If you’re able to easily select other color spaces, try ProPhoto, or another modern, wide gamut color space, and see if the amount of “clipped” warnings decreases.

I never tried other color spaces, I will try out other ones.

[sherebiahtishbi (Sherebyah Tisbi)]

@dqpcoxeas

My version…

That’s truly a great transformation! Would you mind dropping the XMP?

[sherebiahtishbi (Sherebyah Tisbi)]

@Popanz

_6I_9419_032000×1124 844 KB

Love the tone shift in the area lit by sun shine!

[Popanz (Uli)]

@dqpcoxeas already did:

@dqpcoxeas

_6I_9419.CR3.xmp (25,0 KB)

[cedric]

@sherebiahtishbi

@RG.photos

try ProPhoto, or another modern, wide gamut color space, and see if the amount of “clipped” warnings decreases.

I never tried other color spaces, I will try out other ones.

Beware. An input image that has out-of-gamut colors, i.e. sRGB should show warnings if working in sRGB. With some editors, if you select as suggested a wider working space, the warnings can go away … whoopee!

So now you crank away at saturation, chroma and stuff which increases the gamut. Unfortunately, saving “for the web” will get you back to a gamut-clipped image in your post here.

Flowers are the best example. Yellow rose petals rendered as bi-chromatic red and green with no blue content. Red rose petals rendered as purple with no green content. Etc. Pretty but not what you saw.

[dqpcoxeas]

Thank you for your comment. I’m glad you like it.

@dqpcoxeas

_6I_9419.CR3.xmp (25,0 KB)

[RG.photos (R G)]

@cedric

@sherebiahtishbi

@RG.photos

try ProPhoto, or another modern, wide gamut color space, and see if the amount of “clipped” warnings decreases.

I never tried other color spaces, I will try out other ones.

Beware. An input image that has out-of-gamut colors, i.e. sRGB should show warnings if working in sRGB. With some editors, if you select as suggested a wider working space, the warnings can go away … whoopee!

So now you crank away at saturation, chroma and stuff which increases the gamut. Unfortunately, saving “for the web” will get you back to a gamut-clipped image in your post here.

Flowers are the best example. Yellow rose petals rendered as bi-chromatic red and green with no blue content. Red rose petals rendered as purple with no green content. Etc. Pretty but not what you saw.

That’s an incredibly important point. One I think is forgotten about/ignored often. The colorspace/gamut is always defined by the smallest colorspace/gamut someone viewing it will be using. I create pre-set profiles in rawtherapee for each camera I use, and each camera also has several more profiles with "instagram, highqualitydigital, consumerprinter, proprinter, etc.

It’s no use buying the most expensive 10bit professional monitor, and using the widest colorspace, if the image diverges from the image appearance during export, or by the medium being used (like using something other than sRGB if it’s going to be shared to instagram) And even then, making sure the correction method (saturation/perceptual/etc) is correct is incredibly important. I actually care more about my editing monitors showing a similar image color/brightness as my laptop, and/or phone, than I care about my monitor color accuracy… I mean monitor color accuracy just makes all other adjustments easier, and for new monitors, especially if it’s OLED, or just newer designs with lighter duty components, it’s critical to calibrate often, but mine are old 8bit IPS-H monitors from 2007… They aren’t going to wander, at this point, the next noticable change in them will almost certainly be “inoperable”, haha.

[Tamas_Papp (Tamas K. Papp)]

@RG.photos

That’s why Micro 4/3 only kept a generation or two of 20MP+ sensors in their cameras…

Also because of sensor readout speed, optimizing for hybrid/video (esp Panasonic), being the earliest to introduce hires using IBIS pixelshift, etc.

FWIW, above 16Mp you won’t get dramatic improvements for most use cases with any sensor size. Yes, some people make huge prints, but it is not common. The megalpixels race kind of petered out with in the MILC era.

[hatsnp (Nuno Paulino)]

@Tamas_Papp

FWIW, above 16Mp you won’t get dramatic improvements for most use cases with any sensor size. Yes, some people make huge prints, but it is not common. The megalpixels race kind of petered out with in the MILC era.

I wonder if there is a use case for a high megapixel 4/3 sensor for sports and wildlife. Coupled with the insane range those cameras can have, 1200mm FF equiv + being able to crop half the image would wield a range unparalleled in other systems. Of course the glass would need to be very high quality etc, but it would be an interesting market to explore.

[cedric]

@hatsnp

@Tamas_Papp

FWIW, above 16Mp you won’t get dramatic improvements for most use cases with any sensor size.

I wonder if there is a use case for a high megapixel 4/3 sensor for sports and wildlife.

Long ago, I compared the MTF/Edge Spread response of my Lumix G9, 20 MP versus pixel-shift 80 MP, using QuickMTF Light. With pixel-shift, the extinction point (9% MTF) was below Nyquist - but the MTF50 point was still higher than that for 20 MP.

The pixel-shift mode was not twice as good (as some might expect) but it was better in terms of lp/mm.

I used a slant-edge target and a tripod - but I can imagine somewhat better results for sports and wildlife: however not dramatically so, as has already been said.

[photomf (massimo fiorentini)]

@sherebiahtishbi

ecently I was playing around with some of my landscape pictures. I am struggling to understand that if in my picture colors, shadow, highlight everything looks perfect than how come it shows so much of clipping when I turn the clip indicator on? If the detail was lost wouldn’t it be apparent? When I turn the clip indicator off and see the areas where it was showing clipping I do not see any loss of details with my naked eyes. Also, trying to fix the clipping takes away almost all the nice looking contrast from the picture.

I have attached a screenshot of how the bad the clipping is in my edits. I have also attached the XMP and a RAW file so you can help me understand what am I doing wrong.

_6I_9419.jpg.out.arp (11.9 KB)