Quality of Pictures from Camera not showing as good on PC

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Gordon10

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Hello Everyone

I have a client who does amatuer photography and he wants to know why when he takes photos with his camera, the picture quality does not seem to be as good when he looks at it on his home PC. The camera used is a Sony Alpha 7R II and the pictures are taken in RAW format, setup forAdobe RGB.

The specs of his home computer are:
Intel Core i7 3770 3.4Ghz
8GB RAM
1TB Hard Drive
Intel HD4000 Graphics
Acer T232HL 23" HD Monitor
Adobe Photoshop CC

We have tried calibrating the monitor and setting the Acer monitor mode to graphics work. Would adding a dedicated graphics card help with increased quality on the monitor?

Would appreciate any advice you could give, thanks.
 
I expect the image he is seeing on the camera is the Jpeg preview which has the local colour adjustments. The RAW file contains none of that information so it will definitely look different on the computer.

Ask him to take the pictures in jpeg mode and then see if there's a difference on the PC.
 
If the camera is set to Adobe RGB then in addition to the other points raised here perhaps he should reset it to Adobe sRGB and if there is an adjustment for it on his monitor set that to the same.
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in answer to the graphics card question, no that wont help, they are for 3d really, the gpu built into modern cpus works fine for photo editing. it could be that his post processing isnt great and needs to practice on getting the best out of raw files. out of interest get him to save a few in camera as jpegs and see if the result is preferred
 
All good advice, but what do you mean by "not as good"? Sharpness, contrast, colour?

As pointed out, the colour rendition in particular will look different when processing raw files using a non-Sony product. Sony's Image Data Converter is an absolute dog of a product, but it might be worthwhile processing some shots using that to see if it generates the same look you where expecting.
 
petersmart said:
If the camera is set to Adobe RGB then in addition to the other points raised here perhaps he should reset it to Adobe sRGB and if there is an adjustment for it on his monitor set that to the same.
.
Click to expand...

RAW files don't have a colorspace. Regardless of what the camera says.
 
Gordon10 said:
the picture quality does not seem to be as good when he looks at it on his home PC
Click to expand...
As good as what? - the preview on the rear LCD? a different PC? expectations...

This thread needs examples.
 
boyfalldown said:
RAW files don't have a colorspace. Regardless of what the camera says.
Click to expand...
But the preview jpg would have? It's a fair comment to make especially following a post which suggest to shoot in jpg only and see whether there still is a difference.
 
boyfalldown said:
RAW files don't have a colorspace. Regardless of what the camera says.
Click to expand...

Don't they? How do you process the raw file tristimulus values if you don't know the primary coordinates of the sensor?
 
st599 said:
Sorry, they do. They don't use sRGB or AdobeRGB, but they do need the sensor colour space coordinates in the file to convert to the edit colour space.
Click to expand...

Show me a reliable source for that. And if they don't use sRGB or aRGB what exactly do they use?
 
http://www.xdcam-user.com/2014/05/what-is-a-gamut-or-color-space-and-why-do-i-need-to-know-about-it/

http://www.poynton.com/notes/colour_and_gamma/ColorFAQ.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format

The colour space or gamut of the camera is defined by the colours of its sensor Bayer mask. They differ from camera to camera and are either stored in the raw file or assumed based on camera model.

Either way, raw files have an inherent colour space which limits what colours can be captured. This data is required to accurately convert from the camera raw to a usable image file.
 
st599 said:
http://www.xdcam-user.com/2014/05/what-is-a-gamut-or-color-space-and-why-do-i-need-to-know-about-it/

http://www.poynton.com/notes/colour_and_gamma/ColorFAQ.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format

The colour space or gamut of the camera is defined by the colours of its sensor Bayer mask. They differ from camera to camera and are either stored in the raw file or assumed based on camera model.

Either way, raw files have an inherent colour space which limits what colours can be captured. This data is required to accurately convert from the camera raw to a usable image file.
Click to expand...


The first couple do a great job explaining gamma, colorspace etc and the last talks about how a RAW convertor may apply colorspace. But nowhere do they say RAW files have a colorspace applied already(accepting I may have missed something in them)
 
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"An additive RGB system is specified by the chromaticities of its primaries and its white point. The extent (gamut) of the colours that can be mixed from a given set of RGB primaries is given in the (x, y) chromaticity diagram by a triangle whose vertices are the chromaticities of the primaries. In computing there are no standard primaries or white point. If you have an RGB image but have no information about its chromaticities, you cannot accurately reproduce the image." From Poynton

RAW files contain RGB data read from a camera Bayer sensor.
 
Nowhere in the spec of that Acer monitor is colour space mentioned so surmise that it is sRGB

Therefore if PS CC is honouring the capture settings with no user intervention to change the RAW to jpeg output created file then looking at an aRGB image on an sRGB monitor it will tend to look low in contrast and "not right"

The OP needs to come back with more info as to what the user is doing and exactly what 'it does not match the camera LCD image...' means?
 
Another point worth mentioning is the small screen of the camera is bound to conceal faults. An out of focus picture can look pin sharp on the camera but obviously a disaster on a full size monitor. As others have said the camera will be showing a processed jpeg on it's screen so colour etc will be different to the raw. Also some camera screens may have a colour cast, I know you can correct the colour balance with modern Nikons, not sure about Sony though
 
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