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5DS(r) tone curve in LR and ACR : crushed shadows with all profiles

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
June 16, 2015
8 replies
26646 views

Hi,

When Adobe released LR CC with what appeared at the time as a preliminary handling of the Canon 5DS(r) files, I noticed that the tone curve with all profiles (either Adobe standard or brand-specific profiles) seemed to produce much darker shadows than all other Canon cameras. This is something DPreview's noticed too :

"Furthermore, comparisons are slightly complicated by the aggressive tone curve ACR is applying to the 5DS R files that are crushing its blacks, and potentially decreasing the levels of visible noise by making them darker. We expect a later version of ACR to fix this, at which point we will re-process and revisit these results."

Canon EOS 5DS / 5DS R First Impressions Review: Digital Photography Review

With the release of LR 2015.1, I was expecting this behaviour to be corrected, but that isn't the case. Is it something that's inherent to the 5DS(r) files ? Does Adobe plan to correct this ?

Thanks

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer MadManChan2000

If you prefer the less-contrasty tone curve that we used with earlier Canon models such as the 5D, 5D II, and 5D III, then as pointed out above, the most precise way to achieve that is to use the DNG Profile Editor, open a 5Ds / 5Ds R image (previously converted to DNG), and change the Base Tone Curve setting in the Tone Curve tab from Base Profile to Camera Raw Default. Then Export the new profile (File menu -> Export Profile...) and you can use that instead. You can even make it your default profile, if you like.

As for Camera Standard and the others have higher-contrast tone curves than before ... well, those are designed to match the in-camera behavior (or Canon's own image processing routines in their desktop software, Digital Photo Professional). Thus, if you feel the DPP-based raw conversions for the 5Ds / 5Ds R have too much contrast, that's feedback I recommend you provide to Canon. In other words, we don't design the shape of the tone curves for Canon's Picture Styles -- Canon does.

For your convenience, I've made "Medium Contrast" versions of the profiles if you want a lower-contrast default starting point.

For the 5Ds: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35081204/Canon%20EOS%205DS%20Medium%20Contrast.dcp

For the 5Ds R: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35081204/Canon%20EOS%205DS%20R%20Medium%20Contrast.dcp

To install on the Mac, download and copy them here: /Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles/

To install on Windows, download and copy them here: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles\

Then re-run Camera Raw / Lightroom and you'll see the name "Medium Contrast" appear as an option in the Profile popup menu (in the Camera Calibration panel), as an alternative to the other profiles.

efvbgw55676411

Participating Frequently

Hi from 2021, bro. You cried about tone curve in 5ds, so how you like new tone curves in new cameras? lol... Its just a hell... Adobe stop please. NOTICED - All nikon cameras have normal curves. (exam D850) Сorporate conspiracy?

B

benj_v

Known Participant

Hello,

I was reading all of this thread... Some interesting informations that helped me to tweak my own profiles for my 5DS and my 5DSR.
Here are my profiles :

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak5vIZqwJCnXi_sfnpgGUL4EcQnn4Q

There are 8 profiles :

The difference with or without the offset is the offset of the light. With offset profiles, pictures are more lighten (test them and look at the histogram).

The author of "medium contrast" had taken the 6D curve and applied the "adobe standard" colors. For my self, i had used for a while a 5DMarkIII and i had taken the curve of this one for the new profiles. And, for the colors, i had taken the original colors from the "Camera Standard". And, i did it for the "Neutral" profile too, because sometimes, i like to use this one.

So, the difference with the adobe profiles (neutral and standard) and my profiles, are only the Base Tone Curve (as you can see in DNG editor), and for the offset profile, an offset more lighten. They all share the same base colors : the adobe colors (that matches, unfortunately the Canon from DPP).

New Profiles for both 5DS and 5DSR you can see in camera raw :

Base Tone Curve from "Camera Standard" with adobe profile (strong shadows) :

Base Tone Curve from "Camera Standard - Normal Base Tone Curve" (and 5DMarkIII Base Tone Curve) :

Well, hope these profiles will help someone

D

Digital-Finger

Known Participant

now that Lightroom 6.8 has 5DSR profiles incorporated does anyone know if they are exactly the same as the workaround profiles we had of yore?

Mac OS Sonoma, 64 GB RAM 27" 2019 iMac 3.6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9

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NitromanX

Known Participant

Interesingly enough, I opened a raw file for the first time in Canon DPP4 and noticed that the contrast was initially set at -4 which i assume is DPP4 Default setting for 5Ds.

When i set contrast to zero 0 the contrast was increased and the blacks got crushed again - exactly like the Adobe Standard Camera Profile Default.

I think this may be the issue - The Canon Default sets contrast at -4 and the Adobe profile (which is based upon the Canon Profile) sets the contrast at zero 0 - Ie : Increased contrast, sharper curve and crushed blacks.

I'm guessing Canon / Adobe need to resolve this as the default curve is way too steep.

MadManChan2000 - would this make sense ? Any likelihood of Adobe updating the default ACR camera profile to equivalent of -4 contrast (Canon DPP4 default) ?

In the meantime, thanks for the "Medium Contrast" profile - it's a life saver !

BKKDon

Inspiring

NitromanX wrote:
Interesingly enough, I opened a raw file for the first time in Canon DPP4 and noticed that the contrast was initially set at -4 which i assume is DPP4 Default setting for 5Ds.
....
In the meantime, thanks for the "Medium Contrast" profile - it's a life saver !

Doesn't seem to happen for me as you can see from the DPP Panel here:

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NitromanX

Known Participant

You may be right, but have you EVER opened DPP4 before ? I don't think i ever have until i tried opening the 5Ds raw file in it for comparison.

It's possible i opened another Canon raw file and adjusted contrast a looooong time ago and have forgotten, but i don't think so as i simply never use it.

Just trying to make some sense of this crazy Adobe Camera Raw default profile.

A

Andy Farrer Photography

Participant

I've installed the profile and it's a better starting point than the Adobe ones. Thank you.

Are Adobe working on new profiles? The shadows on the standard, faithful etc adobe ones all have very crushed shadows and it would be great to have ones on a par with the 5diii profiles, which were excellent.

B

Bruce in Philly

Participant

I'll be honest with you madmanchan, I am just EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED with Adobe's defaults for my 5DSr. Here is a links to a RAW and JPG of an Eagle I took in direct sunlight yesterday. The wings are just crushed. This picture is awful and I blame the Adobe profile. I've been shooting eagles at this popular spot in Maryland for 5 or six years with my 5D Mk II and I know what a good exposure should look like. I nailed this exposure perfectly and the results are awful. I actually thought there was something wrong with my new 5DSr and was about to return it to Canon's service center.

For this exposure, the trick is to expose enough to the right to get the eagle head as close to 100% as you can. This will ensure nothing is blown out and the darker parts are clearly articulated. In this shot, I got the head to be around 95-96% just perfect. The eagle is in a hard bank right and the top wing is in direct afternoon sunlight and is just blacked out burnt. It does not even look natural. This is awful. You guys really really upset me with this one. I can't believe you actually thought this was a good idea. Unbelievable.

OK, so now for a real question.... .will colorchecker get me to where I need to be? Back to "accuracy"? I guess I have to spend money to turn a professional tool, LR, back into a professional tool. I can't believe you chose to put POP into a $3,500 professional camera for our own good. Unbelievable. Whatever happened to the pursuit of accuracy? LR is supposed to be for pros, not kids wanting to make a shout on Instagram.

Bruce in Philly

Eagle RAW: http://www.travelthroughpictures.com/bdd/photostuff/Eagle.CR2 (about 53 Meg!)

Eagle JPG from LR6 with all defaults: http://www.travelthroughpictures.com/bdd/photostuff/Eagle.jpg

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LuxMirabilis

Participating Frequently

Wouldn't this be resolved by making a custom camera profile (single or dual illuminant) either using Adobe PE or Xrite's ColorChecker Profile Editor?

M

mcreston

Participant

any updates? editing my first shoot with the new 5dsr and having the same issues, driving me bonkers

MadManChan2000

Adobe Employee

Hello,

We deliberately used a stronger tone curve (more contrast) when building the Adobe Standard color profiles for the Canon EOS 5DS and 5DS R. It is similar to the tone curve in the Camera Standard color profile. This makes the images have more "pop" though as you've observed, shadow areas may have less visible detail (by default). The increase in default contrast is roughly equivalent to the Contrast slider in the Basic panel being set to +10 or +15. I understand that some people may appreciate this extra default contrast, but others may not. If you don't like it, I suggest setting Contrast in the Basic panel to -10 or -15 (or refine further in the Tone Curve panel using the more fine-grained tools there). As a shortcut, save a custom camera default so that your preferred adjustments are applied to all other images in the future.

Cheers,

Eric

M

MayaTlabAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for answering.

Unfortunately, I think that simply adjusting contrast or even trying to modify the curve with the curve tool is inadequate, as the most annoying problem is the shape of the tone curve "foot", visible here in DNG Profile Editor :

That's the 5DSR's Adobe standard base profile curve. Note the shape of the curve's "foot" (the rest of the curve is different as well but in my opinion the foot is the most problematic thing since it's a little harder - or at least time wasting - to correct with ACR/LR's sliders or even the curve tool which is too imprecise for this to be properly corrected). This curve is different from the camera raw default profile, unlike other Canon cameras :

That's the 6D's Adobe standard base profile curve. It's identical to the camera raw default curve.

At least for the Adobe standard profile, the solution that I prefer is to make a new profile in DNG Profile Editor based on the 5DSR profile above but with the camera raw default profile curve instead (which is identical between cameras). This makes the 5DSR closer to other Canon cameras I think (since their base profile curve is identical to the camera raw default). In my opinion, this solution, at least for those using the Adobe standard profile, is better than the alternatives you suggested. The following is my new 5DSR Adobe standard profile - with a similar curve as other Canon cameras.

The 5DS(r)'s more contrasted tone curve happens with all profiles. As an example, that's the faithful profile for the 5DSR :

That's the 6D's faithful curve. Other Canon cameras share the same curve. The foot is less contrasted :

Unfortunately, it's impossible to use the same trick as with Adobe standard as brand-specific profiles aren't available in the "base tone curve" drop-down list.

You say that "We deliberately used a stronger tone curve", but why ? Is there any rational reasons for that decision ? Will following Canon cameras share this new, more contrasted tone curve ?

A better solution would be to add a menu in the profile panel in LR/ACR that allows users to select what base curve they'd like to use and propose a selection of curves that especially vary in the extremities areas, where it's the hardest and most annoying to adjust the curve - just like Capture One.

A

AllCommPhoto

Participating Frequently

Maya,

Just received the 5DS and was trying to calibrate a sekonic 758DR using the raws. After they are converted to either Tiff or Jpeg via ACR I see about a stop in loss Dynamic Range. I base this on using the Jpegs straight out of the camera and getting a result which is a stop better. In my experience, I have never seen jpegs from the camera produce better results than converted Raws. My next test is to convert the raws using Canon's Digital Photo Professional. If the tiff or jpegs converted from DPP produce significant results better than converted ACR files than we know we have an issue with ACR.

M

MayaTlabAuthor

Participating Frequently

By "about a stop in loss Dynamic Range" you mean that compared to jpegs or DPP, raws from ACR / LR, regardless of the profile, tend to block shadows more ?

As far as I'm concerned I haven't compared with jpegs - just using DPreview's test scene files from various Canon cameras and the 5DSr - the latter has a much steeper tone curve. That's even more annoying as the 2012 process removed the linear curve.

Apparently there could also be problems with colours in ACR / LR 5DS(r) profiles, according to Lloyd Chambers :

http://diglloyd.com/blog/2015/20150619_1030-example-bad-color-fruit.html

L

LuxMirabilis

Participating Frequently

Here are some test shots I made over the weekend. I primarily made them to compare sharpness and resolution but it turned in to a good opportunity to compare Adobe's color profiles.

I used Adobe Camera RAW 9.1.1 to process the files shown by using each cameras' "Camera Neutral" setting. I selected Neutral after viewing all the other choices for the 5DS R. Neutral seemed like the least bad choice for the 5DS R. I also used ACR to set each file to a 3000k white balance with zero sharpening and zero noise removal. I also and enabled lens profile corrections. All of the develop settings in ACR's "basic" tab were left at zero.

I shot many timed exposures at f11 on ISO 100. The files shown here are 1/4 second exposures but I'll probably use a brighter example, to process as if I shot with a ETTR workflow, when I work with the files to compare the potential for detail and color etc. I selected the 1/4 second exposure for uploading to this thread because they show the crushed black in the 5DS R file so clearly. The effect is even more pronounced with the under exposed examples I made for experimenting with pushing the levels.

The jpegs uploaded here were made in Photoshop CS6 at max quality and each was sized to 1800x1200 pixels. These are 20.72%, 32.05%, and 41.21% reductions from the respective 5DS R, 5DmkII, and 5D files.

Canon 5D ISO 100, f11, 1/4 second:

Canon 5DS R ISO 100, f11, 1/4 second:

It seems as if the 5D and 5DmkII photos look very similar in light value and the black level seems appropriate for the exposure. The results of using Adobe Camera RAW with my new Canon 5DS R look awful compared to the processing of my older cameras' files. The blacks are blocked and need to be recovered.

I have previously regarded claims that other RAW converters are superior to Adobe as unfounded and have assumed that Adobe is a leader with this sort of processing. Now I am reading that this new profile "look" has been made on purpose. It seems especially difficult to understand why this would be done this while considering the Canon cameras' reputation for having difficult to recover shadows. It seems as if the Adobe profiles are just going to exasperate the concerns and people's experience with Canon files and shadow recovery.

I made a custom profile using the X-Rite ColorChecker system and the same lighting I used for the photo and the results show that the current Adobe 5DS R profiles are unlikely to ever be used in my future workflow. I will probably learn to rely on my own, or third party profiles:

Canon 5DS R ISO 100, f11, 1/4 second with custom camera color profile:

I have always assumed that Adobe would provide the most useful, sophisticated profiles. I am disappointed with the explanation that the blacks were crushed as a matter of taste.

Below is an example where I started with a brighter exposure and tweaked many of the basic settings in Adobe Camera RAW in an effort to get the blacks where I wanted without having to worry about having noise show up. I lowered the exposure parameter to get the overall lighting I wanted while pushing the shadows and blacks parameters upwards to offset the lowered exposure settings.

Canon 5DS R ISO 100, f11, 1/2 second with custom camera color profile:

I would like to take this opportunity to ask Eric Chan about his suggestion to use the sliders to counter act the crushing of the blacks. Does using a basic parameter slider after selecting the profile directly alter the tone curve mapping process or is the effect of a basic adjustment done after tone curve mapping has been processed? In other words if we use a basic adjustment to offset the result of a profile having clipped the blacks will there actually be any data to recover or will the data have already been clipped?

Thank you.

Did you create the camera profile using Adobe's Profile Editor or Xrite's software? I heard that the latter had issues with large image files.

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