RAW files appear to be automatcally softened

[NickF]

I have an odd one which I hope you can help me with.

I have noticed when I open a RAW file (in my case an Olympus .ORF file) the app will appear to open the picture normally, and then a split second later it shifts. On a recent set of photos of my daughter’s face the effect is as though a strong softening effect has been applied. I also noticed that exactly the same thing happens in Preview, however looking at the file in Affinity Photo the file remains unprocessed.

While i have noticed this on almost all my RAW files, on the pictures of my daughter ( which were taken at a very high ISO 64000 – oops) the change is very very dramatic. Can you shed any light on this?

Thanks

Nick

[Nik Bhatt]

JPEGs built by the camera (including the embedded JPEGs) will have a lot of in-camera processing applied, including color, sharpness, noise reduction, and more. The RAW does not have any of that applied. When you are viewing the image before going into edit you are usually looking at the JPEG. Then, when the RAW loads, you are viewing the RAW. Each decoder applies some amount of improvement to the RAW, but it’s going to less (and different) from the camera. That is the cause of the shift.

Affinity Photo uses a different RAW converter – if they are actually allowing you to edit the RAW, then their rendition should have similar effects. It’s a different converter, so how they choose to render the RAW will be different (for example, they may apply more processing than Apple does).

–Nik

[NickF]

Nik

Thank you for for your answer, however, I am not sure I fully understand. I only shoot in RAW and the file, as it is rendered in RAW power (as well as preview), is essentially unusable as all the detail has been removed. Is here a way to upload a picture in this forum so I can show you?

Thanks

Nick

[Nik Bhatt]

Please email the original to support@gentlemencoders.com. We can continue the discussion that way.

[NickF]

Hi Nik

I did some more investigating. I think it is an issue with the olympus *.ORF RAW file format. When I convert the file to DNG the problem disappears. So the workaround is to convert to DNG files, which is pretty easy using Adobe’s converter.

I am relieved to have found a workaround, I really like this application and appreciate the work that has obviously gone into it.

Best

Nick

PS out of interest I will still send you a couple of picture to show you the issue.

[Nik Bhatt]

Hi, I got the PNGs you sent me. There appears to be a lot more detail in the Affinity decode (or more aggressive noise reduction in Apple’s). I don’t know what would be causing that with Apple’s decode, but I’m glad that converting to DNG helps. If you want to send the original over email, I can see if there is a way to get a better result.

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