I think I am. I know that RAWs do look different. It ist just that they look way too dark WHEN I switch to the profile “neutral”. They are displayed correctly if I do not switch to any profile.
I do not think that my workaround is completely usesless, since it is a way to switch back to the very first settings. Once you have switched to “neutral” there appears to be no way to get the dcp tone curve activated without going there and activating it manually.
In this case (probably with all Olympuses), the dcp tone curve is a much better start for further editing than the pure raw data (or profile “neutral”)
If all your ORF files look really too dark when you set the profile to neutral, maybe it’s partly because that camera (or the settings you shoot with in your camera) tend to underexpose your images. If you see much empty space to right of the histogram then it might indeed be the case, and give you a clue about how you can try to maximize dynamic range in your photographs by exposing more “to the right”.
This should be solved by reading what Morgan linked, namely:
If that’s unexpected (I don’t think so), then you should file a bug report, as already said.
There, I think, you mostly refer to:
Well, it’s a bit harsh, but rude? You are clearly a beginner with RT (we all were once), and I had a look at your weblog, and it is what a “weblog” is supposed to be: A collection of thoughts and snippets. And you found out about the DCPs, which is great. So I, too, think Morgan was a bit too harsh in your case. But this topic pops up ever and ever again, so I can understand his bad temper.
Please dig a bit deeper into RawPedia, you’ll get a better understanding what RAW and “Neutral” is about, I promise.
BTW: 5.4 will have a really nice feature by @agriggio called “Histogram matching” that (together with the proper DCP) will make the RAW look almost like the JPG right from the start. ( for Alberto, yay!)
anyway I do not appear to be the only Olympus user with this problem. I found a solution by googling it, I think a user who found the workaround first had en E-M1.
Lightroom and ACR display the raws better, though they are still a little dark and a little grey.
The screenshot shows a shot that was overexposed on purpose, without the dcp tone curve.
My camera settings are “normal”, I do not usually under oder overexpose, except when using exposure rows.
Excuse me @betazoid, but this image in particular is not a great example: it is back lit, and has probably made your camera to underexpose the foreground because of the very bright background.
Anyways, regarding DCP profiles, here’s a post from one year ago by Morgan:
So, wanting not to be rude I go on. @betazoid wrote above " Lightroom and ACR display the raws better…"
Unless you speak about showing the bayer pattern, there is nothing like that.
At minimum, a lot of processing is done on raw data (demosaicing, WB,…). Beyond that those SW apply behind the hood a lot of processing ( exposure, sharpening…) even if you ask nothing.
What is displayed is not a raw but an image with some output profile.
I am sure this expression was a shortcut but it could mislead some newbie.
I don’t think anybody is questioning your “solution”. The settings are there to be used, after all.
I think the source of confusion was this statement that you wrote:
which implies that there is a problem, and that RT does something incorrect with ORF files. Neither of which is true – it’s just that you don’t like how the picture looks when you apply the neutral profile, and that’s perfecly ok, as long as you don’t claim that RT is “incorrect” because it doesn’t suit to your taste in one of its possible default modes
As I looked at them again this night, I did not find them extremely dark, but still dark.
I don’t know.
I have googled this, if I remember correctly, years ago I also found the RAWs from my old Canon too dark in RT, and now I also found Nikon users who complained about dark photos. But maybe it is really a matter of taste.
The “neutral” profile roughly means “do not do anything to my photo.” So it doesn’t look optimal because nothing has been done.
Are you opposed to using the automatic settings in the Exposure module? I think they give a nice starting point!
Looking at the histogram of your first image, I’d say this is the correct exposure for your camera’s “expose to the right” metering system, as there is no clipping of your shadows and only a slight clipping of the highlights.
Two articles about baseline exposure compensation, it’s done in lightroom or in the jpeg engine for what I understand.
Rawtherapee shows you the raw file, a lot of people using lightroom or camera raw have your opposite issue because they want the raw untouched, like rawtherapee does
You know what: default setting on my camera is exposure row (0, +1, -1). In most cases, I use theoverexposed or the (apparetly) correctly exposed shot, very rarely I use the underexposed version. I am doing this since many years now. Now I know why. Maybe I should switch exposure compensation to + 0,5? I have already been shooting exposure rows with my Canon, because I felt that the exposure was not correct.
Though, the first screamshot that I posted was a completely manual exposure, it was indeed (apparently) overexposed. The exposure looked ok in liveview on the camera’s display, but in reality it was still underexposed.
I’d say that you shouldn’t be judging exposure by LiveView nor review mode on any camera LCD screen, that is more to check composition and sharpness. If you need to judge exposure, you should use the histogram.
There are very few cases, I’d think, that a RAW file with the neutral profile in RT is going to look great-- you’d need just the right amount of scene contrast to make that happen. Rather, if your exposure is decent (by decent exposure I mean no clipping of the shadows and none or minimal clipping of highlights), it’ll look a bit dark.
Have you tried the Exposure module’s Auto setting? I find them to be quite good. If you are opposed to the auto setting, can you share why?
I tried the auto exposure setting. I think in some cases (I did not count them) it is just not working, like any other auto exposure/color setting.
If I have an exposure row, it tends to make all exposures look the same, as if they were identical exposures. I think it just cannot know how dark or light the photo really is, it assumes that everything should be grey. It cannot guess high or low key shots well. But maybe I am wrong.
And using the DCP profile + tone curve is also a good starting point, as @betazoid found by himself already. And indeed in the next release he will be able to use the auto-matched curve.
I am not combining exposures. I am just looking for the better exposure. I guess deep down I always felt that digital cameras are underexposing.
So now, I have decided to change my default settings to: exposure row with 2 shots, 1 x -0.3, 1 x + 0.7.
I used to use Capture One and DxO when I started the exposure rows. I think they are/were not manipulating the RAWs as much as Adobe.
for Alberto, yay!)
