PL6 DNG export options

I assumed that. But since you mentioned it in a post just following my own, I felt obliged to mention it…

Mark

PhotoLab exports linear DNGs. My understanding is that these don’t have color space info written to them - at least, not in PL6. So it shouldn’t matter what the DxO Wide Gamut working color space is - just that it’s wide enough to preserve the camera’s native color space rather well. If the RAW color data was pushed/transformed into a different color space, then the data wouldn’t be linear anymore, right? (If I’m misunderstanding, please explain. Thanks.)

Linear-DNG - DxO

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Do you know if the color correction matrix is applied by Photolab when exporting a linear DNG?

What an excellent write up, thank you

From my reading of the (truly enlightening !) article referred to by Egregious (see link above), my understanding is; No.

John M

It never was (as it should be). Selecting the wide gamut option does weird things though, causing really different colors / look when loading in a program that tries to apply their own matrix and/or camera profile (like lightroom or darktable)

Thank you John.

I’ve read it too. But I’m still confused, because this article doesn’t mention the color correction matrix at all.

I’m not an expert, but am trying to understand the pipeline of processing the RAW-data. And my understanding is that there is a color correction matrix (CCM) somewhere in the linear phase and before applying the tone response curve(TRC) / gamma of the color space (non-linear).

This CCM is sensor / camera specific and dependent of the spectral response of the Bayer-array. And should be applied for getting the correct / natural colors.

For my everyday images I use PLa and assume that PL will take care of applying the CCM somewhere in the processing pipeline.

However I also do astro-photography and this kind of imaging can benefit of processing (stacking, removing light pollution and stretching) with data in a linear state as long as possible. And I do want to use the demosaicing and noise reduction of PL.

I also want to achieve natural colors in my workflow and applying the CCM is essential.

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It never was (as it should be).

How do you know it never was?

when loading in a program that tries to apply their own matrix and/or camera profile (like lightroom or darktable)

Maybe the CCM is applied twice and Lightroom / Darktable shouldn’t apply it?

Let me try to explain what the option «All corrections expect Color Rendering » does:

The export option known in PhotoLab 5 as «All corrections applied » has been renames to «All corrections except Color Rendering» in PhotoLab 6 as we thought it better describes what it does. There is no change in the behaviour.

When Exporting a DNG using «All corrections except Color Rendering», the default color rendering of the camera (DxO Camera Profile) is removed in order to keep the exported image in the camera’s linear sensor color space.
When you open the exported LinearDNG in software other than PhotoLab, the default color rendering of that software is applied to the LinearDNG, in order to convert the image from the sensor color space to the software’s working color space. Because the default color rendering of PhotoLab is different from the default color rendering of others (e.g., Adobe Lightroom’s Adobe Color is different from DxO’s Camera Profile), the Previews between PhotoLab and others won’t match.
For that reason, LinearDNGs exported with this Export Preset will only match the Preview when opened in PhotoLab.

If you need to work with LinearDNGs exported from PhotoLab in third-party software, we strongly recommend using the Export DNG (Denoise & Optical corrections only) Preset.

If you are trying to export a LinearDNG with ALL the corrections applied, I personally would export a TIFF in that case.
But please explain, what you are trying to accomplish. Maybe there is another tip for you.

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Because for years now, if you export as DNG without touching the colors… and then compare that DNG opened in a raw editor like Lightroom vs how Lightroom would render the original raw file, there were no (color) differences. Rawtherapee and Darktable have the option to use ‘the matrix embedded in the DNG’ or the original matrix that is normally used for the camera model… and they produce the same results.

Only if the colors are really modified in DxO (like with strong color denoising, using any of the edit tools, or strong ‘saturation protection’ in the ‘color rendering module’ I’ve seen differences).

From my (limited) testing with the DxO Wide Gamut thing, it seems to really alter the color information in the exported DNG, so everything applying the original camera model profile / matrix will produce something that looks (clearly) wrong (greenish to say the least).

@Barbara-S , can you clarify what you mean by “Color Rendering”? Do you mean that the Color Rendering tools is deactivated or used in its default settings (which is probably the same thing), no matter what we’ve changed in the Color Rendering tool?

We mean that, no matter what you have set in the Color Rendering palette, during «All corrections expect Color Rendering» we always unapply the DxO Camera Profile Color Rendering.

@Barbara-S

What I understand from what you write and what I see do not match:


From left to right:

  1. Original image, no corrections applied
  2. Original image with Color Rendering set to “Neutral color, realistic tonality (gamma 2.2)”
  3. DNG from exporting image as in 2. with DPL5, shown with Color Rendering switched off
  4. DNG from exporting image as in 2. with DPL6, shown with Color Rendering switched off

I understand from your text, that images #3 and #4 should look like #1

I also don’t understand.

When I select Color Rendering with B&W films of Filmpack and export with DNG (All corrections) in PL5, then it’s rendered in black and white.

I have noticed this redact scenario. I don’t have to export to see it just simple view the photo with “Color Rendering” to “Generic/DxO camera profile” or off.

I suspect the profile for my camera does not play nicely with the new DxO Wide Gamut colorspace

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I am having the same trouble… I cannot export a DNG to LR with the color profiles when using PL6. I hope this is an oversight and something that they rectify very quickly as I find the color profiles to be a great part of PL5.

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I need a linear TIF-file from the RAW-file which is demosaiced, noise-reduction applied, white balenced, with applied optical corrections and ‘natural’ colors (as seen with our human eyes). As I understand to achieve the ‘natural’ colors a Color Correction Matrix (CCM) should be applied.

So the linear TIF file is not gamma corrected. Still linear like a DNG file.

Do you have a workflow how to obtain this?

It seems we were not clear enough. Apologies for that.

«All corrections» (PL5) or «All corrections except Color Rendering» (PL6) do the same thing.
Nothing has changed except the naming.

@platypus and @LexB
If you export a DNG using PhotoLab and you open that DNG in PhotoLab, you shouldn’t see a difference. So, what you see in your examples is correct: #2 should match #3 and #4.

Only when you export a DNG using PhotoLab’s «All corrections» (PL5) or «All corrections except Color Rendering» (PL6) (as mentioned, they do the same thing, nothing has changed except the naming), and you open the exported DNG in another software, you won’t see what you see in PhotoLab.

For instance, see the image attached, where you can see the same exported DNG image in Lightroon (on the left) and in PhotoLab (on the right). I hope you are able to see that the colors are different. This is because the default color rendering applied by LR is different than that of PhotoLab.

@LexB
Exporting a Linear TIF with the requirements you mentioned is not currently supported in PhotoLab.
The closest PhotoLab can do is exporting a Linear DNG in which a Raw image is demosaiced, and noise-reduction and optical corrections are applied.
Furthermore, there is a fundamental difference between the Linear DNG and the Linear TIF.
The color space of this Linear DNG is the color space of the camera sensor; while in your case, because of applying the CCM, the Linear TIF you need will be in a known color space (e.g., the working color space of PhotoLab, or it could be converted to a standard like sRGB, AdobeRGB, Rec2020, etc.).
If this is what you indeed need, we invite you to open a topic in the «Which feature do you need?» forum, along with some more details as to why the Linear DNG export is not good enough:

@bill.gingras
From what we understand, Export DNG in PL6 is working as intended, and it works exactly the same as in PL5. If you experience something differnt, please open a support ticket with detailed information, Screnshots and sample files.

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  1. As provided earlier, this is not the case for DxO Wide Gamut. The output of the DNG is clearly different to before.

  2. When you pick things like film emulations they are applied, so some sort of camera profile color rendering is still happening?

If this is what’s intended, the text is wrong. It says that Color Rendering is not taken into account, but then, images 3 and 4 should look like image 1, not like image 2.