P: Disable built-in lens profile

This narrative that the user is being short-changed somehow when software correction stands in for / supplements purely optical correction, doesn't really stand up IMO - these are no more than alternative engineering solutions. The user can indeed benefit if a lens becomes cheaper to make, but also if it's lighter and smaller, with fewer internal glass surfaces, and fewer and less massy moving parts... for the equivalent end result.


That said, to opt to disable built-in 'compulsory' correction and then live with the consequences (applying whatever external lens profile or manual correction one likes) seems completely reasonable as a request. Alternatively, if the "scale" transform could bring edge data into view which built-in lens correction is otherwise trimming off, this might address the particular complaint that Raw picture content is being lost by that.

"I suspect that many of the camera manufactures are reluctant to have this happen for many of the current production  lenses. They seem to have gone in the direction of making less expensive optics by making them look good enough with software."

Camera manufacturers are also doing this with more expensive lenses to increase performance. By allowing a zoom lens design to have more distortion and vignetting the focal length range and/or maximum aperture can be increased. A good example of this is the Sony FE 12-24mm F/4 G ultrawide zoom lens. What's interesting is that the built-in lens profile does NOT apply 100% Distortion and Vignetting correction. Given the extreme angle of view at the 12mm setting doing so would definitely reduce corner image quality due to stretching. There's still considerable corner stretching, which with some image types could be improved by reducing the correction even further (i.e. 0-100% manual controls).
http://www.opticallimits.com/sonyalphaff/1017-sony1224f4g?start=1
To see what your images would look like without the built-in lens profile applied turn off the Distortion and Vignetting correction in your camera's settings menu and shoot raw + JPEG. Use LR's Compare mode to see them side-by-side.

@Chris, I hope Adobe takes this seriously. I have a multi-year project that depends on the look of a lens and now I can't use Adobe software to process the images. The only way to get around this now is by leaving the Adobe ecosystem and developing the RAW file in a competing program. We need the option to turn off built-in profiles to avoid this. I had to plunk down $100 on a competitor just to get the feature to turn off the built-in profiles. That's annoying.

Thanks for the update Chris.

I suspect that many of the camera manufactures are reluctant to have this happen for many of the current production  lenses. They seem to have gone in the direction of making less expensive optics by making them look good enough with software. 

I believe that it is a heavy handed on the part of the manufactures to "enforce" lens correction. Truthfully for 98% of users they will never even think about this and won't matter. They are all very happy shooting JPG in camera and happy with the results. Its only raw shooters that might care and most of us have already invested in better or best quality lenses. I just want the option to choose what is going to make the best rendition from a particular capture.

tks, louie

It is true that lens correction opcodes cannot be disabled in Adobe software. We have considered doing so, but it currently isn't planned. However, I will provide this feedback to the team. 

There are also 3rd party tools such as exiftool that can be used to strip opcodes from raw files. They should be used at your own risk, and as far as I know you cannot add the opcodes back once they have been removed.

Regards,

- Chris

This is exactly what I was asking for in the initial question. Chris's initial assertion that certain "opcodes" cannot be disabled is not true as other raw processor application do precisely that.  I simply want the same option in Lightroom. 

-louie

I think part of the problem may be due to the fact that each camera manufacturer's embedded lens profile data my be proprietary and protected by patents. This makes it difficult to implement properly functioning 0-100% Distortion and Vignetting controls, but it should be easy to simply provide the ability to "disable" applying the lens profile. You can then use the Lens Corrections 'Manual' panel Distortion and Vignetting controls and Transform panel "Scale control to fill the corrected image in the original frame. With certain lens focal lengths and subjects you may only need to apply manual Vignetting. However, enabling the Distortion and Vignetting 0-100% manual controls is the best option.

Todd Shaner, so this is an issue that is unsolved since 2013?
I've been working with DSLRs since 2003 and have never had this problem of the baked in correction, but since 2016 I'm filming with the DJI X5R and that was the moment when I got into this problem.

It's not very confidence inspiring that Adobe did not implement the option to disable the embedded lens-profile for so long time...

I've copied this reply over from a 2013 Lightroom forum post with a similar discussion.

Vignetting and rectilinear distortion correction to make your digital camera images "100% perfect" is generally unnecessary and can even degrade the image quality. This is essentially what the "built-in" lens profile is doing! Adding the ability to use the 0-100% Distortion and Vignetting slider controls with "built-in" lens profiles will allow users to manually "dial-in" in a more appropriate correction amount. I personally have all of my lens profile default settings changed to 0% Distortion and 75% Vignetting and only change them when there is "visible" distortion or vignetting in the image. YMMV with these built-in lens profiles, but you hopefully get the idea...and I hope Adobe Engineering does as well!

Distortion Correction Cons

-Crops the image to maintain straight image borders–You lose the image peripheral area that is corrected. Wide and ultra-wide zoom lenses generally have significant barrel distortion. Applying 100% correction "effectively" increase the focal length, which means that expensive 12-24mm zoom lens may provide something closer to a 14-26mm lens. It also reduces the image resolution in those “stretched” areas due to upscaling interpolation of the image data.

-Wide angle lenses generally exhibit barrel type distortion, which actually helps to reduce corner and edge "stretching." By correcting this distortion to make it 100% "geometrically correct" the elongation will become more noticeable. In fact there is software available that can apply "non-rectilinear correction" (volume anamorphosis) to wide angle images to remove some of the elongation. This "added distortion" can actually improve certain images (i.e. people pictures). Good information here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4516863#4516863

As Eric outlined at the above post you can simply use the 'Manual' Lens Corrections Distortion slider to add barrel distortion: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/correct_stretching_effect_from_an_ul tra_wide_angle_lens

Vignetting Correction Cons

-Most people are accustomed to seeing some vignetting in photographs and in fact vignetting is sometimes "added" to images to focus attention on the central subject.

-Wide and ultra-wide angle lenses usually exhibit significant vignetting especially at wide apertures, which can be as much as -3EV. You will need to apply +3EV of exposure compensation in the extreme corners to achieve 100% vignetting correction. This will significantly raise shadow noise and can also reduce image quality due to lens defects such as astigmatism, and coma.

Some lenses have unique characteristics that make the lens shine and by "correcting" those characteristics automatically takes away from the picture. The only way to get around this now is by leaving the Adobe ecosystem and developing the RAW file in a competing program. We need the option to turn off built-in profiles to avoid this.