P: Support lens profiles for Olympus ZUIKO Digital lenses (E-System)

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Will Adobe provide lens profiles for the OLYMPUS DIGITAL ZUIKO four thirds lenses, i.e., the super high grade and high grade lenses of the professional OLYMPUS E-System?

OLYMPUS does not support software of other organizations.

For this reason, E-System photographers urgently need Adobe's support to benefit from lens profiles for the E-System that perfectly match into an ACR based workflow.

Note that OLYMPUS cameras of the E-System are already supported by ACR, whereas we miss the lens profiles of the same system.

Thanks.

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Francie,
I think that things are as you describe them.

Additionally, I miss the tethered capture feature for OLYMPUS bodies in Lightroom. The OLD Olympus software "Olympus Studio" used to cover this feature, but also with its "own" (it isn't...) software Olympus seems to be in trouble. For the moment, current Olympus software does not support a camera body control via PC.

Lightroom offers a plug-in:
http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/t...

I remember a petition to Olympus dealing with the exposure bracketing feature for professional HDRs. The request was to have available a series of 5 pictures in 2 EV steps, as HDR software demands. I still miss the success of this petition. The recent update for the E-5 solves a storage problem, nothing more.

@Eric: Isn't there possible a workaround with partners? Or who could bring the stubborn donkey to move? Should we ask Sony, Panasonic? They seam to support Olympus not to disappear from the market.

Cheers
Gerald

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Hi Eric,

another idea: is it possible that, let us say, PT Lens !!! gets a chance to offer their existing Photoshop plug-in capabilities inside Lightroom and ACR? That would solve the part of the lens profiles for all the Zuiko lenses.

Thanks
Gerald

[MadManChan2000]

Unfortunately it would be hard to integrate it directly (i.e., a plug-in) because it would not work well in our parametric editing environment. On the other hand, I'm sure the correction data for those lenses could be easily mapped to the Adobe lens correction model.

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Hi Steffen and Francie,

I know two effective options how you can setup your individual camera profiles, right away.

Specific camera profiles are an important prerequisite for your work, and the offered correction options inside Lightroom/ACR are just to be understood as your final fine-tuning. Camera profiles are most vital for a satisfatcory color reproduction. Without specific camera profiles, I doubt that it is possible to realize a RAW workflow that works.

If you know how to do it, you are in a position to create new profiles in a few minutes. For all your cameras, you may create camera profiles as standard profiles or for indicvidual situations (forest, snow, underwater, demanding shooting, ...).

Sine camera profiles need to support situation-specific color reproduction,
since the creation of the profiles requires little work,
since Adobe leaves all "how-to-questions" to its user community and locally-based consultants,
since presets are heavily involved by "how-to-answers":
I suggest not to foster camera profiles in this thread.

Nevertheless, I want you as my friends and I have two options to your request for camera profiles:

Instead of the general approach that color management deals with ICC profiles, camera profiles are based on DNG profiles. This means, you need to shoot one or two DNGs (RAW pictures) of a not-outdated color panel. Then you need some software that creates the profile from these DNGs.

Alternative A: X-RITE ColorChecker Passport
Amazon Germany:
http://www.amazon.de/X-RITE-ColorChec...
Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pantone-X-Rit...
an easy-to-use profile creating software with color panel and tutorial

Alternative B) Adobe Labs: Camera Profiles and DNG Profile Editor
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/...
free Adobe software with more capabilities
but still, you need to obtain an extra color panel
If you speak German, then I can cecommend this training video from Make Jarsetz:
"Adobe Photoshop CS5 für digitale Fotografie", Galileo Design, ISBN 978-3-8362-1577-0
http://www.galileodesign.de/katalog/b...
Kapitel 13. Hilfreiche Profi-Tipps [00:56 Std.]
13.3 ... Kameraprofile erstellen [08:13 Min.]

Did I forget something to mention?
Cheers
Gerald

[FSfromFlorida]

Gerald, thank you, it is so great to connect with other Olympus users! You live in Germany? I live in Tallahassee, Florida, this is such a terrific use of the Internet to be able to share information in this way.
I am retired from Florida's Department of Environmental Protection, where I was a database administrator for years, and then became a webmaster in the mid-90's, which led to also becoming a graphic designer starting in 2000. I am volunteering my graphics skills at our local National Wildlife Refuge and also pursuing my interest in digital photography as an art form, and am far more conversant with that approach than digging into the technical details at a great depth. I do appreciate the level at which both you and Steffen understand this aspect of photography.
I was so hoping that Adobe could just provide the information for us in Lightroom as they provide it for other camera manufacturers.
Steffen, do you have any additional thoughts about contacting Olympus directly?
Thanks!
Francie

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Francie,

Unfortunately, I've never been to Florida, only to NYC and other hubs on the East Coast or to California for meetings, vibrant country and engaging and friendly people!

I agree, my focus is science (malaria research) both in the lab and in collaboration with African colleagues in patients, so do I get around quite a bit, in fact, I've been moving 6 months/6 months between the Kenyan coast and Heidelberg for many years. So, I'm also rather a "beneficiary" of technology than a technically inclined person, most definitely, I wouldn't be able to implement Gerald's fantastic protocol!

Meanwhile I had also contacted the Olympus people in Germany but the quality of the response ranged from total misunderstanding to strangely paternalistic flavours "you can find the link to the Adobe download page here")... not very helpful I supposed.

If anything, only a petition to the Olympus masters in Tokyo makes sense.

Gerald: since you'd already been in touch with Tokyo, could you take the lead on this (again)?

Best wishes,

Steffen

[FSfromFlorida]

Steffen, I do hope you get to Florida one day, we are a state of great contrast. The southern highly developed portion is probably the one most people are familiar with, here in the Northern Panhandle we still have some incredibly amazing wild areas that very dedicated groups of people are now trying to protect.
I hope to one day have the opportunity to visit Germany, my husband and I have just begun our international traveling, to Egypt and Israel in November 2010 and to England for a month this August/September.
Gerald, I will add my request to Steffen's, if there seems to be any possible benefit would you please take the lead to petition Olympus in Tokyo again.
Thank you!
Francie

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Francie,

Will do!

Germany has some great corners, particularly in the South (but avoid the typical tourist places such as Heidelberg, instead go to Tübingen, Bodensee area or Allgäu - all still very touristy but not yet over-run) and Berlin as probably one of the most green and relaxed capitals.

Best wishes,

Steffen

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Hi all,

yes I can take the lead and try to communicate with OLYMPUS Tokyo on willing to better cooperate with Adobe:

1.) Provide Adobe with profiles for OLYMPUS lenses
2.) Pre-sets for OLYMPUS camera bodies for Adobe Lightroom
3.) Tethered capture feature of Adobe Lightroom to control OLYMPUS cameras via PC

@Eric: As far as I know, a petition would mean to collect names and numbers of users that are supporting this petition.
Am I right? Do we have a chance to set-up such a petition on an Adobe internet platform? Any other idea?

Cheers
Gerald

[FSfromFlorida]

Hi Gerald, thanks so much for taking the lead on trying to communicate with Olympus Tokyo. And, I agree with your list, those are all of my concerns also.

As far as setting up a petition, I don't know about the Adobe platform, but these groups have potential:

http://www.four-thirds.org/en/index.html
http://fourthirds-user.com/
http://www.fourthirdsphoto.com/

Hope these are useful.
Francie

[MadManChan2000]

Gerald, this would be something I suggest you undertake separately from Adobe. We (Adobe) already have a good relationship with the vendors and regularly let them know that this is something that users are requesting. I think it's good to have something different here, namely, that the users communicate directly with the vendors to let them know -- i.e., from a different angle, and not via Adobe.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear all,

I agree it would be best to set up an independent petition. Unfortunately, my attempts to have any meaningful interaction with Olympus Germany have largely failed, even though both sides interact in their native tongues- there seem to be a wall of misunderstanding. Olympus also kept pointing the finger at Adobe and Apple (for an unrelated software issue), the concept that this is something Olympus could take in their own hands must have appeared particularly strange...

Thanks Eric for proving that Adobe sees user feedback as a motivation!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

interested User are also on http://www.oly-forum.com .
look at this thread:
http://www.oly-forum.com/forum/digita...

Stef@n

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Can you please support OMD EM-5 and all the micro 4/3 lenses that go with it?

More and more people are using this system and would love to use LR 4.... think of all the $$$ you can make!

Its not as if there are that many lenses to create profiles for anyway....

[MadManChan2000]

We already support distortion correction for all Micro Four-Thirds lenses when used with all Olympus Micro Four-Thirds bodies. Lateral chromatic aberration removal is also already supported in Camera Raw 7 and Lightroom 4, by means of the "Remove Chromatic Aberration" checkbox. No external lens profiles needed.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Eric,

Please do not provoke over-optimistic expectations... the quality of the distortion correction is not even close to the level Adobe offers for Canon or Nikon glass. You simply take some rudimentary information that are embedded in the ORF files and apply them. This may reduce some distortion but people will still have to use manual fine-tuning to reach good results. Everyone here in this discussion understands that this is not Adobe's (definitely not your personal) fault (since Olympus doesn't provide the relevant lens data to Adobe).

BTW: I've got LR 4.1 to correct my Olympus M.12mm f/2.0 (distortion +7 in the lens correction panel) and saved this as preset that it's applied to new shots during import. However, for some reason that I don't understand the "constrain crop" tick box option never gets saved in the preset and therefore, would need to be applied after import. Anything that I got wrong here?

[MadManChan2000]

In truth, the level of distortion correction provided via the metadata in the Micro Four-Thirds system is much closer to the level of distortion correction provided by our Canon and Nikon lens profiles, compared to the uncorrected image. It is true the MFT correction is conservative, but in most cases I would say it is about 90% of the full possible correction.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thank you Gerald,
for your work.
I just downloadet some Lens Profiles and I sow your work.
Herzlichen Dank aus Berlin!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Eric,

Point taken. I hope my requests do not come across as rants of an ungrateful old chap... I realise that LR already provides reasonable support given the situation (ie, that Olympus would not collaborate on this). It's just that the level of comfort provided for other cameras (Nikon in my case) has entirely spoilt my expectations... ;-)

Best wishes, have a nice summer,

Steffen

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Hi all,

I am still looking for a platform for a petition to collect numbers and names.The British platform provider has not answered yet.

@Delta-Kapa: Thx for your regards.

If you are well experienced with the E-System I would be happy for any feedback on my correction profiles. I was preparing the shooting sessions well in advance. The almost possible validation I had for myself was: just to control the correction effects onto the checkerboard charts. My real shooting is by far not sufficient to get an idea, how much the profiles prove themselves in practice. Here a brief comment of my experiences:

7-14mm: Adobe cut off the whole shooting series of the closest focusing distance, i.e., I was too close. It covers only two distances now.

150mm: I still realize chromatic aberration at very long distances (>20m) which I could not cover with the chart shooting.

50-200mm & 40-150mm: The vignette is heavily compensated, but nevertheless, you can always soften down the correction effects of the profiles with the software (LR, ACR).

This summer, I want to set-up other profiles for the 50mm macro and the 14-54mm. The profile for the macro will be very interesting especially when using the macro in its close-up capability.

Cheers
Gerald

[MadManChan2000]

No offense taken, Steffen. I just wanted to explain that I think we're reasonably close to the goal, but I do understand that it would be nice to get all the way there. I certainly want to make the push to get us there.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@ Gerald Hemetsberger

I used yesterday your profile for the 7-14mm.
It works good and it is mostly an Improvement in the geometry and the light distribution of the picture. But the aesthetic result is not always depend on it and sometimes it was better to give up the profile correction.
If you have previously undertaken a manual correction (and when it is well done) then you have to do without the profile correction. But this has more to do with the workflow. Because if I had previously the profile correction, my manual correction would be different.

Without Lens-Profile correction:


With Lens-Profile correction:

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

You can see the difference if you put the pictures one over the other and switch. This kind of correction is in other pictures (with more lines at the edges of the pictures) more valuable.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

And actually, you can see how good the Lens, even without correction, is.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Eric,

Is there any reasonable chance for an upcoming version of Lightroom (4.2?) to start supporting Olympus camera calibration profiles? After returning from holidays in France where I was shooting with the E-M5 and my now old D700, I was struck by the huge difference in color reproduction achieved with the neutral calibration for the D700 shots in comparison to the standard Adobe set for the Olympus shots.