Re: Making LR work with Sony RAW

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hokc77

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Making LR work with Sony RAW

Hi all,

This image was shot in RAW using Sony A7''.
[img width=6'' height=573]http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3163/75266'3'.jpg[/img]

On the left is a screen shot of it opened in Sony Image Converter(which came together with the camera), on the right is the screen shot of the same photo opened in Adobe Lightroom 2.5. The one opened by Sony Converter is actually the closest to what i see in my camera LCD while the one in Lightroom is different. I read through some of the topics here and understand that LR is treating the RAW file as it is, without taking into considerations whatever setting applied in-camera. Which explains why the image opened with Sony software looked more accurate.

Since i prefer to shoot in RAW, I figured my options are:

1. Use Sony converter from now on (which i hate because the interface and workflow is nowhere near LR)
2. Shoot RAW+JPEG from now on (which is going to fill up my 4GB CF very quickly)

My friend's RAW file from his Canon 5D looked pretty close (in camera preview and in LR).
What i would really like is to have LR be able to read my RAW as accurately as possible, is that posible ???
 
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You have not given much info about what you have done so far in Lightroom but one thing you can check.
Under the Menu bar in lightroom Edit>Preferences>Presets tab> make sure that "Apply Auto tone adjustment" is not selected.

Lightroom gives you a very basic starting point which will not replicate any special settings you have made in the camera such as contrast, sharpening, vibrance or other tonal settings. Make adjustments in the develop module that make the image to your likeling. Then you can save as your default for imports. These can be made specific to ISO and camera model you use. The creativity is then in your control. There are lots of tutorials available for Lightroom and you can start here, http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/photoshoplightroom/

Also have a look in the Tips and Tricks folder in this forum for some pretty neat stuff that will help to bring you up to speed with how Lightroom functions.

Unfortunately Adobe has only supplied additional camera profiles for the more popular Canon and Nikon models which closely match the special settings for those cameras.
 
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[quote author=hokc77 link=topic=797'.msg54362#msg54362 date=1254147657]...On the left is a screen shot of it opened in Sony Image Converter(which came together with the camera), on the right is the screen shot of the same photo opened in Adobe Lightroom 2.5. The one opened by Sony Converter is actually the closest to what i see in my camera LCD while the one in Lightroom is different. I read through some of the topics here and understand that LR is treating the RAW file as it is, without taking into considerations whatever setting applied in-camera. Which explains why the image opened with Sony software looked more accurate.

Since i prefer to shoot in RAW, I figured my options are:

1. Use Sony converter from now on (which i hate because the interface and workflow is nowhere near LR)
2. Shoot RAW+JPEG from now on (which is going to fill up my 4GB CF very quickly)

My friend's RAW file from his Canon 5D looked pretty close (in camera preview and in LR).
What i would really like is to have LR be able to read my RAW as accurately as possible, is that posible ???
[/quote]Your are correct that the Sony RAW converter looks like the camera LCD. In the camera, the RAW image is processed and a JPEG is produced and this is what you see on the LCD. If you shoot RAW + JPEG, this is what you get for the JPEG file. If you shoot just RAW, the JPEG is discarded and not written to your card.
If you accept the output from the Sony converter, you are not doing any thing above and beyond the JPEG that was processed inside your camera.
The purpose of an application like Lightroom is to do more that the one effort that becomes your JPEG. I do not knoe the Sony application but I suspect it to can improve upon the Straight-out-of-camera (SOOC) image.

If you have not done much post processing before LR, you have a learning curve. I also endorse the recommendations of the prior posters.

BTW, 4GB is probably too small for any of the current Sony DSLR lineup even if you only shoot JPEG. For My Pentax, I have multiple 16GB SDHC cards and I regularly shoot RAW+JPEG. I get about 4'' image pairs per card.
 
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And once you've climbed the Lr/raw processing learning curve, have a look at Adobe's DNG Profile Editor as your graduate level project.

One reason that your friend's Canon results are better than yours, may be that Adobe has provided specific camera matching render profiles for many Canon and Nikon models. The same is not true for Sony models. At present, Sony owners will have to 'roll their own' using the profile editor.
 
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