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Author Topic: Qimage Ultimate RAW Development Workflow  (Read 29429 times)
Fred A
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« Reply #15 on: June 21, 2014, 05:47:37 PM »

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Fred, where would I find those settings? I don't see them in the Raw Refine window. I didn't set anything in the Edit window other than Ultra NR. Sharpening is at 0. I'm using version 2014.236.
See attached snap
EDIT, PREFERENCES, RAW OPTIONS
Fred
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Ron AKA
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« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2014, 06:16:31 PM »

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Fred, where would I find those settings? I don't see them in the Raw Refine window. I didn't set anything in the Edit window other than Ultra NR. Sharpening is at 0. I'm using version 2014.236.
See attached snap
EDIT, PREFERENCES, RAW OPTIONS
Fred

Fred, sorry I had a brain fart there, and realized where they were set later. Here is what I have. I believe all are default except I changed to sRGB workspace as I noted in my original post. Here is how they are set:

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Fred A
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« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2014, 06:36:52 PM »

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I believe all are default except I changed to sRGB workspace as I noted in my original post. Here is how they are set:
Now one more step.
With all your selected settings in place, Click SAVE in that BOx Qimage will name the SAVE according the the selected thumbnail to the camera you used.
From then on, anytime you open your images from that camera, the saved setup will be used.

By the way, it's your choice, but you dont get much sharpening action when the slider is all the way to the right. Look at my snap that I sent as a sample.

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Ron AKA
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« Reply #18 on: June 21, 2014, 06:48:19 PM »

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I believe all are default except I changed to sRGB workspace as I noted in my original post. Here is how they are set:
Now one more step.
With all your selected settings in place, Click SAVE in that BOx Qimage will name the SAVE according the the selected thumbnail to the camera you used.
From then on, anytime you open your images from that camera, the saved setup will be used.

By the way, it's your choice, but you dont get much sharpening action when the slider is all the way to the right. Look at my snap that I sent as a sample.

OK. Thanks for the tip to save this as a camera specific setting. My basic issue here though is that if you look at those images I posted to WeTransfer with the link below, the Qimage developed image is nothing short of awful. Not sure I want to link these settings to my camera... Any thoughts on what is going wrong?

http://we.tl/MUV358msNV
« Last Edit: June 21, 2014, 06:51:26 PM by Ron AKA » Logged
Fred A
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« Reply #19 on: June 21, 2014, 07:42:48 PM »

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the Qimage developed image is nothing short of awful.

Sorry I took so long to post something.

I got involved in something else.

If you look carefully at the detail in the q rendition, you will see more detail in areas where ACR smeared over it in an effort to get rid of the Chroma noise.
May be hard to see in these low resolution snaps.

Terry will probably have his version of how he likes it.
PS Just click on both snaps so they enlarge, and look at the teeth in the skeleton face on the B&W hanging poster

Fred
« Last Edit: June 21, 2014, 07:45:46 PM by Fred A » Logged
Terry-M
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« Reply #20 on: June 21, 2014, 07:58:52 PM »

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Terry will probably have his version of how he likes it.[/quote
]Here it is.
This seemed to be a very noisy image; it could possible have been improved with a little more camera exposure but it is a small sensor with a lot of pixels; reviews say noise is not good at 1600 iso.  Sad
I had trouble getting the white balance and in the end noted that the black & white wall decoration in the background was grey so matched that with the raw WB slider.
So with noise and being a bit underexposed, it was a tricky image to get right.
Terry
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Ron AKA
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« Reply #21 on: June 21, 2014, 10:42:52 PM »

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Terry will probably have his version of how he likes it.[/quote
]Here it is.
This seemed to be a very noisy image; it could possible have been improved with a little more camera exposure but it is a small sensor with a lot of pixels; reviews say noise is not good at 1600 iso.  Sad
I had trouble getting the white balance and in the end noted that the black & white wall decoration in the background was grey so matched that with the raw WB slider.
So with noise and being a bit underexposed, it was a tricky image to get right.
Terry

Terry, so how did you get the noise under control. The default Qimage settings as I used them are clearly not the answer.
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Ron AKA
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« Reply #22 on: June 22, 2014, 12:59:47 AM »

I look forward to seeing your images  Wink

Hi Terry,

Here is the link to the other image that I developed in Adobe Camera RAW quite some time ago. As a reminder it is not intended to be a "natural" looking image,  but as I described a Kodachrome postcard like look. I would never expect the default RAW exposure to come anywhere close to this, but I do expect the tools should be there to produce it manually. Again here is the WeTransfer link to the original RAW, the ACR produced JPEG, and the latest version of the Qimage produced JPEG, using all the tips and tutorials I could digest.

I don't think the Qimage version is quite there yet, and I am a bit concerned about the grainy look of the blue sky compared to the smooth look of the ACR JPEG sky. I recall it had no noise reduction and was only developed in the 16 bit RAW mode and converted to a 8 bit JPEG.

http://we.tl/Q0nSTG6EVK
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Ron AKA
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« Reply #23 on: June 22, 2014, 02:51:22 AM »

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Thumbs and RAW Cache. I see up to January 2014 they were being stored on my C: and for some reason after that they are being stored on my D:
Have you accidently changed the location of QU Application data? There's an item in the Utility menu to migrate it. The default is C:\ProgramData\ddisoftware\Qimage.
Quote
When does Qimage switch to 8 bit color? I presume when you are in the Refine RAW screen you are still working in 16 bit? What about when you double click on a RAW image and go to the Editor. Are you still in 16 bit, or have you switched to 8 bit at that point?
If you open a non-raw image in QU it converts to 8-bit. Raw refine is 16 bit, editor is 8 bit.

I have moved my Thumbs and RawCache to the C:\ProgramData\ddisoftware\Qimage folder which is on the SSD. I really can't see a significant difference in speed. I have noticed that Qimage has put a bunch of large 16 GB JPEG files in the RawCache. That seems like very large files just to display an image on a monitor screen. Just about everything I do in the Edit screen seems to bring up the spinning blue wheel, and I am spending an awful lot of time watching the wheel spin! In the Edit screen do you have to click on Apply for each tab, or just once before you quit the Edit? Good 4-5 second wait every time I touch that button. And to finally output a JPEG is probably almost twice as long. I run Windows 8.1 x64. Is Qimage running in 64 bit or 32 bit? It does not seem to be using much memory, so I am thinking 32 bit?

On the color bit depth in the Editor if it is using 8 bit color space, then stretching the histogram with Levels and making other significant color adjustments is likely to cause posterization?
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Fred A
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« Reply #24 on: June 22, 2014, 09:30:20 AM »

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that Qimage has put a bunch of large 16 GB JPEG files in the RawCache

I get 11 and 14 MEGABYTE cache files from your images. If you get Gigabyte files, something in wrong.

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! In the Edit screen do you have to click on Apply for each tab, or just once before you quit the Edit? Good 4-5 second wait every time I touch that button. And to finally output a JPEG is probably almost twice as long

In rare occasions, you might have to use the APPLY button; like deleting a Blemish filter.
The OK button on the preview box is all you need to apply the filter to the entire image.
Some folks opt not to use the preview window and turn it off. Then the APPLY button is needed.
Most of the waiting time you are experiencing is due to the extreme Chroma noise and Grain from your camera. The adaptive noise reduction is cleaning your 5355 x 3581 image.
You can turn the Noise reduction off until you are finished adjusting.

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Save as highest quality sRGB JPEG.

I wouldn't worry about posterization

So here's what your (very nice shot) image looks like from Qimage Ultimate, and another with some "goosed" colors which you seem to lean toward.
You also might consider, when complaining about 10 seconds to make a Hi Quality JPG with profile conversion, that Qimage did all the exposure correction for you automatically. You spent a whole lot more than 10 seconds fiddling with ACR. I can promise you that!

Enjoy!
Fred
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Ron AKA
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« Reply #25 on: June 22, 2014, 04:42:57 PM »

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that Qimage has put a bunch of large 16 GB JPEG files in the RawCache

I get 11 and 14 MEGABYTE cache files from your images. If you get Gigabyte files, something in wrong.

Quote
! In the Edit screen do you have to click on Apply for each tab, or just once before you quit the Edit? Good 4-5 second wait every time I touch that button. And to finally output a JPEG is probably almost twice as long

In rare occasions, you might have to use the APPLY button; like deleting a Blemish filter.
The OK button on the preview box is all you need to apply the filter to the entire image.
Some folks opt not to use the preview window and turn it off. Then the APPLY button is needed.
Most of the waiting time you are experiencing is due to the extreme Chroma noise and Grain from your camera. The adaptive noise reduction is cleaning your 5355 x 3581 image.
You can turn the Noise reduction off until you are finished adjusting.

Quote
Save as highest quality sRGB JPEG.

I wouldn't worry about posterization

So here's what your (very nice shot) image looks like from Qimage Ultimate, and another with some "goosed" colors which you seem to lean toward.
You also might consider, when complaining about 10 seconds to make a Hi Quality JPG with profile conversion, that Qimage did all the exposure correction for you automatically. You spent a whole lot more than 10 seconds fiddling with ACR. I can promise you that!

Oops, another brain fart on the Cache JPEG's. Should be MB of course. But, still I don't understand the need to have such large files. It only takes 2000 pixels of width to fill my screen.

I will try the OK button on the Preview box and see how that works.

On the noise, yes there certainly was a lot of noise in that "Day of the Dead" restaurant picture as it was taken in low light. However, I would suggest the beach shot which was taken in full daylight has very little noise. In Adobe Camera RAW I just left the settings at default which is zero Luminance NR, and 25 for Color. Just checked it and I could have backed the Color off to 15, but unless it is a low light shot, I just leave NR at default. My observation is that this image has very low native noise. I am not sure where that noise in the sky is coming from in the Qimage image. It seems to be creating it? Or perhaps it is aggressive sharpening. But, I turned off sharpening for the sky tone.

In the ACR workflow NR and Sharpening is left to the end, which makes sense. However, in Qimage Ultimate it seems to me that one should do the RAW Refine first, which is where the auto NR and Sharpening are located. It doesn't seem to make sense to do RAW Refine last if you want to use the Editor just to "touch up" the adjustments to take care of what was not done automatically.

I don't see posterization in the Qimage edit, but I sure do see noise. As for processing time, I am experienced with ACR and it probably takes me a minute to do this type of image. I don't see Qimage taking less time, and currently takes much more, unless you accept the auto development.

I'm still not able to get the quality of the Qimage image up to that of ACR and Capture One Pro 7. Even your images that you posted look grainy and dirty to me.
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Fred A
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« Reply #26 on: June 22, 2014, 05:02:11 PM »

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Even your images that you posted look grainy and dirty to me.

Simple answer Ron.  I stop reducing noise when the image sharpness and resolution, detail and definition degrade.
Your images from ACR are smeary and doughy looking with a large loss of clarity.
No argument, Just a reply to your statement above.
If you prefer your prints like that, so be it.
My taste differs.
I think we have beaten this horse enough.
Maybe we all learned something and maybe not, but we try.

Fred
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Ron AKA
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« Reply #27 on: June 22, 2014, 07:36:17 PM »

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Even your images that you posted look grainy and dirty to me.

Simple answer Ron.  I stop reducing noise when the image sharpness and resolution, detail and definition degrade.
Your images from ACR are smeary and doughy looking with a large loss of clarity.
No argument, Just a reply to your statement above.
If you prefer your prints like that, so be it.
My taste differs.
I think we have beaten this horse enough.
Maybe we all learned something and maybe not, but we try.

I think we are talking past each other.

I've given you two images from my RX100. One was a very noisy available light shot, and I was very disappointed in how Qimage RAW Refine handled it with default settings. It INCREASED noise instead of reducing it and frankly it made the image unusable. In my view the ACR version of it was usable, but not great. It by necessity had large amounts of noise reduction applied and yes that does smear detail. However, in my view with the appropriate tradeoffs made it still can work, and did.

I also gave you a second RX100 image of a beach. That image does not have any significant noise. I used essentially zero noise reduction in ACR. It is not possible that ACR smeared the image. But, on the other hand, using default Noise Reduction settings in Qimage Ultimate, it somehow managed to introduce noise into the image. I would like to learn how Qimage is doing that, so I can avoid it.

I also processed the same image with Capture One Pro 7, and applied no noise reduction. It also like the ACR version shows a nice clean sky with no noise, and again it is not possible to have smearing because no noise reduction was used. See a low res version of it below.



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Jeff
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« Reply #28 on: June 23, 2014, 07:07:28 AM »

Hi Jeff,

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is there a preferred MO for editing?
I understand it's important to do any SEL COL smart colour before any contrast, curves, saturation etc. I like to do any contrast type adjustments before sharpening as that can affect the apparent sharpness, in fact I always leave DFS until last.
Terry

Terry

That is reassuring, basically my sequence

Jeff
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Ron AKA
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« Reply #29 on: June 26, 2014, 12:27:23 AM »

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the discussion for all the suggestions. I certainly know a lot more now about the ability of Qimage Ultimate when it comes to RAW development and image editing. I think I have satisfied my curiosity  on how it works, and whether or not it could be a one stop solution for my development, editing, and printing of images. At least for now, I have concluded that for RAW development and image editing, Qimage Ultimate is not a good fit for my camera and my tastes in image editing. However for printing, I still feel it is unmatched and I will continue to be a satisfied user. Still not fully settled, but it is looking like my workflow is going to be Capture One Pro 7 for RAW development, and initial editing to the extent it can be done in that software. Further pixel editing using layers, filters, etc. will be done in Photoshop Elements Editor, and then final printing in Qimage Ultimate.
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