Picture Styles and ML Raw

[nandanwarrier]

This is my first post in ML forum and i have might've choose the wrong topic to start off. But first of many thanks to Alex & ML team for all they've been doing for the film-making community.

To the Admins: If this happens to be a duplicate thread or in the wrong place, feel free to take it out.

My thought here is, I have seen few picture styles that are a good starting point for grading and some that need no grading at all. Am not a colorist myself, so i will always like to have images that are quickly gradable if am shooting ML Raw. Like may be a tweak in highlights, shadows and saturation and you get a decent enough grade.

So is it possible, we can achieve this by applying a third-party picture profile in ACR or through ML? I know we can apply canon PS through ACR, but not the third party ones. Will ML be able to do that in camera with a turn on/off option? (Sounds more like a feature request, but i don't dare coz this might me the most stupid thing to ask)

[ItsMeLenny]

The only reason you can apply the canon ones in ACR is because ACR did their best to replicate them. ACR isn't actually using the Canon pictures styles, they are just using their own picture styles with the same names and made to look as close as possible.
The picture style format, or the way to read the picture styles (or create the picture styles) hasn't been reverse engineered, or at least not publicly.
That's the reason the 3rd part ones can't be used, unless the person who releases the 3rd party one has their own mechanism to make it ACR compatible.
Hope that helps.

[nandanwarrier]

Hey Thanks Lenny. That explains the ACR part.

What about applying the PS to the raw image? I think canon actually stores the PS metadata into the raw(I dont remember its spelt raw or RAW. Philip bloom once mentioned it in his blog) files. But after your explanation, it looks like even if ML manages to bake in the PS into the image, ACR, LR or other raw processors will not be able to retain that grade.. it will set back to default. Does that make sense?

Or is there a way in which PS can be baked in with some way that ACR or LR can recognize? But the big if "PS can be baked in to raw".

[dmilligan]

You cannot bake a picture style into raw data, raw is raw. It is linear, bayered data. You can't actually even apply a picture style until after you've demosaiced the raw data. Data that has a picture style applied to it couldn't not be considered 'raw'

[nandanwarrier]

Thanks dmilligan for the response. perfectly makes sense.

But the point that drives me to look out for an answer is

Imagine you get all the features of a raw image and the look and feel of the picture style you apply..  wouldn't that be a good point to get a quick grade out of your image for all those novice colorists?

So even if we don't call it raw and call it as a "jpeg sequence" or something yet it  gives out better shadow/highlight recovery, better color, sharpness and graded out of box .. Its still miles ahead of h264 rite?

my filming usually happens with 2 settings. All wide shots and shots that require detail will be shot with ML raw and rest medium closeups and closeups in h264.

So now matching these two outputs to a color scheme is a hell for a novice colorist like me. Hence the search

[dmilligan]

Imagine you get all the features of a raw image and the look and feel of the picture style you apply

Impossible, you get 'all the features of a raw image' precisely because it is raw and it has not had a picture style or anything else applied.

Raw data is the truth of what the sensor recorded. That is where the advantage is, you're not loosing or throwing away any data. The process of demosaicing and applying a picture style is quite destructive (i.e. data is lost).

Finally, it sounds like you are basically asking for m-jpeg which has been requested countless times. There are obvious merits to this, but it is not possible with our current reverse engineered knowledge (or lack thereof) of the JPEG encoder and video pipeline.

[ItsMeLenny]

What about applying the PS to the raw image? I think canon actually stores the PS metadata into the raw files.

Kind of. In the metadata of the raw it stores which picture style was used, not the picture style itself. So that when you open it in one of Canons EOS programs it detects the picture style and your settings for that picture style (contrast brightness saturation etc) and applies it to the image you are viewing, but that's only because its canon software and the software has the picture style in it.

But as dmilligan said, you can't actually "bake" a picture style into metadata. I'm sure some raw format somewhere would exist that includes the entire picture style in the metadata so that any raw image previewer can apply that particular curve to it and it will match along all raw viewers (or at least the ones that support curves), but not with canon.

My personal opinion is that the canon curves and picture styles really suck.

[nandanwarrier]

@ dmilligan

I completely get you explanation here. But as Lenny referred here, canon profiles suck. We should have a better way to deal with this problem. A easier tool or workflow or may be a ML's own version of RAW or ML's own version of PS or may be both . ML has given me so much hope that it blurred the line between whats possible and whats not. So cut me off if am crossing that line in my loud thinking

@ Lenny

I'm sure some raw format somewhere would exist that includes the entire picture style in the metadata so that any raw image previewer can apply that particular curve to it

Exactly something am hoping to find. Sparked an idea if only we could make a custom PS that can insert some curve values into the metadata of a DNG or a different RAW non distrcutively

[dmilligan]

ML's own version of RAW or ML's own version of PS or may be both

Well, there's no such thing as our own version of raw. It's either the raw data from the sensor or it's not. As for PS, keep in mind that all this stuff must be done in realtime. That requires some very heavy lifting, and so is done in hardware, not on these measly little ARM CPUs. I don't think there will be any option besides the built-in Canon PS for stuff that needs to be realtime (like video recording), b/c the image processing hardware in the camera is designed around it. Perhaps some slow preview mode is possible, but I'm pretty sure realtime 1080p custom image processing at 24 fps or better is not going to possible in software

[nandanwarrier]

Once again thanks dmilligan for helping me understand this.

I could be very wrong here, but please help me understand this as well.

Canon raw is CR2 and video raw ML pulls out is a DNG. I believe DNG is an opensource format. If only DNG metadata can be made to hold more PS information which can help replicate the PS look onto the raw file, that's what i meant by ML's own raw. As you said, raw is raw. we cant do much to that. But updating the metadata.. couldn't that be possible?

Now i understand, even if a DNG is made to do so, PS should allow or be able to transfer that data into the raw metadata. Hence the ML's own PS thing..

May be real stupid idea.. but thanks for clearing all those queries.. am sure this might be the 100th time someone's asking such questions of raw and PS. Thanks for your patience.

[dmilligan]

So you're talking about the container format not the data itself. The best solution I think would be with xmp and sidecar files. IMO it's best not to mess with Canon's process of creating the CR2, lest something be accidentally corrupted. Sidecars are much easier to create, you don't have parse/overwrite/append to the existing metadata in the CR2.

[ItsMeLenny]

If you put water into a Coke bottle or if you put water into a Pepsi bottle, it's still water inside.

[painya]

If you put water into a Coke bottle or if you put water into a Pepsi bottle, it's still water inside.

The one in coke is still better. It's science

[nandanwarrier]

Sidecars are much easier to create, you don't have parse/overwrite/append to the existing metadata in the CR2.

I don't know what a side car is except literally . Am hoping it is some sort of file that is similar to XMP.

Yes, I meant to apply the PS non destructively on raw and not change the raw itself. So, for that if we can come up with a sidecar file (i hope am getting this right. please correct me if not) to standardize the clips, do a bit of color correction,grading, highlight recovery etc even that will help.

I see vision color guys have  something similar called Vision Log. But that looked more of a log profile and not much choice out there to experiment like a PS.

This discussion taking a totally different turn here. It looks like I should try for more ACR/LR profiles

[dmilligan]

XMP is a metadata format, it can be embedded directly in a file (like exif data) or it can be in an external file with the same name (sidecar file).

I don't see the purpose or value though, of being able to apply this data from within the camera itself. The data is essentially just instructions for the post processing software. Why would you need to instruct the post processing software from camera? The only reason you would is if you have some key piece of meta-information about the data that the post processing software might need, that would otherwise be lost (for example: date/time, shutter speed, black-level, camera model, etc.). Is that the case here though? No. In fact you probably have significantly less information at your disposal, since you are viewing a tiny, un-calibrated display.

It looks like I should try for more ACR/LR profiles

This is what I suggest, just create presets or whatever as starting points for your particular workflow.

[frank007]

The one in coke is still better. It's science

It's more like personal tastes.