Aperture D600 Raw Files too dark?

Not sure about correcting a vignette but try adjustining the RAW exposure by exactly +1 in Aperture (or Lightroom) to solve the darkness. What I've learned is highlight correction on most cameras intentionally produces a 1-stop underexposure and then boosts the shadows to compensate. Many software packages, such as Aperture, don't know to adjust so you have to manually correct the 1-stop underexposure (which is done by the camera automatically when it outputs the JPEG). Though sometimes tedious, give it a try.

I have seen references to this problem, with Lightroom, linked to use of a Custom Whitebalance. What WB setting are you using?

Ernie

To me it seems like something I shouldn't have to adjust for. Seems like Aperture should process my RAW files accurately like the Canon Digital Photo Professional software that came with the camera does. Also seems like making the adjustments will hurt the quality of the photo when quality is the whole reason I'm shooting in RAW in the first place.

Auto White Balance (AWB).

Yeah, I felt like Apple should have fixed this, too, but the reality is it's mostly just manufacturer's software that handles highlight protection correctly. It was pointed out to me later that if you're shooting in RAW you don't want highlight protection turned on anyway. It's basically a feature that helps JPEG images.

Only Canon knows the exact algorithms used to turn raw files into jpegs. (Which is what you essentially see in DPP after raw conversion.) I would say that it is *impossible* to exactly reverse engineer this process, so if you want a conversion that looks like DPP, you will have to use DPP.

The problem of the dark RAW image when highlight protection is enabled is not one of algorithms. It's simply non-recognition of a tag that indicates the photo was shot one stop underexposed (typically by cutting the ISO in half) and to compensate by boosting the exposure by one stop.

Just back from a small vacation in San Francisco and I noticed immediately the same dramatic darkening problem after rendering the RAW generated by my brand new Canon 6D. I'm using Aperture 3.4.5 and the last Digital Camera Raw 4.0.6 so everything updated to the last release.

I also checked the Highlight Tone priority and this was disabled so this is not the point.

I made a test because I was curious to understand if this was a general issue of this Aperture release or if it was related to the RAW generated by the different Canon cameras so I went to check if the same darkening problem was happening on the old Canon RAWs created by my older Canon 40D and to my surprise the darkening problem is not happening.

So this issue seems really linked to the RAWs of the 6D and like suggested in the former posts could be linked to the OS X Raw conversion and not to Aperture in itself.

Pretty frustrating at the moment... especially because the JPEG generated by the 6D are excellent (moving from the old 40D the improvement is amazing... ) and after the rendering of the RAWs all the pictures become definitely underexposed...

I don't even consider Lightroom because I find it really awful compared to Aperture but this rendering issue is a top critical item for being able to use correctly Aperture.

Ubaldo

Ok sent the feedback to Apple. Hope it will help.

Hello to all,

I own a Nikon D600 myself and have this 'darkening' effect also.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a series of pictures imported and two pictures did not darken in Aperture.

I wondered why and going back in what I had done, I realized I had previewed and done some basic editing in ViewNX before importing the pictures in Aperture.

To make a short story long, if, after taking the picture's disable the:

"Auto Lateral Color Aberration"

in the Adjustments section of ViewNX, save the picture and then import the picture in Aperture and you willl see that the darkening effect does not occur and details stay visible.

Best regards,

emeu1

Hi Emeu

I nave a d600 and i have the same dark raw image problem. After reading tour post i downloaded ViewerNx2 and tried to follow your process. Unfortunately opening the saved file with aperture and Nx2 i can still see the difference ( the aperture one is more dark). Any suggestion?

One question : the fact that the image with aperture is darker means that increasing the exposure I can loose some " information" and decrease the image quality ..or is just an annoying issue but will not affect quality image? What i mean is...reducing black point....increasing exposure...+ other modification can i get same quality that i can have Starting directly with a goodlooking RAF file ?

Whist is Apple positivo non this issue?

Thanks

Francesco

I've tried everything. Seems like it might be the way OSX 10.8.4 processes RAW files from my Canon 6D. Not only happens in Aperture. It happens in Preview as well. I started shooting RAW + JPEG. Here's a recent import with no adjustments to either image. Not even close to acceptable. Apple, Hello? Are you aware of this problem?

How do they compare if you boost Exposure on the RAW image to exactly +1?

Still heavily vignetted and boosting the exposure losses detail that's apparent in the JPEG version. What's the point of shooting RAW if you can't even get the quality of the JPEG? Also, this wasn't a problem with Aperture or my Canon 6D until I updated my system software. It used to convert my RAW images perfectly.