In this post, I’ll look at the color response of Capture One, Lightroom and Aperture against an image of an actual GretagMacbeth test chart, as cteated on a Nikon D80, rather than the Leica M8 I used in the previous post. As was the case last time, I first adjust the contrast and exposure setting on each program to exactly match expected values of the lightest and darkest monochrome patches on the GretagMacbeth chart. This exactly matches the exposure of the real images to the effective exposure of the synthetic image. As was the case for the synthetic images, all the test results are on a 0 to 100 scale, and represent the difference between the expected value as derived from the color values of the GretagMacbeth chart and the actual values measured. So, for example, if the red bar of the “Cyan patch” shows a value of -5, that means that the actual measured value of the R component of the RGB values as read out by the software in question was 5 units less that the theoretical value.

In the case of Lightroom, relative to the deviations in the M8 actual image from the last post, we see less negative deviations overall, indicating more saturated colors, and a significantly more saturated red patch. However, overall the picture is relatively similar to that of the M8. This starts to imply that differences in color rendering really are more to do with the raw conversion software, and less to do with different cameras.



Aperture shows a somewhat different picture. The 1.1 rendering of the M8 showed some large positive spikes in the blue component of several patches, especially the yellow patch. This doesn’t appear on the D80 rendering. However, the red component is the cyan patch is quite negative. The 2.0 rendering shows considerable change relative to the previous V1.1. Firstly, most of negative deviations have gone – the largest negative deviation anywhere is in the red component of the cyan patch, but even this is well down from the previous value. Overall, the 2.0 D80 rendering appears significantly better controlled than the previous version.



Capture One is an interesting case. At a first glance, it appears that the rendering is simply a considerable distance away from the theoretical values, almost all color components appear to be greater than the theoretical values would indicate. The peak deviations are over 20 units, in sharp contrast to Capture One’s rendering on the M8 image, in which the deviations are of the order of 10 units. However, a closer look shows that what has actually occurred is that the pattern of deviations has remained very much the same, but that their magnitude has grown, and been offset in a positive direction. What this amounts to is that the image is considerably brighter overall. This is a strange result, and one that I’ll come back to in my next post.

For the moment ignoring the issue of the Capture One brightness, we can draw two conclusions at this point:

  1. Most of the color variation that we see appears to be due to variations in the calibration of the raw converters, rather than variations between camera brands. The Lightroom M8 and D80 color renderings look a more alike than, for example, the color renderings of the M8 using Lightroom and Capture One.
  2. Aperture 2’s color rendering appears to have been significantly improved, at least in a technical sense, relative to the previous versions of Aperture.
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Good news in a difficult year - all the macOS apps that I support - AccuRaw EXR, AccuRaw Monochrome, pcdMagic, CornerFix, dcpTool (both the GUI and command line version), DNG cleaner and pcdtojpeg - now are all available with native Apple Silicon versions for blazing fast performance on Apple's new

There's a whole slew of new camera support, including for Canon's new CR3 format.

Updates of AccuRaw EXR, AccuRaw Monochrome, PhotoRaw are now available on the Apple App Store.

pcdMagic for Windows - the only currently available app that can convert Kodak Photo CD images with correct color and at full resolution - is now available on the Microsoft Windows Store.

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As usual when new Leica cameras come out, I took a quick look inside a DNG from one of Leica's new Leica CL  cameras:

The camera name shows as "LEICA CL" The image data is 14-bit. There is no compression used in the DNG I looked at.  The DNG version is 1.4, with a "backward version" of 1.3.

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So finally, after many years of searching, I have an answer to the question that torments all who go down the digital color rabbit hole.

This is from XKCD, brought to my attention via an article on the Digital Transitions website about the Phase One IQ3 100mp Trichromatic.

Back in January, when the new Leica M10 was introduced, there were claims that the improvement in dynamic range from the Leica M240 to the M10 was of the order of 1.5 to 2 stops.

dcpTool has been available for quite a while as a command line application for Windows and the Mac. But now it available in the form of an easy to use Mac app, with powerful batch processing capabilities. dcpTool for the Mac is available from the App Store.

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Many cameras embed lens corrections into raw the raw files that they produce. Generally, that's a good thing - straight lines stay straight, etc. For an example of lens corrections in practice, take a look at this post about the Leica SL.

But, as the saying goes, "there is no free lunch".

Those of you that have read the Leica M10 raw file analysis post will know that M10 DNGs have more baggage in them that is typically the case for a Leica DNG. I've put together a little app to clean them up, called DNG Cleaner (Mac only for the moment).

AccuRaw users might have gotten a bit of a surprise recently - AccuRaw has turned into AccuRaw EXR, and is now at version 3.

The reason for the name change is that the focus of the AccuRaw product has changed a bit, based on what users were actually doing with it.

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Good news - AccuRaw, AccuRaw Monochrome and PhotoRaw now have support for the compressed raw format that Fuji use in the new GFX 50S. Previous versions of AccuRaw/PhotoRaw had support for the regular uncompressed RAFs, but not the compressed version.

Updated: AccuRaw and PhotoRaw now have support for compressed and uncompressed RAFs.

For those that have been asking me about AccuRaw and Fuji GFX 50S support, I'm pleased to say that the version on the App Store as of today has support, although only for uncompressed RAFs.

I've been reading various articles, posts, etc on the web that deal with Leica's new M10. Many of those suggest that the improvement in dynamic range from the Leica M240 to the M10 is of the order of 1.5 to 2 stops. But I find that difficult to agree with.

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As usual when new Leica cameras come out, I took a quick look inside some DNGs from one of Leica's new M10 cameras. Usually, there's not much to see with Leica DNGs - they are typically text-book vanilla DNGs. But with the Leica M10, things are bit more interesting.

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In a previous post introducing AccuRaw EXR, the new version of my AccuRaw raw processing software, I mentioned the importance of a "non-clipping workflow" for the promise of the EXR format to be a reality.

Now that the AccuRaw EXR beta is out, one of the questions I'm getting is how the new highlight controls work.

The control curves are below. Note that these curves are on a linear scale, and 1 is white. So anything above 1 is "blown".

AccuRaw EXR is a new version of AccuRaw with support for HDR (High Dynamic Range) images in OpenEXR format. OpenEXR is a high dynamic-range (HDR) image file format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for use in computer imaging applications that uses floating point data.

For those eagerly awaiting the opportunity to be able to process Olympus OM-D E-M1 II raws, the latest version (4.4.2) of PhotoRaw has support, including for the 80 megapixel raws. AccuRaw and AccuRaw Monochrome support will follow in a day or two in version 2.5.1.

New versions of PhotoRaw and AccuRaw became available on the App Store today with support for the new Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.

New to the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is what Canon are calling ‘Dual Pixel Raw’.

Good news - AccuRaw, AccuRaw Monochrome and PhotoRaw now have support for the compressed raw format that Fuji use in the new X-Pro2. This is thanks to Alexey Danilchenko and the folks over at LibRaw, who reverse engineered the format, and published the results in open source form.

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Yes, AccuRaw and PhotoRaw now supports the Nikon 5, all ISO 3,280,000 of it. The new versions are already available on the App Store.

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LFI has recently published an article stating that the sensor in the new Leica M262 differs from that in the older Leica M240. This has generated a fair amount of comment on various forums because the M262 is, at least in principle, just a simplified version of the M240.

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Mostly, I use this blog to write about photography related issues, but today I'm making an exception, and writing about email apps. Apologies to regular readers, but never fear, normal service will resumed soon.

Email is important to me.

CornerFix was one the the first imaging apps that I wrote. Written originally for the Leica M8 to fix the M8's "pink corners" problem, it corrects for vignetting, both in luminance and in color dependent form. In photographic circles, this is known as "flat fielding".

I've just found out that, to my regret, Photosmith has ceased development. In short, Photosmith allowed images to easily be uploaded to an iPad, sorted, rated, and the ratings etc transferred to Adobe's Lightroom.

A number of people have contacted me to ask how much lens correction there is on the new Leica SL. Or, more accurately, how much lens correction there is on the new SL lens, the VARIO-ELMARIT 1:2.8-4.0/24-90mm.

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(Edited 23 October to include information on how M lenses are handled.)

As usual when new Leica cameras come out, I took a quick look inside a DNG from one of Leica's new Leica SL (Typ 601) cameras, using one of the new Leica L mount lenses:

The camera is using what appears to be production softwa

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Affinity Photo isn't one of my products, but I have been following it closely, and trying out the betas as they came out. It is now out of beta, and I know that a lot of readers of this blog are looking for alternatives to being forced onto the Creative Cloud model.

As usual when new Leica cameras come out, I took a quick look inside a DNG from one of Leica's new Leica Q (Typ 116) cameras:

The camera is using what appears to be production software - version 1.02. The camera name shows as "LEICA Q (Typ 116)" The image data is 14-bit.

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As usual when new Leica cameras come out, I took a quick look inside a DNG from one of Leica's new Leica M Monochrom (Type 246) cameras:

The camera is using what appears to be production software - version 1.0.0.4. The camera name shows as "LEICA M MONOCHROM (Typ 246)" The image data is 12-bit.

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I don't often talk about pcdMagic because, well, there's seldom much new to say about it. For those that don't know, pcdMagic is my software package for converting old Kodak Photo CD images to modern formats.

PhotoRaw version 4.2.1 is now available on the Apple App Store with new camera support including the Sony A7 II (ICLE-7M2), Sony QX1 (ICLE-QX1), Panasonic DMC-CM1, Pentax K-S1, Olympus E-PL7, Fuji S1, Kodak C330, Leica D-Lux (Type 109), Leica V-Lux (Type 114), Samsung NX300M, Samsung NX3000

I previously wrote about a nasty bug in iOS 8 that prevented PhotoRaw from accessing any images that were shot as raw+JPEG.

While Adobe's DNK SDK has been a great asset for the imaging world, allowing all sorts of useful open source software, including my CornerFix and dcpTool packages, as written it only supports Windows and OS X.

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So you can stop emailing me :)

The versions of AccuRaw and AccuRaw Monochrome on the App Store as of this morning (V2.2.8) have support for the Canon 7D Mark II, Canon SX60 HS, Canon G7 X and Fuji X100T.

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