V5 Shadows

[Dave J]

Help, I have just briefly tried V5 beta and to my horror find that my old stored images when viewed in v5 preview are different to v 4.6.9 - the histogram shows large blue colour bands to the left and images have many blue shadows showing in greenery, trees etc.
In my established v2.6.9 everything is still correct with histograms and shadows as originally set in PM and edited in Capture NX2 (latest version)
Why this difference, does it mean that my hundreds of NEFs & Tiffs have to be re-edited if I subsequently have V5?
Presently all those images are set correctly with their histograms (in NX2 & v4.6.9) sitting in the middle of the base not touching either side. NX2 does not show shadows or higlights in its view or threshold menus as expected.
Also the highlight shadows button in V5 does not seem to do anything?

Win 7 64 bit, PM V4.6.9, Captiure NX2 2.3.2.
Attached three jpg V5,V4.6.9,NX2 only

Thanks


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[Sven]

Hi Dave!

For the blue in the view of PM5 please expand the "Shadows and Highlights" on the bottom right and disable the shadow option.

The blue markers are the shadows. If you enable the highlights they will be shown in red.

hth
Sven

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[Dave J]

Sorry for being dense, not very experienced with PM anyway. Is this display showing where the shadow and highlights of the image irrespective of their actual levels are or is it saying that the shadows are excessive as PM V5 sees them?
If you see the other two screenshots, Capture NX2 and V4 PM do not show excessive highlights and neither do NX2 Threshold and View Highlight/Shadows facilities show anything for the image.
Thanks

[Sven]

Dave,

If you turn off the settings posted in the last screenshot you won't see any shadows or highlights highlighted in blue or red.
PM V5 is the first version that can highlight these. V4.x did not have the option to show those. As I don't know Capture NX I cannot answer this.

For the way how PM5 sees shadows and highlights: This has to be answered by one of the CameraBits staff.

Sven

[Dave J]

Thank you, V5 has now been removed so I may never find out or check out what you said.

[Dave J]

Forget last post I thought  V5 was no longer working as earlier I could not open it, open again now and I understand how the buttons work but my question remains. V5 seems to work just like the Threshold Tool in NX2 but as stated already in V5 lost shadows are shown when they are not shown in NX2.

[Kirk Baker]

Dave,

Forget last post I thought  V5 was no longer working as earlier I could not open it, open again now and I understand how the buttons work but my question remains. V5 seems to work just like the Threshold Tool in NX2 but as stated already in V5 lost shadows are shown when they are not shown in NX2.

The way the lost shadows work is any parts of the image that are purely black, meaning their RGB value is (0, 0, 0), will be replaced with the blue color you saw earlier.  Seeing large areas of blue when using this feature will indicate that your picture is underexposed in those areas.

The way the blown highlights work is any parts of the image that are purely white, meaning their RGB value is (255, 255, 255), will be replaced with a red color.  Seeing large areas of red when using this feature will indicate that your picture is overexposed in those areas.

Both of those features are there to help you determine if your image needs further post-processing work.  If you turn them on and don't see large swaths of the replaced color then in regards to exposure, you're good.  For instance in your picture, the blue only appears in very small amounts and mostly under the palm fronds.  Looks like your shadow detail is pretty good to me.

As for the histograms in your screen shots of the two versions of Photo Mechanic, they're identical.

HTH,

-Kirk

[Dave J]

OK thanks for looking Kirk.

[Frank]

I seem to be experiencing the same issue using PM5 and also Capture NX 2 and Photoshop CS 5.

After processing an image in Capture I check the highlights and shadows using it's built in feature. They seem ok

Did the same with another image (again a RAW image) in Photoshop and corrected shadows/highlights.

However, when I open the same images in PM5 it displays blue tones indicating blocked shadows.

Am I being too picky?

[Kirk Baker]

I seem to be experiencing the same issue using PM5 and also Capture NX 2 and Photoshop CS 5.

After processing an image in Capture I check the highlights and shadows using it's built in feature. They seem ok

Did the same with another image (again a RAW image) in Photoshop and corrected shadows/highlights.

However, when I open the same images in PM5 it displays blue tones indicating blocked shadows.

Am I being too picky?

Well, the images either have all black RGB (0, 0, 0) pixels in them or they don't.  Have you opened them in something like Photoshop and used the eye dropper on them to check?

-Kirk

[Frank]

Opened images in PS5 and used the eyedropper. Nothing is 0,0,0 or 255, 255, 255.

However, with the same images I get a warning red (or blue) when I am in full screen mode but the warning disappears when I zoom to 100%. The red or blue is not to bad just bits here and there at full screen. 

[Hayo Baan]

I haven't fully tested this yet myself, but there might be a difference between the blown highlights/shadows display between your raw converter and PM because PM uses the embedded jpg. And that may be slightly different from the data of the processed raw your converter is looking at.

Anyway, I find the clipping warnings of PM really useful for a quick look at potentially problematic (areas of) images.

Oh, and if you don't want to see the red/blue warnings, simply press the b key to get rid of red and n to get rid of blue. Note also that the current implementation of the warnings in PM is able to display only one of the two warnings at any one time, not both together.

Hope this helps,
Hayo

[Kirk Baker]

Opened images in PS5 and used the eyedropper. Nothing is 0,0,0 or 255, 255, 255.

However, with the same images I get a warning red (or blue) when I am in full screen mode but the warning disappears when I zoom to 100%. The red or blue is not to bad just bits here and there at full screen. 

PM is analyzing the image that is being shown, not the full size image and it is entirely possible for differences to exist in the scaled image versus the original image and moreover if the image is a RAW file, PM would at most be analyzing the embedded JPEG preview and not the RAW data.  To do otherwise would result in slow previewing in Photo Mechanic and no one wants that.

It is a fairly simple implementation and it is fast.  To make it more accurate would reduce the speed of Photo Mechanic significantly.

-Kirk

[Frank]

Thanks for your responses guy's.

Think now that I am being a bit too picky

[basia707]

Hi
I would like to switch off this option but I cannot find where?? SK-Foto wrote that it is at the bottom right but where?? when I have a fullscreen picture or where? please help!!