Incorrect colors after importing a Canon XTI RAW image into LightRoom

[eshwar_somashekar]

I've been using LR for about a week now and love it. However, it does a poorer

job of rendering RAW images (and therefore also exporting to JPG) than Canon's

Digital Photo Professional. LR image have a sickly yellow+green for skin tones

vs. Canon's images, which are more Red.

 

I've tried every combination of compensating for this by twiddling with white-

balance settings, Hue, Saturation etc. but have been unsuccessful in getting

the images to look as gorgeous as Canon's Digital Photo Pro does out-of-the-

box. That's, of course, extremely frustrating since I like LR's features so

much better. Help! Has anyone solved this? I've seen similar postings on

various web sites, but no one seems to have a solution yet!

 

Thanks.

[PuppyDigs]

If a RAW file is saved with a certain WB, saturation, color space, etc., DPP reads the Canon

software tags and opens them as defaults. Adobe apps can't read Pictures Styles or custom

parameters so they need a lot more clicks to look good. I gave up on the LR beta and ACR as

DPP RAW files look much better with far fewer clicks. In fact, I have a custom User Style on my

5D I use for late afternoon landscapes tweaked so well I barely have to do anything in DPP. In

ACR it takes about 10 minutes of diddling to get the "look" back...

[lester_wareham]

My copy of ACR seems to read the file WB setting OK (on CS2)?

[michael_ziegler2]

I believe there is a default white balance set in LR which can be changed. As I remember it is set to auto which you might want to change to as shot. In any case you might get better advice by posting this in the Digital Darkroom form at this site.

[lester_wareham]

Yes I use "As Shot" in ACR which works fine. The internal "Auto" on ACR is not very good.

[eshwar_somashekar]

Yes, of course I've tried changing the white-balance from "as shot" to other settings :)

 

I've also tried modifying the Camera calibration (Red Hue+Saturation) as well as played with tweaking the picture specifically. But unfortunately, the image just doesn't look as good. Highlights, lights, darks, shadows all seem to have a different tinge than what Canon Photo Pro interprets out-of-the box. And disappointingly, the LR pictures just don't look as good :(

[jwhite3.0]

It took me about 8 months to figure out an easy way to color correct my images using CS2. Actually I use Scott Preston's quick and dirty color correction using curves in PS. I don't use Lightroom or DPP but shoot me an email if you want a method of color correction using curves.

[lester_wareham]

Eshwar, are you sure DPP and Lightroom are setup to use the same monitor profile? (I am assuming the problem is visible on monitor and not just output).

 

I have some comparative tests on earlier versions of DPP and ACR here http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/convertertests.htm.

[tim_dodd]

Here are some comparative shots of raw files from my 30D processed using DPP and Lightroom. The pictures of the girl with the guitar were processed using DPP 3.0 and Lightroom running on Vista Ultimate. The earlier shots (without the guitar) were processed using DPP 2.2 and Lightroom running on XP Pro. There was no editing except to select different picture styles or white balance, as noted against each photo. One photo did have a small spot heal in Lightroom but none have any adjustment to curves. I did boost exposure on a couple of Lightroom pictures, as noted, to get a closer match to DPP.

 

The pictures of the girl with guitar give the most exact comparison as nothing was altered in that sequence except picture styles in DPP.

 

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/EezyTiger/DPPVsLightroomSkintones

 

While there are clearly differences in tone between each set of photos I wouldn't say that any show a sign of a sickly yellow/green skin tone. I think the Lightroom processing falls somewhere between DPP Standard and DPP Neutral colour and contrast and that makes it pretty much ideal for my tastes.

 

My LCD monitor is recently calibrated using Syder2Pro and the pictures look just fine to me (except those where I have manually set WB=Flash, which has clearly warmed up the appearance too much).

[tim_dodd]

Actually, to answer my own post, when I said all variants looked fine, that is not really true. I'm sure the differences represent what Canon had in mind but I would say that the Lightroom image takes top spot, followed by Canon Standard and Neutral picture styles, while the other picture styles definitely leave room for improvement.

[jcraig]

Potentially one reason for issues, is that LR's color space is ProPhoto RGB by default -- many monitors cannot display this full space, likewise exporting to smaller (eg. sRGB) color spaces can lead to some minor surprises on colors found in the resulting tiff/jpeg.

[eshwar_somashekar]

Thanks for the responses! I'm still struggling with this issue. Here are examples of pictures: http://public.fotki.com/eshwars/lr-issues/ All I did to get the JPG image was the following:

 

1. Opened the CR2 file in DPP, "Convert and Save" with Image Quality=10, Output Resolution=350 dpi. Output image is named: DPP_20070408_4038.JPG

 

2. Imported and opened the very same CR2 file in LR. Used "Export Photos" to JPG. Image quality=100, Color space=sRGB, Resolution=30dpi. Output image is named: LR_20070408_4038.jpg

 

3. I tried "compensating" for LR based on suggestion in another forum by modifying the Camera Calibration settings in LR. Hue=-40, Saturation=+10. I've tried other values as well, but it just doesn't look as good as DPP does by default. Output image is named: LR_20070408_4038_compensated.jpg

[lester_wareham]

Eshwar, do they look close on screen in the same colour managed programme?

 

Looking at the picture the main difference is in exposure level.

 

How are you getting your white balance, are both programmes using the "As Shot"? Have you tried click balancing for each case off of the white t-shirt?

 

Some difference in interpretation is inevitable I would think however, you just have to get used to it.