PureRAW2 and Lightroom profile

DxO PureRAW Windows topics
1

Hi all, first post :slight_smile:

Using PureRAW2 with Lightroom Classic, when I process a file and it gets automatically imported back into Lightroom, it comes in with the profile set to “Adobe Color”.

I use “Camera Faithful” for all my photos so, when I process a large set in PureRAW2, I then have to go through all the new DXO import versions, setting the profile to “Camera Faithful” again.

Is there any way of configuring what profile is used for these imports from PureRAW2? If not, can this be added please?

I tried configuring my default import preset but it seems to ignore this.

2

It is not PureRaw 2 which defines (or imposes) the Adobe Color profile, and it would be incapable of doing so since it is Adobe’s proprietary profiles!
Moreover, we must agree on the term “Profile”, which can have two meanings:

  • the color profile (color space) integrated into the output file to allow it to be displayed on a screen or printed: Adobe RGB, sRGB, ProPhoto, etc.
  • the color profile that is applied to an image to give it a particular color rendering. These renderings are specific to the software used (Lightroom, DxO Photolab, etc.), or to the camera manufacturer for direct jpegs.

When PureRaw sends a dng to Lightroom, there is no embedded profile: Lightroom opens it in its own color space, just like with a raw file. On the other hand LR must display the image on the basis of a “profile” (rendering) of color. and it uses its default profile.
The choice of this profile (Adobe Color or other) can ONLY be done in Lightroom. Probably with a preset.

3

There is no reason the colour profile shouldn’t be maintained when the image comes back into LR from PR as the selected colour profile is stored in the XMP sidecar file, it would seem that PR is selectively deciding what goes back into the XMP file when it send the image back and retains various edits i.e. this seems like a bug

4

Firstly, yes I’m talking about the profile applied to the image in Lightroom. This defaults to “Adobe Color” unless you change it.

I have a preset I use for all imports which, amongst a few other things, applies the “Camera Faithful” profile from the “Camera Matching” section to all images.

I tend to agree with @AlexK here. When I send out an image to PR, the selected profile is obviously available in the XMP sidecar file.
Whilst obviously I don’t know what mechanism or interface PR uses to automatically “import” the resulting files back into Lightroom, this is already making selective edits to the develop settings in Lightroom, selectively removing any applied noise reduction or lens corrections (as PR’s processing renders these redundant) yet maintaining all other settings, with the notable exception of the profile, which resets to “Adobe Color” on all images.
If it can control all other develop settings, why can’t it preserve the profile from the original image too?

5

PureRaw does not know Adobe settings.
If I remember correctly, when it returns the dng, it just instructs Lightroom not to enable noise and lens corrections, but it doesn’t know what corrections were applied in LR.
The dng file that PureRaw sends to Lightroom does not include any changes made to the original raw file. It is a linear dng file with only noise and lens corrections. Then Lightroom retrieves this dng and immediately applies the same settings to it as to the raw file.

After a lot of research, I actually see a problem in the corrections that LR applies to the dng for the color profiles. As long as we use a “standard” setting from the “Adobe xxx” list, we recover the correct setting when the dng returns. For example, if I choose Adobe Monochrome, it is this profile that is applied to the dng (it is indeed in black and white).
But as soon as you go to other profiles, such as “camera matching” profiles, it is the Adobe color profile that is applied instead of the chosen profile.

Examination of the xmp files shows that Lightroom does not save in the same place and in the same way the info of the “Adobe xxx” profiles and the “camera matching” profiles.

Even though it’s possible that PureRaw had some part of the blame for this problem, I’d have a strong inclination to think it’s a Lightroom bug, since it’s obvious that PureRaw doesn’t modify xmp files at all : it does not read them, it does not modify them… in any case on all the tests that I could do.

To solve your problem, I only see two workarounds:

  • once the settings have been made in the raw and just before switching to PureRaw, make a copy of the settings, then paste them once the dng has returned to LR. Do not forget to uncheck the noise and optical correction settings.
  • or simply start by sending to PureRaw, and then make the settings in LR when the dng returns, starting for example by applying a preset (without the noise or lens correction settings).
1 Like
6

EDIT :
After other more extensive tests, I come back to what I wrote above.
I confirm that PureRaw does not modify the .xmp created by LR when opening and adjusting the raw file.
On the other hand, I note that it reads it well, since I ended up finding the content of the xmp in the metadata of the dng file sent by PureRaw.
So LR when returning from the dng reads the metadata and does not use the .xmp file.
Afterwards, knowing why there is a problem with non-Adobe standard color profiles is another thing and it is difficult without being a specialist in computer language to know precisely.
Maybe it comes from the fact that LR writes differently in the xmp the color profiles depending on whether they are “Adobe xxxx” or “Camera profile” is the cause. But it’s only an hypothesis.

7

I see this with DPL on macOS too, but I’ll have to retest…

While applying “Camera Faithful” to all images is easy, the situation is less easy to fix, if different profiles have been applied to different images. Maybe the profile that was used by LrC can be copied, by DPR, from XMP to a tag that will definitely be read and used in Lightroom on import?

Tested with 60 images, processing them with the PureRAW 2 plug-in (trough menu/module options)

8

I just spent a long time trying to figure out this problem. Here is what I see:

  • when Lightroom opens a raw file, it creates an xmp file.
    → If the chosen color profile is in one of the series: Adobe xxxx, Adobe raw, Artistic, Modern, B&W, Vintage, LR writes in the xmp a sequence of the type:
    …
    crs:CameraProfile=“Adobe Standard”
    …
    <crs:Look>
    <rdf:Description
    crs:Name=“Adobe Color” (for example)
    …
    </crs:Look>
    …
    → If the chosen color profile is in the series: Camera Matching, there is no “crs Look” section, only:
    …
    crs:CameraProfile=“Camera Light” (for example)
    …

  • When PureRaw is called from LR, it creates in the dng a set of metadata which should normally contain all the settings made in LR, in addition to the data specific to PureRaw. I don’t have a tool to directly read this metadata. The solution found is to open the dng in Photoshop (via Camera Raw without changing anything to the settings), open the image and finally read the raw metadata information.
    → with one of the color profiles other than camera matching, we find the same sequences as in the raw xmp:
    …
    <crs:CameraProfile>Adobe Standard</crs:CameraProfile>
    …
    <crs:Look rdf:parseType=“Resource”>
    <crs:Name>Adobe Vivid</crs:Name> (for example)
    …
    </crs:Look>
    In any case, this data is read correctly and applied by LR.
    → with one of the camera matching color profiles, PR obviously creates a “crs Look” sequence that did not exist in the raw xmp, which gives:
    …
    <crs:CameraProfile>Camera Light</crs:CameraProfile> (for example)
    …
    <crs:Look rdf:parseType=“Resource”>
    <crs:Name>Adobe Color</crs:Name>
    …
    </crs:Look>
    In this case: LR displays (which is wrong): Adobe Color as profile, and therefore does not seem to apply the color profile chosen at the start.

Except that… I am not convinced that it is the profile displayed by LR “Adobe Color” which is applied, but it is quite possible that the real profile (here “Camera Light”) is the one which is actually applied by LR ! I really have doubts
So before going any further and declaring a bug, it would be interesting for users of Camera Matching profiles to do a test to verify it. An easy test: if there is a B&W version in the camera profiles, the dng should display in B&W of course, and of course with the same tones/density as the raw file before sending to PureRaw.

9

Did another Test and everything worked as expected:
Lightroom profile was also applied to the output files:

Bildschirm 2022-08-03 um 21.30.20
Bildschirm 2022-08-03 um 21.30.201920×347 75.7 KB

Left pair: Adobe Monochrome (DPR-LrC)
Right pair: Self made, camera specific inverter profile (DPR LrC)

Tested with current versions of DPR and Lightroom Classic on macOS 12.5 on iMac 2019.

  • profiles only, no other settings, manually exported .xmp sidecars
  • DPR used for denoising only
  • development took 12 seconds, but it took much longer for the images to appear in LrC

Addendum:
The exported .dng files seem to contain two XMP “Look Name” tags. Here’s my guess:

  • The first tag relates to the camera setting, which has no “Look Name” in my CR2 files.
  • The second tag relates to Lightroom’s profile setting, it comes along with a bunch of “Look” items:
[XMP]           Look Name                       : Adobe Monochrome
[XMP]           Look Amount                     : 1
[XMP]           Look UUID                       : 0CFE8F8AB5F63B2A73CE0B0077D20817
[XMP]           Look Supports Amount            : false
[XMP]           Look Supports Monochrome        : false
[XMP]           Look Supports Output Referred   : false
[XMP]           Look Group                      : Profiles
[XMP]           Look Parameters Version         : 14.4.1
[XMP]           Look Parameters Process Version : 11.0
[XMP]           Look Parameters Clarity 2012    : +8
[XMP]           Look Parameters Convert To Grayscale: True
[XMP]           Look Parameters Camera Profile  : Adobe Standard
[XMP]           Look Parameters Look Table      : 73ED6C18DDE909DD7EA2D771F5AC282D
[XMP]           Look Parameters Tone Curve PV2012: 0, 0, 64, 56, 128, 128, 192, 197, 255, 255
[XMP]           Look Parameters Tone Curve PV2012 Red: 0, 0, 255, 255
[XMP]           Look Parameters Tone Curve PV2012 Green: 0, 0, 255, 255
[XMP]           Look Parameters Tone Curve PV2012 Blue: 0, 0, 255, 255

and for the other file:

[XMP]           Look Name                       : Adobe Color
[XMP]           Look Amount                     : 1.000000
[XMP]           Look Parameters Camera Profile  : Adobe Standard
[XMP]           Look Parameters Look Table      : E1095149FDB39D7A057BAB208837E2E1
[XMP]           Look Parameters Tone Curve PV2012: 0, 0, 22, 16, 40, 35, 127, 127, 224, 230, 240, 246, 255, 255

The difference is obvious. The .xmp sidecars are quite different in this respect too…but it has worked out, as we can see from the screenshot.

10

My previous post is still awaiting approval (which is incredibly frustrating btw!)

Just read your edit though and that makes more sense. DNG supports embedded metadata which negates the need for a sidecar file so clearly PR is taking the XMP settings and embedding them in the resulting DNG so that the imported image retains the same LR settings as the original.

It sounds like this process isn’t aware of this “secondary” setting for the colour matching profiles in LR so this information is lost. Whether the DNG is even capable of holding this information I don’t know.

11

I understand what you’re saying but PR clearly has some degree of control over the settings in LR.

I understand that the DNG file itself is just a version of the original RAW but with the DXO processing applied including lens corrections. However, when this DNG comes back into LR after processing, all the LR settings that were applied to the RAW prior to export to PR are automatically applied to the imported DNG file, with the notable exception of the lens correction and noise reduction settings.

I don’t pretend to know exactly what is happening under the hood during this process of importing the DNG back into LR but, as the new file ends up with the same develop settings as the original, minus lens corrections and noise reduction, PR simply has to be exerting some control over this.

My key takeaway from your post is that you say the profile is preserved if it’s one of the standard “Adobe…” ones yet not if it’s one of the “Camera Maching” ones. You also note that these are stored differently in the XMP file!

This seems to almost certainly be the issue. I suspect that, when PR imports the DNG back into LR, it provides a new XMP sidecar file which is a copy of the one from the original RAW but with lens corrections and noise reduction settings removed. If the process PR uses to copy this XMP file is only aware of the ‘default’ location for the profile setting then this would explain why the standard “Adobe…” ones are preserved yet the “Colour Matching” ones aren’t. If so then a simple update to make this “XMP copying” process aware of this additional setting in the file would correct the problem.

It’s not a huge issue as it just means I have to reselect the Camera Faithful profile after the DNG comes back into LR but this can get tedious with a lot of images. I guess I could create a preset with just that profile in it and then apply that to all imported images en-masse.