![]() ![]() These are 1:1 crops, but you’ll need to click on the image to see it big so you can actually see it at 1:1 Here’s an example of standard Lightroom sharpening, and cleaned up using this method. Of course, this is all very subjective so you may not agree, but anyway, I’m providing all the bits you need to try this, so if you don’t like it, then don’t use it. It may technically be slightly softer on a pure edge level, but I think it’s more film like and natural looking. The way I’ve designed this is to give a more organic look and take the weird painterly like patterning out of the image. I suggest using one of the sharpening presets I’ve provided before, as I’ve designed the action based on using these first. Before you send it to Photoshop or run the action, you should set up sharpening in Lightroom first. I’ve posted instructions on how to do this here. You can turn this into a Lightroom Plug-in by saving the action as a droplet, and then setting up an external editor preset in Lightroom. What this will do is clean up the edges and then sharpen the image using my somewhat unorthodox sharpening method. For this method, the Action in my set (called “Thomas Set” - hey, keeping it simple!) that you want to use is called “Fuji Quick Fix”. Luckily, I’ve done all the hard work for you and I have a set of Photoshop actions that you can download at the end of this post. Doing this involves the use of find edges to make a mask, and then a combination of blurring and sharpening. The first solution is to sharpen the image in Lightroom to a reasonable amount and then once you’ve finished, send the image to Photoshop and clean up the edges. Solution 1 - Clean up the edges in Photoshop So what is the solution then? Well, I’ve come up with two approaches. I absolutely respect that opinion, so you don’t need to read any further! Of course the look of images can be a subjective matter, and some people have very strong feelings on the issue, so if you’re of the opinion that the files are perfect as they are, that’s great and you don’t need to do anything else. (I could be completely wrong mind you, but this is my best guess) I can only assume Adobe is using an aggressive demosaicing algorithm to avoid aliasing and moire issues caused by the x-trans sensor’s lack of anti-aliasing filter, and to compensate the sharpening is having to work overtime, leading to sharpening artefacts. Much softer than they are when you turn the sharpening off in other software. If you turn the sharpening off entirely in Lightroom, the images from X-Trans files are very soft. The problem seems to be Lightroom’s sharpening, or more specifically the interaction of the two. The problem doesn’t seem to be entirely down to the demosaicing algorithm. Since I wrote that originally, I’ve discovered something interesting. Here’s what I hope is clear example of this false detail effect that I’m talking about: Iridient Developer on the other hand (and some other third party developers) doesn’t have this issue. However, no matter what you do, you may be able to reduce how noticeable it is, but you can’t get rid of the false detail that Lightroom is creating. It seems to be exacerbated by Lightroom’s sharpening algorithms, and that’s why I spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with those sharpening settings to try and mitigate the problem. When this occurs repetitively on fine textures, you end up with mushy detail. It looks like an additional line around objects, almost like an embossing or an outlining effect. The problem is that Lightroom seems to generates false detail around high contrast edges. It’s especially noticeable in areas of trees or other foliage, or other repetitive textures. Here’s a snippet from my original post on the issue:ĭespite an earlier fix which addressed the demosaicing of X-Trans files, Lightroom still has problems with fine textural detail. The advantage of this is that you can get clean and natural looking results without having to learn a new piece of software, and by using the droplet as a plug-in approach I blogged about last week, you don’t even have to leave Lightroom.īefore I get into the solution, just as a recap, let me go back over what I believe the problem is. I’ve been working on this for a while now and I believe that by combining Lightroom and a little bit of Photoshop you can get close. Many of the comments I’ve received have been wondering if there’s a way to get close to the output of Iridient Developer or Photo Ninja using a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop. I’ve also offered some Lightroom sharpening presets that help mitigate the demosaicing issues a bit. In my ongoing quest to get the best from Fuji’s raw files, I’ve previously discussed the issue with Lightroom’s processing, some alternative ways of developing raw files using Iridient Developer and Photo Ninja. This is the long awaited final (for now) part of my series on Processing X-Trans files. ![]()
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