issue importing raw into lightroom or just me being fussy

dan_yell

dan_yell

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Hello - i don't know a lot about this, and i prob should know more but.......... after importing my raw files (from Canon 5dII) into lightroom3 - out of the box, they dont look that...... i can't think of the word but they look like they have already had editing done to them or have been compressed in some way, so when i try to make changes to them, some parts of the image just look degraded. They are landscape images so its not like they are high ISO and i am trying to perform miriacles, im just not sure if im being overally critical or if i am doing something wrong in the import or if something is out of date or................... just something.

would it help if i provided a raw image and someone tried importing it and seeing if they can tell what i mean?

apologise if this makes no sense whatsoever!!!
 
any ideas? (if even make sense?....)

to me it looks like the image has already had some kind of Pp done on it and looks degraded. i have switched to a new PC in the past few months - could something need upgrading? codecs or something?
 
Hi @dan_yell

I think you will find that when importing there is a section below the 'TO' section which can apply a formatting rule when imported.

Set the Apply During Import 'DEVELOP SETTINGS' to 'NONE"

LR does not destroy the original RAW files and you will find that there is a 'RESET' button below the sliders in the 'DEVELOP' tab that will immediately remove all formatting and allow you to start again.

Hope that helps
 
HI @KingDad - thanks for your time - no develop settings have been used on the import (i've never used them before, but did double check after the fact in case something had changed when i reinstalled on new computer) and am aware/use the 'reset' button.

It's probably me and something in the way i've taken the photos but i've just never noticed any of my photos looking like this and i've been using lightroom for years - since i changed PC i wondered if there was anything that might changed (as i'm not hot on hardware, codecs and all that jazz).

The most probably solution is that I'm s*** at taking photos - but i just thought i'd double check - lol
 
Is it possible that what you're viewing is the mini jpg file that the camera produces, rather than the raw file, or is the camera producing jpg and raw simultaneously? Are the images stacked in grid view (in LR5 if I right-click an image in grid and select unstack, if there are both raw and jpg files then they separate and sit side by side).
 
Only shooting raw so shouldnt be any stacking (not that i know a lot about it) - not sure on the mini jpg - it's just something i've never noticed before and i've not changed the way i shoot etc. I'm in LR3 if that makes any difference. It may well be all in my head :-)
 
Go to the develop module and under camera calibration see if anything looks odd. Check the process option is the latest one. Not sure if LR3 will have 2012, but you should have 2010. Next look to see what camera profile is selected. Try Camera faithful or neutral and see if that makes any sense. Also check the amount of sharpening that's being applied, is it excessive. Normally it's around 25%, with a Radius of 1

Also can you edit the images to get the result you want? Additionally is it only recent imports that look odd , or do those from some time ago also have this odd appearance.
 
Have you thought of running a control experiment? Open a seemingly afflicted raw in something other than LR - Canon's or another free app. Compare.

Chappers said:
Check the process option is the latest one.
Click to expand...
It'll be 2010 in LR3, but that's fine.
 
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Thanks guys, i'll try this out when I'm at home.

Ill hook up my external hard drive as i dont have any other photos imported before the old pc on this pc to compare with, been meaning to do that but just not yet

thanks :-)
 
Ok, i've compared a photo in LR to opening it in Windows photo viewer & picasa and it doesnt look like it does in LR. I realise windows has prob done something to the file but it looks much more how i'd expect. i tried to do a screen grab of each to demonstrate, but that itself seemed to degrade the quality so it wasnt really very useful.

i have loaded up photos from the past and altho it does seem to be happening here too - i swear it did not look like that before, but i dont see how i wouldnt have noticed, or would somehow be more fussy now, but also dont know what could have changed since
 
& in regards to can i get the results i want from the files - no i dont feel i can, i feel these areas cannot be recovered.

however i may just be RUBBISH at pp....
 
Could it be a colour space issue? Also how do the images look if you open them in another image editor (if you have one?).
 
I have photoshop cs2, but you have to convert to DNG before then putting into PS so i have never done that. so i've just tried it and it........ hmm... not sure. dunno what im doing in photoshop so i'll have a play tomorrow and see if the edited results seem any better. man i feel clueless - i hadnt thought of figuring out PS as i'd just ignored it since i got LR!
 
If it's a new PC, have you also changed your screen? If so, they colour correction could be off. If that's the case, you'd need to get a colour calibration tool and set it up.

If you still have the old computer, can you do two things:
1) load a RAW file onto the old computer and import into lightroom, then load the same file into LR on the new computer, do they look the same?
2) on both the old and the new computer find out the precise LR and Adobe Camera Raw versions. It's possible that if you did a fresh install of LR3 from a CD, then it may be the base version, but the one on the old computer may have had an update (eg LR 3.1 or something) that perhaps is processing them slightly differently.
 
Same screen as before, which has added to the confusion. dont have the old PC anymore, and only have one screen so wouldnt have been able to do a concurrent test unfort. I installed LR from a DL from Adobe as I dont have a CD, so hopefully it should be the most recent version.

I probably sound really dumb, and in the end maybe I'm just expecting too much, its just not a look i've noticed in all the years of shooting and using lightroom - but presumably my photography can't have got worse. The main area i've noticed it is darker areas, where I thought using RAW would mean I could recover a *certain* amount using LR (not expecting miracles) and instead it just seems to increase this degraded look to the image.

i will def have a play in photoshop and see if a different tool means different end result.
 
An update on this - i think this is connected to my change in computers - i've now noticed that all photos, be it mine or other peoples have the same compressed/degraded look that im seeing, in PS, in LR and just displaying in a browser. I didnt change my monitor when i got a new computer so i assume this is some sort of issue in compatibility/calibration of the monitor with the OS (Windows 10). I am going to check some more photos out on my work PC just to make sure but that seems to be the issue.
 
Have you installed the drivers for the graphics card or are you using the generic drivers in windows?
 
hmmm, i havnt installed anything myself. i bought the machine, it was built for me so i assumed all this sort of thing would be done? perhaps not...
 
dan_yell said:
Ok, i've compared a photo in LR to opening it in Windows photo viewer & picasa and it doesnt look like it does in LR. I realise windows has prob done something to the file but it looks much more how i'd expect. i tried to do a screen grab of each to demonstrate, but that itself seemed to degrade the quality so it wasnt really very useful.

i have loaded up photos from the past and altho it does seem to be happening here too - i swear it did not look like that before, but i dont see how i wouldnt have noticed, or would somehow be more fussy now, but also dont know what could have changed since
Click to expand...
Hi Ya
Sorry to hear your grief, annoying isn't it, I have found Windows photo viewer screws with an image, but opening in windows paint (or whatever they call it) looks more natural. What was the file you opened in the Windows viewer, a RAW file? or something you have exported from LR?

Anyhow if you want to check your Graphics Adapter in Win10 go to Start button > Control Panel, and under Appearance and Personalisation > Adjust screen resolution > Advanced settings, and click the Adapter tab.
This will give you all the details on the Graphic Adapter (Video Card) it could be an "On Board" Graphics adapter in which case the system builder would have run the disc for the Motherboard Utils and installed the drivers from that (most likely).
Win 10 can be an arse with some drivers. In fact there are a lot of devices that are not supported ..... Yet In Which case Win 10 dumps some generic driver that "Works" on the system.... But is not necessarily the best one for the Graphics adapter you have. So google for example "Windows 10 drivers for Geforce GTX 750" you normally find it will take you to the manufactures site and you can download and update the driver from there.

Hope this helps a bit!
 
thanks, ill have a look when i am home. i cant remember what graphics card i picked, i know i picked a non fancy one as my friend was going to give me one he didnt want/use any more - unfort it didnt physically fit in the casing! so i still have non fancy one.

the images look the weird degraded way in all ways of viewing, PS, LR, illustrator, browser etc, and its jpegs, raw et al i think.

i hope i can manage to sort it in some way cos its really annoying for editing photos cos it looks not so great on my screen and then viewed on another computer it seems ok.
 
Graphics card or screen resolution setting problem ?
 
Goto Control Panel/Display and check the screen resolution is set to its highest.
 
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