P: Disable built-in lens profile

[Tokumeino]

I own Micro43 and compact cameras, where lens profiles are integrated in RAW files. With software like Capture One Pro, I can easily enable or disable theses built-in profiles. Actually, there is even a slider allowing to enable 0% or 100% of the built-in profile, and whatever percentage in between.

In LR (CC, Classic or LR6), the checkox for enabling or disabling profiles does not work with built-in profiles, which always stay enabled. This seriously limits the possibilities of several cameras which possibilities get unleashed by actual RAW developpers like Capture One Pro.

I'm actually a COP user (after switching from LR) but DAM sucks with COP and this built-in lens profile thing is the only deal breaker for me to come back. So please let users disable built-in lens profiles, or at least offer workarounds.

As a workaround, a dumb "zero" profile that would replace the built-in one (not coming on top of it) could do the job.

[Guest]

Interresting though. On forums, I've been often opposed that LR forces built-in profile so as to respect the develop settings in the RAW files. That's obviously not the case.

That beeing said, not every camera lets the user disable profiles (very nice Nikon in-camera feature BTW, making composition much easier). So I would be happier if Adobe just let people deactivate the built-in profiles, whatever the body settings. After all, LR ignores B&W, color, brightness information in the RAW files. Why would LR take this particular one into account ? The whole purpose of RAW files is precisely to develop differently as the in-body JPEG, not to constraint the user the get the same picture as in-body.

[mtkaplan519]

I agree, it should definitely be an option to turn off built-in profiles. Also, Lightroom defaults should also not be changed automatically.Should be an option for things like sharpening, NR etc.

[bryanh72432487]

> If you wish to disable the external profile by default, you can set a new lens profile default (with it disabled) for each lens/camera combination.

How does one go about doing this?

[Guest]

It's not relevant because we are talking about built-in profiles, not external ones. Actually, we would like that the built-in profiles work just as external ones, meaning that you can enable or disable them, at will. This is not possible with built-in, and there is no way to override a built-in profile. If you apply an external profile, it comes on top of the built-in one, thus croping the picture even more.

[martinfueloep]

@Chris Castleberry:
>Updating the lens or camera firmware will have no effect on
>whether a lens aberration opcode is applied.
>Lightroom and ACR always apply them if they are present.
>There is no way currently to disable this in either application.

This is exactly what we are requesting for: being able to disable the embedded lens profile.

[martinfueloep]

I need to disable the embedded lens profile for the DJI Zenmuse X5R camera in Camera Raw CC.
Some other users have requested this feature more than a year ago, but it seems that it still was not recognized by Adobe.

[bryanh72432487]

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.

[Todd Shaner]

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.

[martinfueloep]

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...

[Todd Shaner]

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.

[Louie Sherwin]

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

[ccastleb]

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

[Louie Sherwin]

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

[bryanh72432487]

@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.

[Todd Shaner]

"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.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

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.

[deejjjaaaa]

"... By allowing a zoom lens design to have more distortion and vignetting the focal length range and/or maximum aperture can be increased..." and the expense of decreasing resolution when pincushion is corrected (so you stretch vs compress), thank you... not to mention crude noise handling ( Eric Chan @ https://forums.adobe.com/message/3512039#3512039 )

[John R Ellis]

See this post for a clear recipe about how to use ExifTool to remove the embedded lens correction: 
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2431111

[martinfueloep]

I am working with Exiftool at the moment, but if you use it for CinemaDNGs/Filming, it's a pain to process 50.000 files two times (1x with exiftool, 1x ACR). It would be much faster and easier to disable the embedded lens-profile and enable my custom settings in one step directly in ACR.

[Todd Shaner]

I tried using it with Canon G9X MKII CR2 files and DNG converted files without any success. This is a fixed lens point-and-shoot camera that uses a built-in lens profile. Any ideas?

exiftool -r -overwrite_original -IFD0:OpcodeList3= PATH-TO-FILE-OR-FOLDER

[Guest]

The problem is that I would like to keep the information about the profile (I use it for most of my pictures). All I want is to get able to disable it at will. So erasing the data is not an option for me. I also would like to keep the data for CA correction and vignetting.

I've been told that the new Canon mirrorless also embed lens profiles in the RAW files, but that you can nevertheless turn on/off this built-in profile. That's only for the new Canon, not for the new Nikon Z, which suffer from the same issue as avery other ML. Could EXIFtool be used to switch some flag (in Canon's way) "allowing" LR to disable the lens profile ?  

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Pierre: in theory a lens profile could be generated from some exposures where the built-in lens correction had been deliberately "broken", and then this profile could be applied manually onto other photos where the built-in lens correction had been similarly "broken". You would then have separate sliders for turning up and down, or off, the strength of geometric correction, and of vignette correction... assuming you applied this custom lens profile, otherwise you could apply no lens profile at all and rely on manually set corrections instead, or else no correction whatever.

Adobe external profiles no longer characterise CA correction as far as I know, but rather (in response to the CA checkbox) Lightroom can analyse the photo content directly, and then apply whatever lateral CA correction it concludes is most optimal. To be clear, this method does not rely on any pre-existing profiling info at all.

[Guy T.]

Adding my vote for this feature. Other possible solutions:

- Add an "Apply" button to the manual settings that would allow zeroing all values. The initial values are zeroes, but they can't actually be applied by default (i.e., override the built-in profile).

- Create a checkbox or configuration option that would give users the choice to not apply profile corrections by default.

- As suggested, add a selectable "Zero" profile to the list of manufacturer/other profiles.

And of course, allow these settings to be saved as default so they don't need to be applied manually each time.

Thank you.

[Jao vdL]

Adding my vote too. Recently got a Nikon Z7 and this has the built-in lens profile issue. I often want to disable this as I might want the more natural look of vignetting caused by the lens as well as natural distortion instead of having to fake it with the vignette and distortion controls.

[Henrik Helmers]

I voted for this too. What I read somewhere a long time ago is that Adobe made a deal with vendors to auto-apply profiles, as it makes cameras look better. I switched from Canon to Fujifilm and many of my Fujinon lenses have heavy distortion and vignetting that I sometimes would like to keep.

Especially vignetting can be desirable many times, removing it and adding it back is just throwing image quality out the window.

I also feel that Adobe is removing an important learning opportunity here, as automatic corrections can mask the differences between high and low-quality glass.