Pink Areas on Over Exposed

[phil-t]

I've been suffering from the 'pink' recovered highlights issue and I'm so glad that it's being resolved, I've got a wedding set from the weekend, and with a bride with a black and 'whiter then white' wedding dress on a very 'white' and dull cloudy day,I have a few shots that really need a touch of HR, but anything other then '0' on those and I have to PP at the pixel level to sort it out which is killing my workflow!

[gregglee]

Based on a very small sample, the problem may be less with the new version, but certainly did not completely eliminate

However, I discovered a method that will often remove the pink/yellow/white blob artifacts, even on the original version.

First as usual eliminate the warning colors (W key) with highlight reduction and/or reducing exposure.
Then if color artifacts remain, on the BEZ plug-in, slowly increase "Lighten Sig" until the artifacts disappear.

Then if needed use BEZ or other tools to tune the midtone and shadow where you want it.

Faster than it sounds and definitely better than pixel editing.

[Jeff Stephens]

Based on a very small sample, the problem may be less with the new version, but certainly did not completely eliminate

If you find an image that still produced magenta or colored highlights, please upload a sample to us.

[tomsi42]

Based on a very small sample, the problem may be less with the new version, but certainly did not completely eliminate

I have also tested a few sample files and it is a vast improvement. I haven't found any yet that the new versions can't handle.

However, I discovered a method that will often remove the pink/yellow/white blob artifacts, even on the original version.

If you can remove them by lowering exposure; it might be that file wasn't really blown out in the first place. Is it that the files that you have problems with are so far blown out; there is no information left?

[tomsi42]

Based on a very small sample, the problem may be less with the new version, but certainly did not completely eliminate

If you find an image that still produced magenta or colored highlights, please upload a sample to us.

I have uploaded one - it's a disaster; it just ends up in a white-out when using the competitors program - here it was a pink-out

I have also uploaded another one that has a hint of pink/magenta - but I am not sure if it is the actual light or the HR algorithm (Initial WB tweaks didn't remove it; but i haven't really tried). The improvement compared to ASP 1.0 is significant; so I am very happy with the update.

[gregglee]

Based on a very small sample, the problem may be less with the new version, but certainly did not completely eliminate

If you find an image that still produced magenta or colored highlights, please upload a sample to us.

3 samples uploaded. I labeled them pink and yellow after HL reduction, but pink and yellow are there before reduction as well. .

Both spots and colored bands. In the extreme example I also get the abrupt (15-20 points) white to gray effect around the bright spot, plus pink and yellow bands further away from the spot, depending on the mix of hlr and reduced exposure used to bring all channels below 255.

I can eliminate with BEZ, but not using only the controls in basic adjustments.

[gregglee]

If you can remove them by lowering exposure; it might be that file wasn't really blown out in the first place.?

I don't follow. Highlight reduction is exposure reduction. The only difference is that HLR it is applied mostly to high luminance end of the histogram rather than uniformly.

[tomsi42]

If you can remove them by lowering exposure; it might be that file wasn't really blown out in the first place.?

I don't follow. Highlight reduction is exposure reduction. The only difference is that HLR it is applied mostly to high luminance end of the histogram rather than uniformly.

I think it depends on the image - is it really blown out; or just not optimally exposed? Highlight recovery will only really work if there is any real details in the RAW file.

[d_acqua]

I just installed the new version - 1.0.1.10 - and converted the same image again. As i shot using the UniWB techinique, i had to make some ajustments on the magenta color, so i had no pink areas at all. I´m very happy with the results as you can see below.

[gregglee]

On my color calibrated monitors your picture colors are quite unnatural. The sky is filled with pink (or unsaturated magenta) clouds. The roof above the slide is pink. The stump is green. The sky is aquamarine. Your image has standard srgb profile imbedded so nothing unusual there.

[ormdig]

On my color calibrated monitors your picture colors are quite unnatural. The sky is filled with pink (or unsaturated magenta) clouds. The roof above the slide is pink. The stump is green. The sky is aquamarine. Your image has standard srgb profile imbedded so nothing unusual there.

Ditto. It's way out of wack.

[afx]

@d_acqua: Are those overdone colors on purpose?

Regarding the new HR algorithm, there is also a slider on the exposure tool that can adjust its behavior.

cheers
afx

[r0man]

With the wife away for the weekend ( ), I've had lots of time to play with HR and compare it with LR and C1. So far I'm finding ASP at least as as good as LR and a probably a little better than C1 (for Olympus cameras anyway).

Here's a before and after crop of a wedding shot where I forgot to switch back to aperture priority from manual and some areas got badly blown. Previously ASP couldn't cope with this one. Now detail is pretty well recovered and skin tone preserved.

Before HR

After HR

Thanks guys!

[Quicksand]

Hmmm, two steps forward, one step back.

Highlight recovery itself in 1.0.1 seems to work pretty well. No more magenta blobs for me (so far), and the color in the previously blown areas is recovered nicely.

HOWEVER... just moving the Highlights slider from zero to one seems to have a significant detrimental impact across the entire photo frame. It shifts everything to the left on the histogram, quite a bit, reducing contrast and saturation on everything. Blue skies become grayish-blue, and green grass becomes grayish-green. Even in midtones, where I'd expect HR to have minimal impact.

It's like I'm looking at the image through a gray veil.

The HR Range slider doesn't seem to affect this at all, and like I said, I can't control the magnitude of the problem at because just going from zero to one is such a huge step.

(Yes, I have Auto Levels and Perfectly Clear turned off, of course.)

Am I doing something wrong? This seems to be a significant problem. I can compensate for the contrast/saturation problems after fixing highlights, of course, but why is this effect present?

[afx]

HOWEVER... just moving the Highlights slider from zero to one seems to have a significant detrimental impact across the entire photo frame. It shifts everything to the left on the histogram, quite a bit, reducing contrast and saturation on everything. Blue skies become grayish-blue, and green grass becomes grayish-green. Even in midtones, where I'd expect HR to have minimal impact.

It would help if you would stated on which files this happens.
No such effects here on my Olympus and Nikon files. There is an increased reduction of contrast when pulling up the HR slider, but nothing as drastic as you describe by just activating it.

cheers
afx