[UDPATE: Initial test at Tom Grill (aboutphotography) here: “I have applied the new beta 8.4 corrections to some Fuji RAW files in Photoshop and did a blog post on it showing the results along with some downloadable samples your readers might find interesting“]
Adobe Labs released the latest prerelease version of Camera Raw 8.4 RC and DNG Converter 8.4 RC Now here. No equivalent Lightroom RC for now.
It now supports, not only the X-T1, but, as a trusted source told us in January also Fuji’s film simulations. Read more at the Lightroomjournal here..
Added Camera Matching color profiles (PROVIA/STANDARD, Velvia/VIVID, ASTIA/SOFT, MONOCHROME, etc.) for the following Fujifilm cameras:
The first feebdack comes from soundimageplus here: “finally, a much improved demosiacing algorithm that eliminates the smearing / watercolour problem with foliage in particular and in fact produces extremely nice raw conversions within Photoshop without the need for additional software.”
However, FR-readers can’t confirm the improved demosiacing until now. MJr said: “Well i guess soundimageplus just ASSUMED the demosaicing has improved and went straight to the comparison with Noise Ninja, not knowing it’s actually the VERY SAME algorithm as before. NO CHANGE AT ALL aside from the color presets (not that this isn’t quite awesome already!). What i did notice however is that the X-E1 renders a somewhat poorer image than the X-E2 or X-T1 raws do. So i’m guessing he simply discovered ACR/Lightroom already does a decent job with current bodies, most of the time.“
As always, download, test and share your finding… some of you may also be able to test it on the new X-T1.
IN STOCK CHECK
at the moment the body is in stock ant WexUK and WexDE
X-T1 body only ($1,299): USA: AmazonUS / BHphoto / Adorama / Pictureline / EU: wexDE / wexUK / PCHstore /
X-T1 with 18-55 ($1,699): USA: AmazonUS / BHphoto / Adorama / Pictureline / EU: wexDE / wexUK / PCHstore /
cheers
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Here is the one of German FR-reader Martin… “the family is growing“. Also BH and Amazon are shipping it, according to several emails I’ve received.
24 Responses
Thank you to Fuji, Thank you to Adobe! From all of us!
whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The only difference with 8.3 films are preset film, the rest does not change anything! tried it now! X-E2
So greens are still f-ed up?
I do not know the differences
does lightroom use the same camera raw plugin as photoshop ? if not we need to to be implemented in lightroom asap !
It does not, but, they are built on the same architecture. Unless Adobe is planning to release LR6 very soon, they will almost certainly update it when this is all out of beta/release candidate testing.
There’s has never been a ACR update without LR getting the same update at the same time, even for a RC that’s a first.
Yeah, that’s what was making me wonder if it might be a hint that LR6 is coming soon. It could also mean nothing of the sort and Adobe just didn’t get around to internal testing of an updated LR in time and wanted to let this ACR out of the bag prior to the official launch of the X-T1.
It’s a beta version.
Well i guess soundimageplus just ASSUMED the demosaicing has improved and went straight to the comparison with Noise Ninja, not knowing it’s actually the VERY SAME algorithm as before. NO CHANGE AT ALL aside from the color presets (not that this isn’t quite awesome already!)
What i did notice however is that the X-E1 renders a much poorer image than the X-E2 or X-T1 raws do. So i’m guessing he simply discovered Lightroom already does a very decent job already with current bodies, most of the time.
I agree, ACR or Lightroom does pretty good job as is.
I gave it a go comparing the same image processed before and after updating to 8.4 with same settings. I did not apply the film simulation setting. The images are identical down to the pixel.
I still think that the camera produces the most pleasing results. However, I am not in the camp that thinks LR is doing something “wrong” with these images. I just don’t think it’s applying the same level of image processing, edge sharpening, micro contrast, etc. that the camera and other RAW processors are. LR has always leaned towards flatter, softer, less processed images by default.
What makes this worse is that most people have no clue how sharpening works in LR/ACR and so they never apply it effectively and never realize you can get perfectly good results from LR. The results will pretty much always differ from other processors, of course, but good none the less.
Last year when Adobe released “improved” X-trans processing, they plainly stated in their change log that all they did was increase baseline sharpening. I have found that I can get really close results to the camera if I focus on getting contrasts, highlights, and shadows matching then use a greater-than-1 sharpening radius. The only thing I can’t quite match to the degree that the camera can manage is good shadows on green matter. Still haven’t figured out a good way to get that improved.
“Last year when Adobe released “improved” X-trans processing, they
plainly stated in their change log that all they did was increase
baseline sharpening”
Well that must have been after the improved x-trans processing, because the watercolour effect definitely used to be much worse, in fact when keeping sharpening on the default 25, the image got softer(!) from LR4.3 to LR4.4, but with a lot less of the falsely interpreted detail. So when you did sharpen more it sharpened (almost) the right things. But indeed at some point between LR4.4 and now the sharpening appears to have increased slightly (but not further improvement). Photo Ninja etc can still find detail that ACR can’t, no matter how it’s sharpened.
There is no change other than the film simulations. I compared some X-E2 pictures with the previous and the new ACR and I can’t see any difference between the versions. Foliage or else, all the same. The film simulation is nice though, and a support for the X-T1, of course.
I take advantage of the open question for some advice:I have been using with great satisfaction a RX1 camera for over a year and last week I decided to buy a Fuji X-e2 with a 18mm for my wife. This is my first experience with an X-Trans sensor, how can I get the Maximum of a RAF file with LR 5.3, do you have any suggestions? thanks a lot.
It might be a matter of taste, and depend on the type of photograph like a portrait or landscape would require very different processing. I don’t always like what the detail slider does or how it sharpens with masking activated so all i would do is set sharpening to 50 and that’s it. (IF you want maximum detail at 100% view)
BUT, if you’re going to upload to the web and it’s going to be downsized it will already gain sharpness just from the downsizing, so really what you need to do then is NOTHING .. just make sure the shot is in focus. Personally i like to turn off sharpening completely to avoid jagged edges when displayed at normal viewing size (2MP Full-HD), or printed at normal size unless it really is going to be a huge poster.
In my first tests, I was pleased to see that using the Camera Standard profile indeed remedies the shadow posterization problem that the Adobe Standard profile always had. It just leads to much nicer gradations in the blacks. It was always quite frustrating to see the JPEG preview jump to the rendered result, and it would always have posterized shadows that were impossible to get rid of with ACR settings (they were mostly only noticeable on a calibrated wide-gamut Eizo monitor though).
Saturation clipping, one of the major weaknesses of ACR, is also less of a problem with the Fuji profiles than with the Adobe one, even though other raw converters like Capture One still do a better job at that.
The Fuji profiles are more of a distinct preset look, though, sort of like a fashion statement, whereas the Adobe Standard profile is a more neutral and subtle starting point. I find that with the Fuji profiles, I need to tweak a lot fewer sliders (I found myself often bringing up blacks quite a bit) to get some excellent results.
This feels a lot like the way it used to be with film, where you chose your stock and it would give you something that just looked great out of the box and you didn’t have to do much, even though it was a look specific to the film stock and less so to the photographer. But now you still have all the raw controls on top of that. I think this is a great complement to the standard raw workflow where you usually start with kind-of neutral and slowly go from there. Now if only there were a few Kodak profiles on that list as well, and a Leica M9 one… And I sure wish I could apply those profiles to my Nikon and Canon raws! They are also not available when using ACR as a filter in Photoshop CC, which means that stacking conversions with different profiles has to be done via the original raw files in Smart Objects.
I had also hoped that Adobe might backport the ProNeg presets to make them available for the X100, but hey, it’s phenomenal news nonetheless.
One thing I love is that there is now the full raw bit depth available. So it is entirely possible to go for the Velvia color palette without the over the top contrast and saturation for instance if you wanted that.
I have yet to make a test that compares the camera JPEGs to the ACR profiles, though. With my D300s, the results of the camera profiles don’t seem to match the camera preview JPEGs at all (even worse with my old D70s, but much better with the D700). So a side-by-side-comparison would definitely be interesting (also with different ACR process versions). I’d also be curious to see a test shot comparing these to the actual Fuji film.
By the way, switching through the profiles, it becomes extremely apparent that the labels for Astia and Provia are indeed swapped on the X100. I have no idea why Fujifilm would do that, and they may have fixed it in the firmware of subsequent models, but the names of the ACR profiles use the same incorrect labels that the firmware uses, probably to avoid confusion.
I can imagine that these profiles may actually be an argument to switch to a Fuji system for people who need to deliver great looking photos very quickly without too much time for tweaking, like all sorts of press and event photographers. These are very different from just slapping on some quick ACR preset.
Damn, it appears my X100 doesn’t get the Pro Neg films. Since i don’t get them in-body i guess i’m not allowed to have ‘m at all! 🙁
Also, just like the in body JPGs it appears the profiles for the x-trans sensor have much stronger blacks than they do with the original X100, now in Raw too. The blacks are clipped just a little too much if you ask me .. but that we can fix, and it looks great straight away with the X100 imho. The ‘default’ Provia setting is such a huge improvement .. with the click of a button. It was basically impossible to forge manually without their secret recipe, as every photo would require different adjustments. So it’s really awesome to have proper colors now straight out of import! 🙂
“a much improved demosiacing algorithm”???
man i was looking forward to that. but same results as LR…
how to use or find color profiles for Fuji X
It’s a dropdown menu under Calibration.
thx MJr, found it now:-)
demosaicing is the same as 8.3 and fine detail still far from photo ninja.
i don’t know at what soundimageplus is looking, really. otherwhise film simulationd seem quite accurate and almost matching the in camera preset.