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Hi,
I am used to using Rawshooter essentials and have become accustomed to the settings required to process a decent Raw file.
I am currently trialing C1 le before purchasing and I wondered what are the best setting for A Sharpening and B Noise reduction.
I know these are very subjective and change with the image you are processing but I have fuond with RS Essentials there are pretty good "fits all" settings. Any advice?
I have read Keith Hensons advice on Northscape and altered my setting to 'Soft look' 25% and threshold "0" in the file preferences area of C1.
What values should I be aiming for for a Landscape shot in the Sharpening and Noise reduction tools for each image?
In RS I would normally use a relatively low % noise reduction value of around 8% and a colour noise reduction value of between 30-50%. I would only sharpen to preview the file but when processing to a TIFF I clicked to stop any sharpening and would use USM in PS CS to final sharpen the file at the last stage. Is this the same choice for C1 LE?
Any help would be greatly appreciated..
Mark
Any help greatly appreciated.
Hi,
I guess everyone has their own prefered workflow regarding sharpening and noise reduction,but for what it's worth my chosen method is to set C1's preferences to disable sharpening on output as I prefer to do it myself, as the very last editing stage using Photoshop CS's USM.
For noise reduction I tend to use Neatimage,and generally only use it on images at iso 400 (sometimes),800,1600 and iso 3200 (Canon 20D).
Hope this helps,
Justin.
well you already know that I use a 25% soft sharpen, with noise reduction at it's lowest and I let C1 apply any Colour Noise reduction by default unless I have some shadow areas to work on - with the 1Ds that's a rarity.
Further sharpening in the shape of a 50-50-10 usm layer is applied to the image in PS...this is going to give a subtle kick to the background edges and then the Print Sharpen is applied depending upon the medium and print method being used.
That particular workflow is not unique to me...it's also used by many leading 'fine art' printers.
I'm not normally a glutton for punishment but I've decided to process about 80 recently-taken RAW images in C1.... images which I have already processed in RSE, my converter of first choice.
The reason being twofold: firstly, to see if the latest version of C1 LE is any better, compared with the version I trialled 18 months ago (and reported back on here) and secondly with an eye to the eventual, and most unfortunate, disappearance of RawShooter.
How do I find C1 now? Not much changed from before: still a tad slow, clunky and counter-intuitive but, as I have said previously, I can probably live with it. You do seem to have to work that bit harder to get a pleasing result, though.
Ok so a couple of questions.
(1) Possibly some of my difficulty with C1 is inexperience with the software (although oddly I took to RSE like the proverbial duck to water). Are there any decent tutorials on the web? Phase One's own is a bit limited.
(2) Out of interest what order do people use when in the Exposure screen? From to to bottom it is Exposure Compensation, Contrast Compensation and Saturation Control. I have found the reverse seems to work better (SC then CC and finally EC). I have fiddled with levels and curves but these seem a bit over-sensitive to adjustments.
(3) I don't do any sharpening whatsoever in C1 (or indeed RSE). I leave that for PS, right at the end of all the batch conversion, and depending upon the size etc of the image to be used. What is the advantage of using 25% soft sharpen in C1 and then further sharpening in PS?
Thanks. 
Carabosse - excellent questions. I have found that any instruction manual I have managed to find for C1 LE has been quite inadequate. I suspect that C1 LE is good but getting to use it is the problem. Keith has done some good explanations but not good enough for folk who are not that sophisticated in using RAW convertors. What does C1 LE actually do that cannot be done in CS2?
I tried a download of the new beta Adobe and it was rubbish. It constantly wrecked my computer and seemed to be quite useless. C1 LE would seem to be all that is left and I wish I could use it rather better than I am doing! I have a 15 day free trial and then I will have to cough up £69 but I gather it can be used on two computers!!!
Keith, a couple of questions. Do you have sharpening disabled or enabled for output? I normally have it disabled, then in PS I use Mattmatic's initial sharpening straight after opening and give it a final touch of high pass once I have resized it and made it ready for output.
Second question, does the sharpening percentage setting depend upon the camera or is 25% a pretty generic value.
Oh, one more. :0) I notice in the curves screen you have pulled the pegs a little left, I normally use them in the vertical axis. What are the differences?
Cheers
Ian
I Enable the sharpening on output. The 25% is the amount that I use on a standard output size...which is roughly A3 from the 1Ds, but people will soon find what works for them in their sharpening routine. I've never used Matt's plug in as I prefer to do everything by hand and each image alters so much in final sharpening. Three stage sharpening will not be to everybody's needs but is used extensively in what might be termed High End Output.
In curves the vertical and horzontal have opposite effects upon the contrast in an image. So If I pull the lower curve along a horizontal axis I introduce contrast, if I do the same to the upper levels I introdce less contrast...and vica vercy.
Interesting, I find by pulling the lower levels down I add contrast. I'll have to do some more playing.
Cheers
Just read the article Keith - superbly written and very helpful.
Very interested to read your comments on the 'Contrast Compensation' and 'Saturation' sliders in the levels dialogue. Never used these much, and I'll certainly have another look.
Do you know if there is any difference in the saturation control in the white balance tab, and the saturation control in the Exposure tab?
Mattw
great thread!
I've tried the trial versions of both CI and RS and am all set to buy CI.
I did have a quick go at downloading it directly from Phase One. It didn't seem to want to play ball for some reason?
Mike
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