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Question

Lightroom and Cinestyle

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
February 9, 2012
4 replies
33247 views

I have recently updated my camera to use Cinestyle by technicolor and have had awesome results in the camera. However when i up load the ( low contrast) photos into light room it changes them automatically to a hight contrasted picture. I hate this feature is there any way around it. I want my pictures to be imported as the were shot and i want to edit the contrast back into it.

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johnrellis

Legend

"Question is: Why is there no profile, that's flat like the Cinestyle?"

Adobe does provide camera-matching profiles for many of style settings of the more popular cameras (e.g. Landscape, Portrait, etc.) and starting in LR 9.2, it can automatically select the correct profile when you import a raw.

But Adobe doesn't provide matching profiles for all cameras and styles. They prioritize based on the popularity of the camera and style and how much cooperation they recieve from the manufacturer. (E.g. currently some newer Canons don't have camera-matching profiles, supposedly because Adobe was waiting for help from Canon, according to a now-deleted post from an Adobe employee.)

You could post a feature request in the official feedback forum, where Adobe wants all feature requests:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/send-bug-report-feature-request-adobe/

Product developers read everything posted there, but rarely participate here, which is primarily a user-to-user forum.

There have been a few posts over the years about profile support for Cinestyle and other video log formats, but to date no one has posted a feature request.

[Use the blue reply button under the first post to ensure replies sort properly.]

PROVINZ

Inspiring

THX.

first: sorry, i dont understand which forum is read by Adobe Team and which not. By your reply i´m guessing this one is of the radar but which thread of this community is?

And then -more generally- i really wonder.

Fact1: The picture-centered-coder-world does not stop at adobe forums.

Fact 2: Every video-forum or community or even blogposts about postprocessing video/film swear me into the shooting-flat-profile-logic, because its supposed to give me the most leeway for post processing.

But it seems to me that in the photo-world not many are thinking in post processing terms, although the most sucessful contemporary pictures actually are heavily post processed.

So what am i missing? Is processing a still picture so much different than processing moving pictures?

Why has this workflow not become the go to standard in professional photography?

PROVINZ

Inspiring

"Every video-forum or community or even blogposts about postprocessing video/film swear me into the shooting-flat-profile-logic, because its supposed to give me the most leeway for post processing."

Still photographers who shoot in raw have the most latitude for post-processing, since raw doesn't discard any information from the camera sensor. Most photographers prefer to start their processing with either the Adobe Color profile or with a profile that attempts to match the camera's built-in JPEG processing, while a minority prefer to start their processing with a profile with a flatter tone curve. But regardless of the profile where they start, they can always end up in the same place, since none of the original sensor data has been discarded.

The various video log encodings serve a different purpose. They capture a significantly wider dynamic range than standard Rec 709 video, without increasing the storage required. (Raw video uses a huge amount of storage.) As with still-camera raw, the dynamic range is typically much larger than what can be displayed on the screen, so post-processing is required to map the dynamic range to the range of the screen. Video editors typically start with a flat rendering of log video, rather than with a more natural contrast. But regardless of the initial contrast, no "leeway" is sacrificed, since the photographer can always adjust the curve in post-processing.

Some photographers shooting stills along with log video have asked for camera raw profiles that provide raws with the same initial appearance as the video, so that it is easier for them to adjust the stills and video to have similar looks. This isn't about providing greater "leeway" in post-processing the raws; rather, it's about making the post-processing easier to get the same looks between stills and video.

firstly: huge thanks for your effort to explain all this.

yes.

ok.

thats a reason. moving pictures are recorded already much more compressed than RAWs.
So the need to think of post in advance is inherent.

.

Some photographers shooting stills along with log video have asked for camera raw profiles that provide raws with the same initial appearance as the video, so that it is easier for them to adjust the stills and video to have similar looks. This isn't about providing greater "leeway" in post-processing the raws; rather, it's about making the post-processing easier to get the same looks between stills and video.

Yes! This! Easier and faster (as you can just copy some settings)

And even if youre not shooting the stills along some video, it might be easier to some to wrap their head around only one way of workflow to get their images the way they want to. AE and Premiere colour correction tabs are not that different from LR and if you "understood" one and keep your incoming material on the same level, you can work on it the same way.

.

But,

excuse me when i still beg to differ.

But regardless of the profile where they start, they can always end up in the same place, since none of the original sensor data has been discarded.

although this only applies to extremes, i can think of Situations where i can not end up in the same place and choosing the initial profile is somewhat important.

For instance: when i push any slider to one of its extreme points -take saturation for example- and then change the initial profile, you can see that there is significant "more" saturation in the profiel AdobeColour vs. AdobeNeutral.

I dont know of a practical usecase of this. This just goes to demonstrate that there is different "leeway" or "latitude" for the developing process with the different initial profiles. Which in turn is also affecting the "sensitivity" or proportion of the sliders for certain changes/ decimal steps.

S

Scrambler87

Participating Frequently

The first reply says it all, in short terms. Thanks Dave.

In long terms:
Every single image a camera captures comes in a raw state (not RAW file type) through it's sensor, and then the processor inside the camera compresses the image into a file that your computer can read.

When you tell the camera to take JPEG pictures, the camera's processor compresses and converts that chunk of data captured by the sensor into an image. It "prints" the picture profile into your image, either being Canon's Standard, Neutral, your custom edited profile or Cinestyle.

Recording a movie goes through the same steps. It captures the image and compresses it to H.264 QT format.

You told the camera to do that when you chose the picture profile. JPEG is a compressed file, it's not meant to be messed with afterwards. PhotoJoe2001, this is what you want: JPEG pictures. Don't get angry with other people because you don't understand how your equipment works.

Well, back to our long explanation. When you are taking pictures in RAW format, it's a whole different story. The file that the processor generates has no compression. It makes a lot of sense to call that file "RAW".
This file type has a lot more info than the JPEG, and more importantly, more info than your viewfinder can display. That's also why the file is so large.

So, you say to your camera: "Take RAW images".

Well, then your camera thinks: "OK, but I've gotta display this image in my viewfinder, so my user can view it. What should I display? Oh, I should use the picture profile previously set by my user".
Then you should think: "Attaboy!"

That's because you WANT to see that look. Remember, it's just a look, the camera interprets that huge chunk of data (now it's a RAW file) so that the image LOOKS the way you want in it's viewfinder.

The thing is, picture profiles are installed on your camera, not on your computer. When you open that same RAW in Lightroom, this guy thinks: "I'll display this image using my default setup", which, by the way, looks like (not exactly) the Neutral picture profile your camera has.

Conclusion:
If you are a photographer who want to mess with your photo afterwards, take RAW images. If you want the final image to look exactly as you see on your viewfinder, take JPEGs.

PROVINZ

Inspiring

the old, "its just a look" rethoric.

If someone wishes to see a similar startingpoint for postproduction than he saw on his camerascreen is not thtat difficult to understand.

And doesnt mean to tell those people they dont understand their Equipment. Especially not so many times.The strange behaviour in Forums....

How i understand my equipment so far:

Everything i see on my monitor, when i import new photos into lightroom is just another rendered Preview (*.jpg).

So my Computer does exactly the same as the cameras processor. It "compresses and converts that chunk of data captured by the sensor into an image." But not exactly right?

No. Because Lightroom has different interpreters for that chunk of data and sadly none of them comes close to the Cinestyle-"Look" (which is only installed in cam). You can find the variety of interpreters directly in the development module, on top of the basic settings.

Its Called "Profiles" and even has a profiles browser, where you can set different interpretations for your chunk of data. (while all other develop module parameters remain at zero).

So in my world, i can have different starting points for my post production process.

Question is: why is there no profile, thats flat like the cinestyle?

Or even better: is there any? And where can i get it? And how to install it into LR?

Would be nice to hear from somebody who found a workflow solution to that problem/ idea.

.

cheers to nearly 10 year old "problem".

Archived

Participant

I know this topic is a bit old, but I found myself in an odd Lightroom/Cinestyle situation and thought it might come in handy for someone else.

I hired a contractor to take photos and video with a 5D mk II. I asked for .CR2 photos and video using the Cinestyle profile. Unfortunately, the photos were taken as jpegs. Because the profile was set for Cinestyle the images came out Cinestyle flat. I tried editing in Lightroom and in Photoshop attempting to apply the S-Curve in curves, but nothing gave me a natural look. Therefore, I devised a workflow to apply the Cinestyle LUT to the image and work in Lightroom nondestructively.

This is going to seem roundabout, but it was the only way I could get the look I wanted from the images.

In order for this to work, you will need to convert the default "S-curve_for_CineStyle.mga" to .cube format using After Effects and Red Giant's free "LUT Buddy". (http://www.redgiant.com/products/all/magic-bullet-lut-buddy/) Once installed, Import the .mga LUT and export the .cube. (I would post the .cube file, but Technicolor is no longer offering the LUT for free).

Once you have .cube LUT, here's what gave me the best results:

Import JPEGS into Lightroom
From Lightroom "Edit-in Photoshop" [Ctrl-E]
Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments (This will create a 16-bit, Pro Photo TIFF)
In Photoshop, apply a "Color Lookup" adjustment layer.
In the Properties panel, click "Load 3D LUT" then browse to the .cube LUT.
Save the layered file (you may want to use ZIP compression for the file and layers to reduce size)
The new image should be imported back into Lightroom
Now perform Lightroom edits. The image should be more responsive with the nondestructive LUT applied.

Hopefully you'll never be in this situation, but if you are I hope this helps!

B

brunov47737175

Participant

Hello Friend, I know It has much time since it was whitten, however I am exactly in this situation.

I used Cinestyle (tecnocolor) to take pictures, unfortunatly, and now I need to correct it, once the CS Lightroom correct automactly my photos taken using cinestyle profile.

I would be grateful for you help. I have made everything you said, but I cannot find the archieve ".cube LUT" to correct this image on Photoshop.

Do you know where can I download it or a similar Flat LUT profile to correct my high contrasted images?

Thank you a lot

D

Dave Merchant

Legend

Cinestyle isn't supposed to be used on stills, it's a LUT curve for video files. There's no reason to use it if you're shooting RAW, as not only isn't the curve applied to the RAW file, but you have the bit depth in the image which makes applying it pointless in the first place.

Shooting RAW stills, your camera LCD will show the image with your chosen picture style applied but Lightroom will show you the image in it's "true" RAW state. Same thing if you apply a B+W picture style and shoot RAW - LR will show you the colored image, as the color image is still there despite what your LCD shows.

If you shoot JPEG, the picture style is burned into the data - so a Cinestyle image will look "cinestyle" and a B+W image can't be re-colored. DSLRs effectively shoot video by converting frames into JPEGs, which is why applying picture styles to video is important to give us the headroom in post.

S

scotty32Author

Participant

Thank you so much for such a quick reply

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