What is the accurate representation on my raw photos?

[Pup Shepard]

I have the cannon SL2 (200D) and I shoot in raw.  They come out as CR2 files.  Unfortunately, I am not sure what is the correct representation of the photos I am taking.  As you can see in the image bellow, I have three programs open each giving three different interpretations of the same image file.  When I review the image on the camera itself using the display, it appears the 'cleanest' but it is yet another variation on the same file.  What is going on here?

 

 

[Blue4130]

What's going on is you are not working with calibrated displays. If you want accuracy, you need a hardware color calibration unit like a spyder or similar. And at the start of each shoot, photograph a color chart (Macbeth). 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-SpyderX-Pro-Calibration-Photographers/dp/B07M6KPJ9K

 

https://www.amazon.com/X-Rite-ColorChecker-MSCCC-Photography-Filmmaking/dp/B000JLO31C/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=macbeth+color+checker&qid=1587161992&sprefix=Macbeth+color&sr=8-1

[Blue4130]

Also, on the software side, if you want them to match up closer, ensure they are all set to the same color space by default. You could be mismatched. (but the first step is to calibrate everything) 

[Bartholomew]

19 minutes ago, rubberpuppy said:

I have the cannon SL2 (200D) and I shoot in raw.  They come out as CR2 files.  Unfortunately, I am not sure what is the correct representation of the photos I am taking.  As you can see in the image bellow, I have three programs open each giving three different interpretations of the same image file.  When I review the image on the camera itself using the display, it appears the 'cleanest' but it is yet another variation on the same file.  What is going on here?

In addition to what above poster said:

 

Think of a raw file as a good old fashion negative. A negative was exposed to light, capturing the image with given exposure settings.

 

Next there where two steps:

 

1. Developing the film, where, by making development time longer or shorter in the chemicals, some correction/modification on exposure could be accomplished. 

 

2. Next would be enlargement, projecting the image on sensitive paper, and then bath that paper into other chemicals. Both of these steps also required timing and could influence the outcome.

 

Different, but same with digital. With digital also noise suppression, rgb demosaicing ad whitebalance can be varied. Instead of timing chemicals the pixel values can be either reduced or amplified (optionally nonlinear usjng curves etc) to influence contrast and brightness.

 

So comming from the raw data, theres basically infinite outcomes, and each processing software, incam or on computer will have their own idea of "best common default settings for 'natural' look.

 

However you can tweak those if used raw over lets say jpeg. Back to the analog comparison, a jpeg is more like a final enlarged print on paper where a raw file is more like a negative (with the added bonus of being able to develop more than once, since in digital the develop and enlargement steps are basically merged into 1).

 

[harryk]

33 minutes ago, rubberpuppy said:

Unfortunately, I am not sure what is the correct representation of the photos I am taking.

The thing to understand about digital photography is there is no correct representation. Its all an interpretation.

 

When your camera saves a RAW file what its doing to saving a record the light which is hitting the sensor. When you open the RAW file on your computer whichever program and monitor you use interprets the data and displays the photo with that interpretation. 

 

For a simple example, imagine a single pixel camera which records the intensity of light as a number between 1 and 1024, aka a 10 bit sensor. Typically you would think of 1024 as white and 1 as black. But the number recorded by the camera is dependent on the exposure, even a very dark room could max out the sensor if you expose long enough. So the actual number recorded is merely an interpretation of the real world.

 

Then you import the RAW file into the computer and display it on a monitor. Problem is that the monitor can only display 8 bit values, 1 to 256. It cannot display the full range that the 10 bit sensor can record. So the computer must interpret the values and approximate the image for display. This is called a Look Up Table or LUT, and converts RAW values into a displayable image. 1024 from the camera could be converted to 256 on the display to get the most dynamic range, but then you lose some detail because 512-515 are all converted to 128. But maybe the highest value in the RAW file is only 800. So you can adjust the LUT to reduce the white point to 800 and better display all the detail in the image. 

 

This is a mathematic approach to explaining how a digital camera works and is what happens when you record and edit a digital photo. You can edit a photo to best match what you saw with your eyes and consider this to be the "correct" representation, though this is still just your interpretation of the scene. IMO the important thing to understand is that every photo is simply an interpretation of a scene. There is no such thing as a correct representation and there is no such thing as "no filter". Every photo is "edited" either by you or the automatic processes of the computer software or camera software. Editing a photo is merely adjusting the numbers to make it look how you want.

[YellowJersey]

Yeah, it's a bitch. It's why I gave up on Lightroom 2 as it kept giving me really wonky colours both in LR and in exported files

[Pup Shepard]

I guess the biggest issue I am facing is off all the programs, adobe is making the grain this pitch black streaks of horror in where no amount of tweaking gets rid of it.  I wanted to use gimp2 but I cant get it to open the raw files, and I haven't found a plugin to do it.  I find it hard to imaging that the camera captured the image with that amount of grain.

[Pup Shepard]

As to the comments of the monitors being an influence, i get it, but please take note that the screenshot is from the output of the GPU.  Those programs are next to each other don the desktop.  What is being shown here is a difference in how each program the same file.  This still razes an issue when trying to edit a photo, as even when saving the my work to a png, that png still looks different than within lightroom, for example.  All the comparisons are done on the same monitor so to rule out the limitations of the monitor.  It kinda sucks when All these programs look diffrent on the same monitor.

[ThePointblank]

What ISO is the photo; I've generally found that the 24MP APS-C sensors from Canon generally fall apart at higher ISO's, with a lot of noise.

[Pup Shepard]

i try and stay below 6400. This pic was 6400, I have seen it on 3200 as well. I have an 800 photo, its not as pronounced but it is still jarring.  It just seems weird to have so many black pixels in the image.  Turning the sharpening  to 0 and slowly bumping up the noise reduction helps, but at the cost of smothing everything out

[Blue4130]

2 hours ago, rubberpuppy said:

As to the comments of the monitors being an influence, i get it, but please take note that the screenshot is from the output of the GPU.  Those programs are next to each other don the desktop.  What is being shown here is a difference in how each program the same file.  This still razes an issue when trying to edit a photo, as even when saving the my work to a png, that png still looks different than within lightroom, for example.  All the comparisons are done on the same monitor so to rule out the limitations of the monitor.  It kinda sucks when All these programs look diffrent on the same monitor.

Every program decodes raw differently. There is not one common algorithm for it. You have to calibrate as best you can and decide which program gives you what you want. 

[Blue4130]

3 hours ago, harryk said:

The thing to understand about digital photography is there is no correct representation. Its all an interpretation.

 

Its not just digital, film (and all analog processes) suffer the same fate. 

[LyondellBasell]

2 hours ago, rubberpuppy said:

i try and stay below 6400. This pic was 6400, I have seen it on 3200 as well. I have an 800 photo, its not as pronounced but it is still jarring.  It just seems weird to have so many black pixels in the image.  Turning the sharpening  to 0 and slowly bumping up the noise reduction helps, but at the cost of smothing everything out

I don't really see any issue here. The samples you posted are zoomed in at 900-something percent. Even if you print these pretty big, you're not going to be able to see the pixelation. Unless you've got serious grain or banding showing up, I think you're okay to continue shooting at 6400. (Obviously more light and lower ISO is preferable.)