OMS OM-1 raw files rendered differently to jpegs

[Bob Trlin]

I'm using LrC 13.2 and Win 11.  The camera is an OM System OM-1 producing .ORF raw files.
When shooting raw+jpeg or a separate raw and jpeg of the same scene and settings, then importing directly into LrC, the raw is rendered quite a bit more saturated than the jpeg, particularly in the greens.  They should be about the same.  I've used the camera matching profile "Camera Natural".

When doing the same exercise in OM Workspace, output derived from both the raw and the jpeg, are almost indistinguishable.  Another poster on Digital Photographic Review, has independently noticed the same issue.

Below are two images to demonstrate.  The one the left is derived from the jpeg, the one on the right from the ORF.  Both are from a single shot as a raw+jpeg.  I can offer them in higher resolution but I suggest you borrow and OM-1 and try the exercise yourself yourself.

[D Fosse]

That looks like a less than optimal camera-matching profile in Lightroom. The jpeg looks much better and more natural. Maybe move this to "Bugs" so they can look at that profile.

But really, this is a good demonstration that camera matching profiles can never be any more than a second hand emulation. There's no way they can actually match, because they are completely different processing engines. You may get better results by letting LrC do things its own way.

But yes, I agree this profile doesn't look good.

[Bob Trlin]

Thanks for your reply.  The redering of the SOOC jpegs is really nice.  I would like to emulate that.  Sure, I could try other profiles or make my own, but one aught to get pretty close with the camera matching profiles, otherwise, what's the point?
Thanks for pointing out that this should be in Bugs.  I actually thought that's where I put it.  I asked the moderator to relocate it.

[D Fosse]

No need to make your own profiles. That's just for light sources with very irregular spectral distribution, like LED and fluorescent.

It's more about recognizing that these are different raw processors. After all, there is no reference for a raw image, no "original". The sensor data always have to be interpreted to produce an image.

I need to be a little careful how I phrase this, because it quickly comes across as "you shouldn't do it this way, you should do it that way" and nobody wants to be told that. The point I'm trying to make is that letting Lightroom use its own algorithms natively, instead of trying to make it look like something else, may produce the best result. That is my experience. My thinking is that I'm not interested in how the camera manufacturer thinks the image should look - I'm interested in how I want it to look.

[Bob Trlin]

No problem at all with what you say.  I know how Adobe thinks it should look.  I would like to see how OMDS whould like it to look... accurately.  At the moment, it's clearly not accurate.  In either case, these will be nothing more than my starting point.  However, I get the feeling this will be way down on Adobe's priority list, so I'm not holding my breath.  Others I've comminicated with, do the raw conversion in OM Workspace first.  That may be the way to go.  I'll look into it.

[Jao vdL]

The camera matching profiles are not perfect reproductions of the in-camera processing indeed. What you can do is create your own profile by shooting a color chart (more patches the better) in good light as raw+jpeg, import the raw with the default adobe color profile and open both as layers in Photoshop. Make sure the jpeg layer is on top. Then create a LUT from this that maps the top layer to the bottom. This LUT describes how colors in the jpeg rendering differ from colors in the raw engine in Lightroom. Use this LUT to create a new profile in camera raw (many tutorials online on how to do this). This will create a profile that more accurately approximates your camera's jpeg rendering. 

I usually don't care about this much as 5 seconds in Lightroom allow one to create far better renderings than in camera but you can use LUTs to do this quite well using the hidden LUT options in camera raw.

[Bob Trlin]

Sure, that can be done, but we shouldn't have to.  Adobe offers a camera matching facility with profiles that Adobe has created.  The least Adobe could do is to ensure that their profiles are accurate.  It's not a good look for Adobe.  It a matter of quality.  In fact, I see a lot of critisism of Adobe profiles.  Either do it right or don't do it at all.

[Jao vdL]

I offered a practical solution if you don't want to wait. Adobe once in a while will fix really off profiles but it is very rare they do as most are only slightly off or are only off under certain conditions and are mostly fine or are just fine when used with test charts. So unlikely these will ever get fixed but stranger things have happened. 

[Bob Trlin]

Don't misunderstand me, I really appreciate you outlining the workaround in such detail.  It's useful to know.
Actually, I can work from any profile to get the look I want.  It's just that when OM System cameras are reviewed, the jpeg engine is often praised for the "Oly" colours.  I would have liked to have been able to have used a profile that emulated this for raw, as a starting point.

[ChrisDPage]

Thanks for raising this, new to om-1 mk2 and surprised how poor the raw processing is in Lightroom so hoping it will get refined quickly!

[D Fosse]

@ChrisDPage

Raw processing in Lightroom is not "poor" if you let it use its own algorithms, in they way they are intended to work.

Trying to force Lightroom to look like something else that uses entirely different processing algorithms, can only degrade the result. Camera-matching profiles are a compromise. They are provided because of public demand.

It is impossible to make one processing engine produce exactly the same result as another.

Obviously they should try to make these profiles as good as possible, but it's a reasonable assumption that this is sometimes relatively easy and sometimes quite difficult. It's also unrealistic to test them against all possible types of image content.

[Bob Trlin]

That's such a shame.  I may have to do what someone on another forum does.  That is cull and do the raw conversion in OM Workspace, export as a TIFF, then import into Lightroom for further processing.  The downside is that I like the LrC culling and it leaves me with very large TIFF files.

[peterr22481635]

Well put

[peterr22481635]

WOW, i thought I was the only one having these issues. I have ORF images that once looked great, now when i open them they have blownout highlights and the colours are off. I can open the same images in OM workspace and they look fine, open them in Bridge, Camera Raw or LRC and I just want to delete them. Its lousy to think you have to convert your files to tiff prior to inporting them so adobe programs don't destroy them. A fix would be appreciated. Adobe is happy taking our money every month, for this result... 

[Jao vdL]

Post a file here for people to test. It is highly likely just a consequence of default profile and the rendering image being different. Neither is wrong or better. Just different. Adobe's default profile is based on shooting reference charts with the camera and is usually the most accurate (but boring) one. Camera makers like to spice up their default rendering and give it a special "Nikon/Canon/Sony/Leica twist" that makes the rendering and color less accurate but more pleasing to the viewer. It takes five seconds in Lightroom to make your images look better than the jpeg rendering (which is what you see on your camera for raw files).

For most cameras, if you want the default rendering to look like the in-camera jpeg (which is usually heavily doctored by the rendering engine in camera), just set the raw default in Lightroom, bridge, camera raw, etc to "camera settings". This will make Lightroom default to a camera matching profile for new imports. For already imported images, hit reset on them after making the preference change or use the camera settings preset in the presets list. I don't know what camera you are using but there are built in camera matching profiles for most Olympus cameras. 

[peterr22481635]

Hello and thank you for your follow-up, it's very welcome

You will see in the attached image the issue I was facing. The attached image shows the actual embedded preview file (on the left) from within the actual raw file (on the right)

I wasn't so worried about the colour change, but the blown-out highlights because as we all know, there's no fixing that.

I followed your advice and changed the raw default settings from ADOBE to the camera, in this case Olympus (OMS) OM1

This simple change seems to have improved the situation to now being acceptable at great relief for me, and the camera, which was knocking on the door of the bin.

Again, thanks for the follow-up, I wasn't expecting anything constructive to come from my rant, I'm glad to be wrong

Regards

Peter R

[Jao vdL]

Ah yeah that looks like a profile issue. Even with the camera matching profiles you won't get perfect correspondence between jpeg preview and initial rendering in Lightroom especially in more extreme lighting conditions such as fluorescents or incandescant lighting but should get you closer. 

>I wasn't so worried about the colour change, but the blown-out highlights because as we all know, there's no fixing that.

Actually blown out highlights are trivial to fix in Lightroom. If the in-camera jpeg has them rendered, the information is inside the raw file and just dialing in a small amount of negative highlights will fix them even if they look blown out. In your screenshot above I bet a few seconds with the sliders would have fixed that even without chaniging the profile. It is always surprising how much extra data there is in raw images that you don't initially see even in the jpeg preview. 

[ChrisDPage]

Just hoping Adobe is paying attention as well as taking our money, I am still feeling that my E-M10 Mk4 raw images are producing better result in lightroom than the OM-1 Mk2, I've tried Workspace a couple of times and I really hate it! That said I have also had some success with Luminar Neo - it seems much more sympathetic than LR but isn't a complete replacement which is a shame. Come on Adobe get your finger out.