P: Merge to HDR automatically applies lens correction profile to Sony ARW (RAW) file

[EWulf]

I'm using Lightroom CC, Sony A7r camera, generating Sony Raw files (AWR) and my problem happens with all of my Sony lenses (all of them have lens Profile Corrections, but I have it turned off on import).
I bring the images into Lightroom without lens correction. When I send my bracketed exposures into Merge To HDR with auto align and auto tone turned off, Lightroom automatically applies the lens correction profile. This is not a problem for most of my lenses as I want them corrected EXCEPT for my Sony 16 mm fisheye converter. I don't want lightroom to correct the fisheye distortion. I talked with someone using Nikon RAW files and Lightroom does not correct their fisheye distortion (don't know about other lenes). How can I prevent Lightroom from applying profile correction to my images upon sending them to Merge to HDR? Thanks

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Eric,

That seems a little odd. Is there any chance you could send me a couple of HDR to Merge images taken with your 16mm lens via Dropbox or similar so that I could test them?

[ssprengel]

Also, if lens corrections are being applied before the merge, can't you just turn them back off after the merge, or is the result of the corrections baked into the DNG and the corrections cannot be turned off?

[EWulf]

Rikk, I've tried it on two computer running Lightroom with the same results. I can put a three file bracket into a shared Dropbox. Can you access my email and send me your email or how do I get them to you?

[EWulf]

Steve,

NO LENS CORRECTIONS are being added by me.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Sent you an email.

[EWulf]

I have shared the folder with the files. Let me know if they is a probelm

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Eric,

I got your files and imported them into a 6.5.1 catalog. I made certain that Lens Corrections Profile Correction was turned off for all three images. Sent them to Photo Merge>HDR with AutoAlign and AutoTone turned off. The resulting HDR DNG does not have a Profile auto-applied. 

On this Mac (El Capitan) it is working as expected.  What is your OS?

[ssprengel]

Yes, but are the lens corrections that are being added (somehow) also removable after the HDR is created?

In other words, once the resulting HDR is back in LR, can you uncheck the Enable Profile Corrections and have things back to how you want ? 

[ssprengel]

Rikk, is the lens/camera combo one that uses built-in lens corrections or do the lens corrections only occur after you've checked Enable Profile Corrections?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Steve, The individual raw files do have an embedded profile that is being auto-applied.  If you interrogate the raw in ACR, it shows the presence of the profile.  The resultant DNG does not. 

[EWulf]

When you bring the hdr.dng back into Lightroom the lens profile remains unchecked. If you check it you get a more extreme anti-fisheye distortion.

[ssprengel]

So this profile in the original raws does not require Enable Profile Corrections to be enabled? 

If one does Enable Profile Corrections does the correction change or is there a message about an external profile not being found?

[EWulf]

If it is already applied to all images and the images are OK in Lightroom (except for the Merge to HDR), I don’t understand why it would cause a problem with just with Merge to HDR. The correction that is being applied “automatically” with the Merge to HDR looks identical to what happens when checking the Lens correction profile, so I still thinks it’s something with Lightroom/Sony RAW. This happens with all the Sony lenses that I have.

[ssprengel]

There are two ways lens corrections can happen with raw images. 

The old way is that someone has computed a lens correction profile by photographing a chart and that profile is stored as a separate .lcp file somewhere in the LR resources folders and when you click Enable Profile Corrections, the profile is applied. 

The new way, that coincides with the advent of mirrorless cameras where the camera does it's own lens corrections before producing the jpg, is that the profile is contained in the raw files, themselves, from the camera, and there is no way to turn this off.

What sounds like is happening for you (but not Rikk) is that the new-way profile, which probably only corrects chromatic aberration but not lens distortion, is being applied to the original raw files, so they still look "fishy" (have the bulged look), but that this lens correction data is not being included in the resulting HDR and an old-way profile is being applied, perhaps instead, and for fisheye images an old-way profile does remove the fishiness by extremely stretching the corners.

This is what I'm imagining is happening since you haven't included any screenshots and I don't have the images to play with.  The curious part is why Rikk isn't seeing the same thing happen.  Have you customized your lens profile defaults for this lens, perhaps on a different camera body?  Something seems to be different with how things are set up on your computer compared to Rikk's and it's causing an issue for you but not him.

[EWulf]

Sorry, I had sent some images to Rikk, but let me put some up here. Here is a Windows screen shot of what's happening. On the right you see part of one of the selected bracketed images with fisheye distortion. The apply lens profile is not checked. On the left you see the Merge to HDR window with the auto align and auto tone turned off. The preview images has "automatically" applied the lens profile and lost the fisheye distortion.

Here is the hdr.dng that I produced on my Windows version of Lightroom. It has lost the fisheye distortion.


Here is a jpeg of the hdr.dng that Rikk sent me that he generated from my RAW files.. To me they look the same with loss of fisheye distortion, so I think this is a problem for both PC and MAC. This .dng was sent to me by Rikk and I loaded it into Lightroom with the lens profile correction turned off.


Here is one of the bracketed RAW images with the lens profile turned ON. It looks just the same as the HDR from both MAC and PC.
 

Here is one of the bracketed RAW files with no lens correction with the fisheye lens distortion I want to present.
Thanks for any help.

[ccastleb]

Folks, this looks like a bug. We apply Sony lens corrections by default if a profile can be located. This is per Sony request. The HDR merge should copy whatever the setting is in the sources (profile on or off) but not apply it destructively as you are seeing. Pano merge WILL apply it destructively by design. I'll log a bug internally and we will investigate.

- Chris

[ssprengel]

Your screenshots illustrate the difference of what you see compared to what you want, but don't show the LR settings in their entirety.

Q1:  Looking at your first screenshot, what does it say at the bottom of the Lens Corrections area?  Is there a circle-i that says built-in lens-profile corrections have been applied, or not?  And if so, if you click on the circle-i, what kinds of distortion does it say have been corrected?  I ask because the screenshot doesn't include the bottom of the lens corrections area, unfortunately, only the top that does show no "old-way" enable lens profile corrections have been applied.

Q2:  Using one of your original raws, if you do enable the "old-way" lens profile corrections with the checkbox, does the raw file change to have the unwanted corrections exactly like the HDR output version?

If your answer to Q2 is Yes, then a workaround would be to delete the external lens profile file for this lens on your brand of camera--or at least move it out of the LR Resources folder so LR cannot find it, that way it cannot perform the correction, hopefully.  It's possible you'd need to also delete the other copy of the profile used by Photoshop in case LR looks, there, as well.  I know where these are located on my Windows PC but am less sure about where they'd be on a Mac. 

On Windows the LR & PS locations of the profiles for two 16mm Sony fisheye lenses are:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom\Resources\LensProfiles\1.0\Sony
C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0\Sony

with these profile files possibly being the one that is being used:

04/12/2016  11:33 AM            15,562 SONY (Sony 16mm F2.8 Fisheye) - RAW.lcp
04/12/2016  11:33 AM            11,403 SONY (Sony FE 16mm F3.5 Fisheye) - RAW.lcp
04/12/2016  11:33 AM            77,600 Sony NEX-5 (Sony E 16mm F2.8) - RAW.lcp

It should be possible to tell which one if you look carefully at the profile information after checking Enable Profile Corrections.

[ssprengel]

To me the bug looks to be that within the HDR operator, an external profile is being treated as an internal-always-on profile, so the effect is being baked in erroneously.

[EWulf]

The lens profile information says that there is a chromatic aberration correction built into the RAW file. There is no mention of other lens correction.

The unwanted correction looks EXACTLY link what is applied by the enable profile correction. When I get a chance I will superimpose the two images in Photoshop, but I believe they are identical. I'm using Windows. The profile is Sony FE 16 mm F3.5 Fisheye

[ssprengel]

Ok, move that profile from the LR folder illustrated, earlier, to the Desktop, then restart LR and see if things work any better.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Steve, I am only speaking of the notification by the application of an internal profile's being applied in the Lens Correction panel - not the appearance of the image itself.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Steve, I am only speaking of the notification by the application of an internal profile's being applied in the Lens Correction panel - not the appearance of the image itself.

[EWulf]

I moved the profile to the desktop and now my fisheye looks great. Thanks for the work around. Can someone move this on to Adobe to hopefully get it fixed?

Thanks

[EWulf]

I moved the fisheye lens correction profile to the desktop as suggested above and now the merge to HDR gives me nice fisheye distortion. Thanks for all you help. Hopefully it can be fixed fairly quickly.

Eric

[ssprengel]

Both Rikk and Chris Castleberry are Adobe people, and Chris in a reply further down in the discussion, said this is a bug.  Thanks for posting and providing sample files to Rikk.