Answer to deflickering dng Luma Levels With Adobe Camera Raw ACR ?

[NitromanX]

Hi all !

Is there an answer or an update to the luma shifts that we are experiencing when tweaking dng or raw file "Highlight / Clarity" sliders in Adobe Camera Raw yet ?

I know this was a well recognised issue some time ago ... But i'm using latest version of Adobe Photoshop CC and it still seems to be a problem.

Here's an older thread ... but no recent answers : http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=6981.0

Any advice and updates would be really helpful as i love using ACR as my raw converter.

[jmanord]

I believe one solution is here:

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5710.100

If I remember correctly, the simplest solution is to use Process 2010 to avoid the flicker.

[NitromanX]

Thanks for your reply jmanord ...

I had seen that thread too but no update.

I've tested the three ACR Processes (2003, 2010 and 2012) and all still exhibit the problem of changes that 'adapt' to the content of each individual frame - affectively causesing flicker. This gives the effect of slightly different exposures between frames.

I'm actually trying to output a very large gigapan stills image and i've run in to the same problem. I'm stitching together 80 individual frames (with the same camera exposure), but after tweaking in ACR, some shots show significant exposure variations. This is a massive headache when putting together a large panorama where one frame of just darker twilight sky looks different to the neighbouring frame with the sky and a bright artificially lit building interior.

I can output in Canon DP Professional and i can also tweak in ACR using the 'Curves' not the 'Sliders' - but the highlight recovery and tones don't look as good. However, this does get rid of the problem to some extent.

I just wondered if there was an update from Adobe as I'm using latest Photoshop Raw CC and it's still an issue ... and really should havce feature request to 'Lock' the exposure luminance. Or maybe i'm expecting to pull out too much detail ...

Any thoughts anyone ?!  

Ps - i would post pics but can't work out how to upload them on the ML Forum. 

[Danne]

My conclusion is this. Check this post.
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=12796.msg129978#msg129978

You only work with the tone curve to gain back highlights and push blacks. But, that seems to get you very far. You can then move on to after effects and work with their color tools. I think I used something called color finesse. This two step post workflow gave me very good results.

[NitromanX]

So I can max out all the Curves in Paremertic Dialogue - Highlights, Shadows, Lights and Darks ?

I can also tweak the Exposure slider and the White Balance Slider in the Basic Dialogue and use Adobe Camera Raw 2012 (latest engine) ?

That's great if it's that simple ... many thanks Danne ! It's shame Adobe still haven't enabled a locking of some sort in spite of lots of feature requests.

[cmccullum]

ACR through Ae doesn't seem to have this same issue. I know you said you aren't trying to output video, but you can always export the "video" as an image sequence for further processing

All this assuming you have after effects, of course

[NitromanX]

Sadly i don't have Adobe AE and it's only now available on CC which gets expensive.

I've used Canon DP Professional and that avoids flicker but at a cost - quality. ACR is a better conversion engine.

But problem largely fixed using Curves - but just not an ideal solution.