First foray into RAW processing. The good & the odd.

tanngrisnir3

Regular
So we're on our way back from Thanksgiving from the family ranch, and at the foot of the Grapevine in extreme northern L.A. County, where I've always wanted to shoot, the weather gods looked kindly upon us. However, and I don't know how this happened, the Silkypix gods seemed to look unfavorably on PP colors, as you will see. They blessed me with detail and the ability to really play w/contrast, but the green of the hills sort of got left out. Still trying to figure this out.

First shot, .jpg
View attachment 31092

First shot, processed RAW, then .jpg
View attachment 31093

Second shot, .jpg
View attachment 31094

Second shot, processed RAW, then .jpg
View attachment 31095
 
it looks like your saturation is down all over the RAW processed image as the sky and clouds also look less blue. I do not use SilkyPix so I don't know where the saturation is but that is what I would adjust here.

My guess is that your camera is boosting the saturation when it makes the JPEG and that Silkypix is toning it down a bit
 
it looks like your saturation is down all over the RAW processed image as the sky and clouds also look less blue. I do not use SilkyPix so I don't know where the saturation is but that is what I would adjust here.

My guess is that your camera is boosting the saturation when it makes the JPEG and that Silkypix is toning it down a bit

I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!

I know the LX5 has saturation settings, amongst some others, but I've set them all to '0'. That, and the hills actually DO look rather green in reality.

If only Panasonic would see fit to include a manual w/Silkypix.
 
Yeah, just remember that the big advantage of RAW is having greater latitude to adjust the photo in post, it doesn't automatically create a better photo out of the box than JPEG. Even JPEG's have reasonably good latitude in post processing (especially with Lightroom/ACR which saves your edits without re-compressing your JPEG), what you mainly lose is dynamic range. Once you get the hang of whatever RAW app you use, you will be able to shape the photo to your heart's content- either matching what you saw when you shot the pic, or matching the impact/experience of what you saw (which does not have to be the most technically accurate.)

I love the lighting in that shot-
 
I find myself in the same position as you, very recent lx5 owner, raw newbie. I opened up Silky pix and was totally confuddled, I tried the manual on the link above and went back to jpeg. Last night i ran across this: Tutorials I pursued it until I got tired but it seemed a lot more understandable. I am not sure I will be able to make use of it, the rendering seems interminable on my old computer, but you might find it of help.
 
something else to consider is the color space used. If you are processing RAW files and exporting as JPEGs for the web you should be using the sRGB color space as it will work with every browser.

There are other color spaces as well the most popular one being Adobe RGB but the ProRGB space that Lightroom uses is gaining.

What this means is that if you export using something other than sRGB and view it using software that does not know how to render it you will get pictures that have poor saturation especially in yellows and greens. I don not think this is the case here but it is worthwhile to mention.

If you have no idea what I am talking about imagine that each color space is a very large box of crayons with millions of crayons each. sRGB (or super RGB) is the smallest box, with Adobe RGB being larger, and ProRGB being even larger. sRGB has less green crayons and each crayon will have different values in brightness and saturation. Each crayon has a value assigned to it and when you have one color space being read by the wrong software it can lead to errors, the most common one being loss of saturation
 
If you get a chance, try Lightroom. So much better than Silkypix, from my experience. Both ease of use and the resulting images.
 
Back
Top