G1X: JPEG Variations

As promised by the weatherman, today was rainy, overcast and cooler than I wanted.  Instead of searching for a scene to turn into a work of art with my new G1X, I decided to test variations of its in-camera processing.  Normally, I prefer to shoot in RAW mode which means that each shot is considerably post processed in Photoshop following conversion from Canon’s RAW format in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).   There is no doubt in my mind that shooting RAW ultimately yields the best print – especially for me.  Even so, there are advantages, particularly in economy of time, to using the so-called Straight-Out-Of-Camera (SOOC) image. 

Although some still talk as though the Straight-Out-Of-Camera image is the only truth, SOOC is actually misleading.  Modern digital cameras include a number of image adjustments – sort of an internal Photoshop.  When shooting in JPEG (only) mode, the G1X allows adjustments in color saturation, contrast, sharpness and individual color adjustments to red, green, blue. There are also dynamic range adjustments to both highlights and shadows.   In addition, the G1X offers a number of effects such as HDR, B/W, Sepia, etc. which were not included in today’s testing.

I coaxed Hannah and her friend into posing even though it was still cool outside and quickly set up this attractive composition to include several colors and distances.  The sky, though, remained overcast with resulting soft lighting.  The first photo of this post was made with all “normal” settings in JPEG format shooting in Av mode at ISO 400.  That is, SOOC.

Here’s a shot with saturation, contrast, sharpness and red turned down one notch in the “My Colors” menu.  Such settings are sometimes recommended by photographers who do not use RAW format but still tweak the files in various photo editing software.  I was surprised to see so little variation between this image and the “normal” (first image shown) image.  The differences are visible in the full size files on my screen but probably are not so apparent here.  I don’t like this variation.

 

This shot is the near opposite of the above “turned down” image; call it the “turned up” image with contrast and sharpness turned up one notch but saturation normal and red still turned down one notch.  Looking at the “turned up” and “turned down” images, I hope the difference in contrast is apparent even if the difference in the other parameters is not.  I actually like this one but have a tendency to overdo both contrast and sharpness (and I’m not the only one!).

 

Next is a shot taken with all settings “normal” except that highlight and shadow recovery (Dynamic Range) have been forced to maximum.  I don’t like this one; it looks washed out with low contrast.  The problem (I think) was that the overcast sky prevented bright highlights and dark shadows from occurring in the first place.  When Dynamic Range Improvement was set to “Auto” the result(not shown) was essentially the same as a “normal” picture thus indicating that Dynamic Range Improvement was not significantly applied.  I need to test this feature further but, for now, my thinking is to be sure to use RAW image mode when highlights and shadows are strong.

My conclusion?  I’ll be leaving all the “My Colors” settings at “normal” with the possible exception of Red saturation.  If I’m to do post processing of image files then I might as well shoot in RAW to begin with.  This is a convenient conclusion because the “My Colors” adjustments do not apply when shooting in RAW+JPEG and most of my JPEG shots are produced via the RAW+JPEG combination.  If I were down to the last Gigabyte of the memory card and forced to switch to JPEG only then I’d set “My Colors” for Red turned down one notch and would also think about using Dynamic Range Improvement.  In such a case, I’d probably turn down the sharpness as well in anticipation of tweaking the JPEG file myself. 

Straight-Out-Of-Camera?  What are the camera settings?

PAW 37

When I want to try out a new piece of photo equipment or a new technique, I often go to the Rural Life Museum.    I’ve been wanting to re-visit my Canon 50mm f1.8 lens for some time and today seemed a good day for it.  The Canon 50mm is not a great lens but is OK and does offer an out-of-focus background that some like to call “bokeh”.   I walked around for a couple of hours today shooting my 7D only with the Canon 50mm almost always at f1.8.  Of the pictures I took, this is my choice for PAW.  It was taken at ISO 800, f1.8 at 1/30 second in the “schoolhouse” at Rural Life Museum.

Although my first thought was to covert this image to B/W, I prefer this somewhat desaturated version as processed from RAW in ACR because it is more representative of what I was seeing in that dim light.  This version is slightly cropped to 1024x768 screen resolution (as are most of my PAW shots).

First Easter Lily

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This is the first Easter Lily of the season for my house. Traditionally, the Easter Lily is supposed to blossom at Easter; however, this is largely controlled by commercial growers who use greenhouses to match the variations of the Easter schedule. This particular Easter Lily was transplanted last year from three potted plants placed in our garden three years ago. Those three plants produced lots of bulbs and I moved many of them to other places. Surprisingly (I don't have a green thumb, to say the least), every bit of a bulb that I transplanted has survived. The original site is probably overpopulated but we'll soon have many more Easter Lilies.

This picture was taken with the Canon G9 and converted from the raw file using Adobe Camera Raw in a rather straightforward process.

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G9 and ISO 400

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Much is made of the fact that the G9 is a bit noisy and that noise increases at high ISO settings. In general, I agree. But I disagree with the oft-stated wisdom that the G9 is horrible or, at the very least, unusable above ISO 200. Although I’ll grant that the condemnation or acceptance of noise is largely a matter of taste, I find the G9 to be very usable at ISO 400 – especially if shot in raw mode, properly exposed and processed with noise reduction software. This shot of balloons is from the G9 in raw mode, ISO 400, 1/60 second, f5 using bounce flash. It was converted in Adobe Camera Raw, slightly cropped and tweaked in Photoshop CS3. Noise reduction was accomplished with Noiseware immediately after conversion from raw mode. The Noiseware setting was simply the default.

In my opinion, the G9 produces reasonable 8x10 prints at ISO 400 when shot in raw mode, converted in ACR and treated with Noiseware. In this digital age, many people do not print their photos and, if printed, most photos are printed as snapshots. I’ve posted a 1024x768 pixel version (full screen for many) of the balloons on my Smugmug gallery.

Of course, your mileage – and tastes -- may vary and I have no idea of the noise characteristics of the new G10. But if you have a G9, don’t be afraid to use ISO 400. At the very least, try ISO 400; you may be pleasantly surprised. (In fact, sometimes I use ISO 800 but that's another story ...)
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Post Processing Variations

There are many variations of post processing – including none – a digital image file. This slideshow compares 22 variations of post processing a raw image file. The image was made with a Canon G9 in raw mode, ISO 80, f5.6 and 1/400 second exposure. All the variations were done in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) with additional processing in Photoshop CS3 for some images. ACR agreed with this exposure setting, i.e., no exposure adjustment required. No noise reduction was applied to any variation. Each slide is numbered on the lower left hand side. Notice that some slides are repeated. The key for the variation is as follows:

1 White balance (WB) As Shot; auto tone in ACR, clarity = 0, saturation and vibrance = 0, linear contrast curve, no sharpening.
2 Same as #1 except Auto WB in ACR
3 Same as #1 except Daylight WB in ACR
4 Same as #1 except Cloudy WB in ACR
5 Same as #1 except Shade WB in ACR
6 Same as #3 except add Clarity = 30; Vibrance and Saturation = +10
7 Same as #3 except add Clarity = 30; Vibrance and Saturation = -10
8 Same as #3 except add Clarity = 30; Vibrance and Saturation = 5; medium contrast curve
9 Same as #8 except strong contrast curve
10 Same as #8 except add sharpening at 50, 0.8, 30,0
11 Same as #8 except add sharpening at 100, 0.8, 30,0
12 Same as #8 except add sharpening at 150, 0.8, 30,0
13 Same as #8 except add sharpening at 100, 0.8, 100,0

All the above slides were processed using only ACR. All the following slides had additional processing in Photoshop CS3.

14 Same as #11 except Auto Levels in CS3
15 Same as #11 except Shadow/Highlights in CS3 = 20 (all settings)
16 This is a blend using Fred Miranda’s DRI plug-in to CS3. Slide #13 was underexposed in ACR by -1 stop; a second file was overexposed by +1 stop. These two files were then blended.
17 This is a blend done manually in CS3 from Slide #13. One layer (for the sky) was at +1/2 stop and another at -1/2 stop for the foreground. The blend was done with a simple gradient mask.
18 Same as #13 except that exposure in ACR was increased by ½ stop; Recovery was manually set to 40 and Fill to 10.
19 Same as #18 except that Fred Miranda’s Velvia Vison (set at 40) was used to simulate Velvia film.
20 Same as #18 except that Pixel Genius PhotoKit Color was used to simulate Kodachrome film.
21 Same as #20 except that Pixel Genius gray balancer was used.
22 Same as #18 except that Pixel Genius PhotoKit output sharpening (medium) was applied.

The most obvious effects are from white balance, exposure, saturation and contrast. Interestingly, quite a few variations that would be visible in prints or full screen views simply don’t show up in the slide show. This is a reminder that there are many details that just don’t matter for small screen shots with high jpeg compression ratios.

I’m not saying that any of these variations are better than the others. Of course there are many, many other ways of processing this image. I even did an over-the-top High Dynamic Range with Tone Mapping based on three separate in-camera exposures. That variation is posted it in my SmugMug G9 gallery.

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More Variations of Bright Sky Processing

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Returning to tips and tricks about photographing scenes with bright sky but dark foreground after a bit of PowerShot news, here are more variations on processing. The scenario is that only one shot was taken and it was based on the G9 autoexposure setting for the full composition.




In the above comparison, Photos 3 and 7 are repeated from the previous posting. Photo 8 is similar to Photo 6 from the previous posting except that it was given additional recovery, saturation sharpening. I made Photo 8 because, after reviewing the previous posting, it seemed that there was an incorrect impression given about processing from raw. Therefore, Photo 8 is intentionally somewhat overdone with respect to saturation and sharpening.

Of course, the in-camera jpg can be processed in Photoshop. That is, suppose you took Photo 3 as an in-camera jpg only. On reviewing the photos later, you realize that there is little detail in the sky and that the trees are dark. You’d want to improve the photo and this is certainly possible, as shown below.



Photo 10 was made from Photo 3 with post processing in Photoshop CS3. Only two processes were applied: 1) “Exposure” was reduced by ¼ stop and 2) Shadow/Highlight recovery was applied rather heavily. These are both simple image adjustment settings in CS3 and took only a few minutes of tinkering. These adjustments were made to the original file which was then downsized and sharpened for web viewing. No other adjustments were made to get this nice “save” with Photoshop.

Although I almost always use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), there are other programs for converting from raw to jpg. I regularly use BreezeBrowser to view and select images. BreezeBrowser also can do some editing and can now process G9 raw images. My understanding is that BreezeBrowser uses the DCRaw program for raw conversions. Photo 9 was converted, downsized and sharpened entirely in BreezeBrowser.

My favorite is still raw plus a polarizing filter and processed in ACR but I’ll grant that the differences are not so apparent in these web sized images. Also, it is important to realize that saturation, contrast and sharpening can be further fine-tuned for any of the photos shown.

All images shown so far have been shot and processed as “single shots” with no dual processing. Next, multiple exposures will be merged.
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Camera Raw Settings for the G9

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There are entire books about Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). I’m currently using Camera Raw by Fraser and Schewe as a reference; however, it doesn’t give specific settings for the G9. I probably shouldn’t either but many people need a starting point (well, I did). On opening a image in ACR, there are eight panels of controls but I’m giving starting points for only a few. For now, leave the other controls on default or automatic.

First of all, ACR will open your raw file according to the Default settings until you make changes. Also, ACR applies a profile that is specific to your camera make and model. There’s no such thing as opening the raw file in ACR and then saving it as “unprocessed”.

A tip: Holding down the Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) key while moving the sliders is revealing for some (not all) of the controls.

The settings for the first panel, “Basic”, aren’t particularly specific to the G9. These settings will vary a lot and according to your tastes. These are:

White Balance (temperature and tint) is probably obvious and has been previously posted.

Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness, Contrast: Click the Auto button and see what happens; you’ll probably like it. If not, start moving the sliders but keep an eye on the histogram. “Recovery” attempts to recover highlight detail and is really useful. “Fill Light” attempts to recover shadow details. Extremes are usually not good.

Clarity boosts midtone contrast; I usually have it between 20 and 50.

Vibrance increases color saturation without oversaturating skin tones. I typically set Vibrance between 5 and 10 and use a lesser amount for the Saturation slider setting. It is very tempting and very easy to oversaturate!

The second panel, “Curve Tone”, is also more specific to the image than to the G9. I almost always leave all the Parametric settings at 0, change to the Point settings and select “Medium Contrast” from the drop-down list. I may then refine or even completely change the curve; it is similar to the Photoshop curve adjustment.

The “Detail” panel is where specifics come into play for the G9 for both sharpening and noise reduction. Sharpening at this stage of post processing is “capture” sharpening specific to the camera. Later, creative sharpening might be applied. Output sharpening should be specific to the printer, paper, screen, etc. The Detail panel also contains two settings for noise reduction. For the most part, after quite a bit of comparative testing, I use the settings recommended by Thomas Niemann . For ISO 80 and 100, these are:
Amount: 60
Radius: .8
Detail: 30
Masking: 0
Luminance: 20
Color: 100
For ISO 800, I usually try Luminance set at 80 as recommended by Thomas Niemann but sometimes this high luminance value squashes detail. For ISO between 100 and 800, I try Luminance settings between 20 and 80. Noise is a bit of a problem with the G9 - especially above ISO 200. but higher ISO is usable with suitable noise reduction techniques. I've written already about noise reduction and will be doing more as I learn more myself.

Again, these are starting points. There are many other controls in ACR and eventually I’ll feel confident enough to comment on them.
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G9 and Raw

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Unlike most digicams, the Canon G9 can produce “raw” files. For many photographers, the ability to generate a raw file is one of the main reasons for selecting the G9. Even so, the usefulness and quality of raw vs JPEG is an ongoing debate and probably will always be an issue. As noted in other postings, JPEG is a very versatile and useful format. For the most part, the raw vs JPEG debate is really about the in-camera JPEG and its potential as compared to the raw – that is, unprocessed -- data from the sensor

If the in-camera JPEG produced by the G9 is analogous to using slide film then the raw image is analogous to using negative film. That’s why a raw file is sometimes referred to as a digital negative. Both negatives and raw files must receive further processing before a print can be made and those prints are highly customizable as well as highly dependent on the tools and skills of the user. This image, a crop from a previous illustration, is an example of an unprocessed raw file.

In comparison to the 8 bit JPEG, raw files are 16 bit data files; however, it turns out that all those bits are not actually used. For example, the Canon G9 produces 12 bit data files but places those in a 16 bit “wrapper”. Still, there is more information in a G9 raw file than in a G9 in-camera JPEG file. Although file size can be misleading (both are compressed), take a look at raw and JPEG files. Information has been discarded from the raw file in order to create the smaller JPEG file.

It is important to understand that the in-camera JPEG is made from the raw data in a second or two (and perhaps a fraction of a second) by the in-camera computer. The details of that JPEG -- tonality, contrast, saturation, sharpening, noise reduction, etc. -- were determined by a committee of marketers and engineers except for any tweaking that you toss in as in-camera options.

If your goal, whether in general or for a particular photograph, is to squeeze every possible pixel of quality from your camera, then you should shoot in raw mode and learn to process the raw data file.

My own preference is to shoot in raw mode and to process the raw file in Photoshop (more accurately Adobe Camera Raw – usually abbreviated as ACR). There are several other editing/conversion programs that will work with the G9 data files. Canon even includes some software, Raw Image Task (RIT) with the G9. Some of the other G9 raw image processors, include:

DCRaw is a command line program/module said to be the basis of many other programs
UFRaw provides a user interface to DCRaw and adds features
Bibble is more than raw conversion, includes other features such as noise reduction
BreezeBrowser is one of my most used tools, but it has not yet been updated for G9 raw files.

I don’t use any of the above programs for raw conversion except for ACR. In the next post, I’ll give examples of starting point settings in ACR for G9 raw files.

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G9 in Black and White

Black and white prints invoke art and visions from the past but there are many ways to get that artistic time travel effect from a digital camera. The Canon G9 (and a number of other cameras) includes a black-and-white mode so that black-and-white images can be made in-camera. This B/W picture was made in-camera with the G9 set for ISO 800. (To get to the black-and-white mode, press the Function button, scroll down to the My Colors settings and then scroll across to B/W.) A word of warning: When you set B/W mode on a digital camera, you will get a black-and-white image file – not a color image file. You may not be able to recover the color version of that picture. With the G9, by shooting in combined raw+jpg mode (a menu setting) with My Colors set to B/W, you’ll get a B/W jpg plus a raw image file. You’ll be able to process the raw file in color using any editor that will process Canon G9 raw files. I use Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CS3.

Even though it is easy to get a black-and-white picture in-camera, I normally don’t set the camera to B/W mode because it is so easy to convert a color image file to grayscale. This conversion can be done several ways: a menu option in many editors (including Photoshop), extreme desaturation, choosing or converting the the color channels, various plug-ins, etc. In the past, my practice has been to shoot in RAW, open in color and then use Fred Miranda’s B/W Pro plug-in. This inexpensive plug-in works well and also lets you add grain or convert to a duotone, tritone, etc. This picture represents my previous workflow. It was shot at ISO 80 to minimize noise, processed in raw as a color image and then converted to B/W in Fred Miranda’s photoshop plugin. Grain was added in the B/W Pro plug-in.

Considering the new features in ACR, I’ve been experimenting with grayscale conversion directly from raw while developing in ACR. An interesting aspect of this conversion is noise reduction. In film based photography, the grain structure of the negative became not only visible but a problem, especially with high ISO film. One solution for film grain was to treat that grain as an asset instead of a liability. With digital photography, there is no grain but amplification creates electronic noise from the pixels. In B/W conversions from digital, it has become fashionable to treat the noise similarly to grain. Therefore, if a digital file is to be converted to B/W, the processing does not include noise reduction. The B/W picture shown here is from the raw file accompanying the in-camera jpg (first picture in this post). That is, it was shot at ISO 800, but processed in raw without noise reduction and converted to B/W in ACR. No grain was added and it was easy to do.

Taking another variation in ACR conversion, this picture is from the same raw file as the second picture in this post (the Fred Miranda conversion). It was shot at ISO 80 so there was little noise/grain to work with. This time the conversion from raw was done entirely in ACR and grain was added in Photoshop (not a plugin). The ACR conversion settings were identical to those used for the ISO 800 picture above.


Of course, the in-camera B/W jpg can be edited. This picture is the edited version of the first picture in this post. That is, it was shot at ISO 800 with the G9 set for B/W mode. The only adjustments were Levels and Curves in Photoshop CS3.

All the pictures above were made from only two shots but the lighting was slightly different for each. Again, the G9 was set to save the raw file as well as a jpg file. Don’t be confused by the slight differences in lighting or the fact that I bumped the tripod slightly.

As a result of conducting these little experiments and organizing my thoughts to write about them, I’m going to change my processing methods. Whereas in the past I shot in raw and used the Fred Miranda plugin to convert the color image to grayscale, in the future I’ll be doing everything in ACR. I’m still going to use a low ISO if possible because the image quality was just better at low ISO. If I want to add grain to simulate grainy film, I’ll do that with a Photoshop filter.

There are only slight differences in these particular images. By clicking on the picture you can see larger versions but the most significant factor was lighting and my personal choices of settings in Photoshop's Levels, Curves and Smart Sharpening.

The point is: Good black-and-white shots can be made from color digital cameras and there are many ways of converting from color to black-and-white. Try a few variations and find a workflow that suits your preferences and tastes.

G9: The Black and White of It

The very first photographs were monochromatic. The first “pictures I took” were black-and-white – not for lack of color technology or for the sake of art but because black-and-white film and prints were cheap and readily available. In a strange but fortunate turn of events, those old black-and-white prints turned out to be archival whereas the color dyes of those years have faded away. In fact, if you have color prints stored away, better scan them while there is something to scan!

Try to imagine how different our world of photography would be today if the chemistry for color photography had been obvious, easy and archival. Would black-and-white photos even exist? Why would anyone make a black-and-white photograph if it were easier to make one in color? With digital photography, we are nearly to that point; however, the basis for those color prints is still light sensitivity and color dyes. In other words, black-and-white technology is still around even if we are less aware of it.

Today when someone makes a black-and-white print, they are probably doing it for the artistic effect or perhaps to invoke a sense of nostalgia. I believe that traditional black-and-white print making (meaning film, paper and chemicals hand-processed in a darkroom) is well on its way to becoming the domain of a fine arts and crafts cottage industry. Meanwhile, you and I can easily get black-and-white inkjet prints from our color digital cameras that are nearly - but not quite - indistinguishable from traditional prints to many, if not most, people. Even better, if your darkroom skills were similar to mine, you can probably get a better black-and-white print digitally than you ever dreamed of getting in the darkroom.

(This post is getting a bit long, stay tuned ...)

G9: Processing that Raw File

One of the main reasons given for getting a Canon G9 is its capability to shoot in Raw mode. A Raw file is the digital equivalent of a film negative and there's a lot that can be done with it. But what software to use for the digital development of a raw image file?

Although Canon's editing software is bundled with the G9, there are other programs considered much better -- especially Adobe's Photoshop. The current version of Photoshop is "CS3". CS3 develops the raw image files with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). ACR now has been updated to process Canon G9 Raw files.

Adobe Camera Raw can be intimidating. There's a new book that should be very helpful: "Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3" by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe published by PeachPit Press. I got mine through Amazon. Here's a review of the book by Michael Reichmann.

G9: Noise in the Garden

Any self-respecting Pixel Peeper will take one look at this 100% crop and cry out “Noise!”. (You’ll probably have to click on the image to see a larger version and get the full effect.) On learning that the image is from the Canon G9, the Peeker will further exclaim, “I knew it. Small pixels are noisy. The G9 has too many pixels on a small sensor and therefore each pixel must be very small. No wonder the image is noisy; I predicted it.”

All of the above (explanation, that is) seems to be true. The Canon G9 does pack a lot (12,000,000) of pixels onto a small sensor. Therefore, those pixels are small and, all other things being equal, smaller pixels produce more noise. I’m not a camera designer, a chip designer or even an electronics engineer but I’ve come to accept these facts as being in accord with the “Laws of Nature” and, even more convincingly, Internet Lore.

Besides, the detailed tests and reviews of the G9 are published and it produces noisy images. No doubt about it: G9 images are noisy and the noise gets worse as the ISO setting increases. The full scene from which the noisy crop was taken is shown below (but reduced in size to 1024x768, high quality jpg compression).



Two of the main reasons that I bought the G9 were that I wanted higher resolution and a usable higher ISO than I could get from my Canon G3. The G3 was limited to 4MP and ISO400; however, the ISO400 was not particularly usable. My hope was that the G9 would have good quality at ISO400.

I’ve seen the reviews and read the comments in the discussion forums: G9 = Noise. I took a few shots at high ISO and peeked at the pixels. Yes, even my own G9 is noisy. Now, could I find a way to work with or around that noise?

Of course, I had to generate some images and conduct my own tests. Here’s the set up and procedure:
- found a scene with both bright and dark areas
- G9 on tripod
- Set for RAW + jpg (hoping to get improvements in Photoshop)
- Set Av mode
- Set 2 sec shutter delay (wish the G9 had a remote)
- Pictures at ISO 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600

The above pictures were taken at ISO1600 and are direct from the in-camera jpg. Surprised? The second lesson learned is that the high ISO images can be very usable so long as the image is small. What good is a small image? Well, uh, the Internet...

The first lesson learned (see, the paragraph above has the second …) is that testing cameras is not at all straightforward. For example, what is the correct exposure for all these varying ISO speeds? I decided to use Av mode but that decision also means that the test results vary with the G9’s judgement of exposure. (Shutter speeds selected by the Av mode did not exactly track ISO.) Is the in-camera jpg that is embedded in the RAW file the same as a jpg made without RAW? (Seems to be.) How should the data be presented?

Entire scenes are shown in this post as 1024x768 pixels. The in-camera jpg images are presented as-is and 100% with no post processing whatsoever except for cropping to emphasize the noise.

The ISO 80 crop from in-camera jpg

The ISO 800 crop from in-camera jpg



The ISO 1600 crop from in-camera jpg is the first picture show in this post.

I’ve already admitted to peeking at a few pixels myself. I didn’t care for the higher ISO images from the in-camera jpg. In fact, I didn’t particularly like the ISO 80 image from in-camera jpg – not that it was noisy, it just doesn’t look good to me. Time to break out Photoshop CS3 and process those RAW files.

Interestingly, Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) did not automatically change the exposure of the RAW files. Of course, I did tinker with the settings myself. I wanted to minimize noise and get a picture more to my liking as well.

In the G9 review on Digital Photography Review, I was impressed by the noise reduction of an ISO 400 image with ACR 4.3 (and by noting that ACR 4.3 is being Beta tested; the current version is 4.2 and it only approximately fits the G9). The ACR settings really caught my eye: luminance at 0 and chroma at maximum. I’d have never thought to use these extremes but it seemed to help the DPReview images. Of course, I don’t have the 4.3 Beta but I tried both extremes and the middle settings for luminance and chroma noise reduction in ACR 4.2. To my eye, there was no effect; perhaps this will change in version 4.3.

I use Photokit Sharpener from Pixel Genius for sharpening. PK Sharpener uses a three step process: 1) capture sharpening, 2) creative sharpening and 3) output sharpening. Capture sharpening is user selected according to camera resolution and user taste, creative sharpening is entirely user taste and output sharpening varies with file size, output device (screen, printer, etc.) and user taste.

The most recent versions of Photoshop include sharpening in ACR. The ACR sharpening parameters are on the Detail screen along with the noise reduction parameters. I’ve been wanting to try ACR sharpening as a sort of “capture” sharpening. Strangely enough, to me anyway, when ACR sharpening is used, the luminance and chroma settings come into play. I suppose ACR is designed this way but, if so, it was not obvious to me. After much trial-and-error, it seemed to me that settings of 50, 0.5, 20, 80, 50, 50 for the ACR Details page reduced noise nicely but not entirely. (You’ll have to check the Details page to see what I mean by these numbers.)

I still used PK Sharpener for capture sharpening (incorporated into the trial and error above).

Now for more noise reduction using Neat Image. I made my own profiles using the Neat Image calibration targets and applied Neat Image at 35% strength. Pretty simple and took me a lot less time and experimenting.

By this point, the noise level had dropped quite a bit. I finished up the post processing by tweaking levels, curves and saturation. Here’s the 100% illustrative crop from the ISO 800 image:

Notice that the noise, even pixel peeked, is not too bad. On top of that, the details look better to me. And here’s the final, full image from the ISO 800 RAW file after post processing.


I even like this one more than the ISO 80 image from the in-camera jpg but that’s a matter of taste. I will say that the colors, especially the fence, are more accurate (if somewhat saturated). It made a nice print.

So, I think my G9 has very good potential at ISO 400 and even 800 under the right conditions and when processed from RAW. The requirement to process from RAW is not a problem to me; much of that processing can be done semi-automatically using Photoshop Actions.

But, sad to admit, I gave up on the ISO 1600 file. Although it could be improved, I haven’t got it quite right – yet.