M9 post process

[nobbylon]

I've had the M9P now for 2 months and having decided to use Aperture as my main post process program found a great post on Leica user forum with some great presets. I've also set my zeiss 35 in camera to 35 iv which has cured the vignetting. The colours I'm getting with protected highlights and opened up shadow detail is superb. The only thing I need to tweek is the over saturated reds and the odd one or two WB corrections but overall it's a very simple workflow.
Does anyone have any tricks they would care to share that make for simple post process of batch images?
regards john

 

[jaapv]

Aperture has been discontinued for a few years now and is no longer supported. Any effort you put into learning it will be wasted the moment you buy a newer camera whose raw cannot be read. I would advise you to switch to Lightroom, Photoshop or Capture One. The Aperture successor Photos is hopeless for serious postprocessing.
The main present-day problem with Aperture is that its denoising and defringing algorithms are not as good by far as those of newer programs, and colour-aliasing supression and anti-moire have always been weak points. As you found with the reds the camera profile of the M9 has not been updated either.

 

[TRIago]

I'm sorta against those film emulation presets out there but I have to ask: have you guys ever used it with great results on the M9? Because I feel if I was gonna use one of those I'd still have to tweak the picture so I figure i'd do the whole tweaking myself with no presets. Even because I like the M9 files a lot. Just wondering if someone here actually loves one of those VSCO (or Mastin Labs) on the CCD so I might give it a shot...

I already googled the hell out of it so just wondering in a more personal perspective here..

thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rob-F]

I'm with Nobbylon--I'm an Aperture devotee. It does everything I want, just the way I want it, with my M8.2, D700, D-Lux models, and Fujis. Those of us who prefer Aperture ought to get together and exert some pressure on Apple to keep it alive. Does the fact that they have killed it mean that we have to give up on it? What about buying used iMacs or Mac pro that can still run Aperture? And sharing copies of Aperture with those who want one? I think a given copy can only be loaded on two computers, but maybe we could get someone to hack that?

We should get together as an Aperture Support Group! Maybe a Yahoo group!

 

[35photo]

I'm sorta against those film emulation presets out there but I have to ask: have you guys ever used it with great results on the M9? Because I feel if I was gonna use one of those I'd still have to tweak the picture so I figure i'd do the whole tweaking myself with no presets. Even because I like the M9 files a lot. Just wondering if someone here actually loves one of those VSCO (or Mastin Labs) on the CCD so I might give it a shot...

I already googled the hell out of it so just wondering in a more personal perspective here..

thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Use VSCO all the time with my M9 images... Love the results, I always tweak the VSCO preset to my taste..

[url=https://flic.kr/p/DUg3Bz]L1023860.jpg by Marko Mihailovich, on Flickr[/URL]

 

[Nowhereman]

I'm sorta against those film emulation presets out there but I have to ask: have you guys ever used it with great results on the M9? Because I feel if I was gonna use one of those I'd still have to tweak the picture so I figure i'd do the whole tweaking myself with no presets. Even because I like the M9 files a lot. Just wondering if someone here actually loves one of those VSCO (or Mastin Labs) on the CCD so I might give it a shot...

I already googled the hell out of it so just wondering in a more personal perspective here..

thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've used both VSCO and Replichrome, and generally prefer VSCO. I use VSCO presets to see how I want a picture (that I care about) to look — to see the direction that I want to go in. My steps are usually as follows, using Lightroom for my M9:

1. In the develop module I press Auto and adjust the sliders until it looks okay, and take a snapshot calling it "LR6".

2. I try a few VSCO presets: for color I often try Ektachrome 100-, Portra 400- and E100G- (lately though, I've also try, from VSCO 06 Push & Pull, Portra 400⁺¹ -).

3. From among my 2 or 3 snapshots, I choose the one I like the best and process it further in the Develop module of LR. Sometimes the one I choose the original LR snapshot. It all depends how I want the final image to look.

For B&W, I also go through steps 1 and 2. The VSCO presets I usually try are Kodak TRI-X 400 - and Fuji Neopan 1600 - (this one often blows the highlights) and, recently, from VSCO 06 Push & Pull I try TRI-X⁺² -, which often looks great. Then, I chose the one I like best and adjust it, if necessary in the LR Develop and make a snapshot. Then, I use Silver Efex 2 to process the picture and compare it to the LR snapshot — usually the Silver Efex version looks much better, but nor always.

Now all this may sound very long-winded but, once you know what you're doing it's quick. On how I use Silver Efex is another story...

I also agree with japan that I wouldn't start using Aperture now. I started with Aperture a few years ago and preferred the user interface to LR — but once Aperture was orphaned by Apple, I moved to LR and, not only saw that the user interface was better, but that it produced better colors (more easily) than Aperture.

 

[Keith]

One of the most bizarre acts I've seen from a software manufacturer happened after I bought my M8. From memory it came with a basic version of capture one as the raw converter. One day the program notified me that there was an update available ... that update when I downloaded it effectively disabled the software, deliberately sabotaging it to make it unusable. When I questioned this with them they informed me that I could download the latest version ... for a fee!

 

[nobbylon]

I've got lightroom and capture one. At this moment I prefer Aperture as it's easier for me and less time consuming than either of them. I'm srill running 10.6.8 (snow leopard) and have no intention of changing just to be able to run single programs.
The results from Aperture and the M9 seem to me pretty good but if anyone has direct comparison shots then i'll keep an open mind. The M9 is now old technology alongside Aperture but I see no reason to not learn more about getting the best from it just because something more recent is out. If I was of that mindset I'd be buying a new camera and programs everytime something new came out that everyone believed better.
There's a lot of very smart people out there, much better and more patient than I am at setting up programs to get the best from their cameras and many of us, myself included can miss this along the way. The difference between original files and what is produced after a few simple presets which can be batched (important to me for simplicity and speed) is quite marked so there must be similar in lightroom and capture and indeed tweeks for Aperture.

 

[jaapv]

A very underrated program in this respect is Picture Window Pro (PC only)

 

[Richard G]

I just use Lightroom. I do no batch input processing. I tweak the sliders descending through the rows on the right, tailored to each image, the ones worth working on. I set my C Biogon 35 as a Summicron ASPH in the M9 and I am happy with the results. I have the v4 as well so need to distinguish the two.

 

[Ronald M]

Someone else`s presets. You got to be kidding. Do you think Rembrant let someone do his paintings for him?

One preset is valuable. Adobe camera profile so you take back the color control from the color blind people at leica.

 

[Rob-F]

I've got lightroom and capture one. At this moment I prefer Aperture as it's easier for me and less time consuming than either of them. I'm srill running 10.6.8 (snow leopard) and have no intention of changing just to be able to run single programs.

That is my situation exactly. There have been many updates beyond Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and when I look for user comments, many people say their computer didn't run right when they downloaded and installed a later version. Why bother? Just to get a raw converter for a more recent camera? And why should I be in a hurry to switch to Lightroom, even though I have it, when Aperture (to me) is a much better processor?

 

[user237428934]

....when Aperture (to me) is a much better processor?

Is it? I tested the current Aperture Version that is now many years old. For me it's usable but not better than Lightroom and far behind C1. But that's all of course a subjective view on quality.

 

[nobbylon]

Someone else`s presets. You got to be kidding. Do you think Rembrant let someone do his paintings for him?

One preset is valuable. Adobe camera profile so you take back the color control from the color blind people at leica.

Ronald, you obviously don't need any help and I'm very happy for you however given that the advice I chose to accept improved my pictures hugely i'll accept it with thanks. He saved me many hours, days, weeks that it would have taken me to get the kind of results I was looking for. I personally have better things to do than sit in front of a computer imagining I'm doing something unique. I'm only interested in the final result and prefer to take photos rather than manipulate them. A bit of a contradictive post be it that you are using Adobe's preset and painting with their brush and colour choice which I presume was written by a human but thanks for the constructive comment.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I think Aperture's a lost cause—persuading Apple to continue developing it, I mean. My hope is that they'll build more of its professional features into OSX Photos, which is already pretty good.

 

[nightfly]

Apple doesn't really care about their professional market anymore. They make their money on iOS devices so their software developing dollars go there.

It's unfortunate but as much as I like their hardware and their OS, I try not to rely too much on their other software for serious work.

I've been pretty happy with an older, non cloud version of Lightroom for my M9 files. If I switched it would be to Capure One as people say their RAW converter is better but honestly I'm too lazy and am satisfied enough. More likely, when the version of Lightroom I have is no longer compatable with my OS I'll upgrade and I expect it will bring over my old files pretty seamlessly.

Sounds like you are devoted to Aperture and an outdated OS however the end of the road is pretty clear, one day you'll buy a new computer with a new version of the OS and it won't work anymore. Really just a choice of when you want to move to something else, not if.

 

[willie_901]

I would not be concerned about Aperture being discontinued and unsupported.

Aperture does not have it's own raw rendering engine. It uses Apple's raw rendering engine Core Image global to OS X. Core Image is also part of iOS.

For this reason as long as Apple's Preview and Photos apps support a new camera's raw files, Aperture will support them too. To be complete, to date Apple has been slower than Adobe and others at releasing support for newly released cameras in Core Image. Of course this does not affect the M9P.

The only disadvantage of Aperture in terms of obsolescence is at the OS X and, or hardware level. At some point in the future (2, 3, 4 or more years?) Aperture will not run on current Apple products because it will no longer be compatible with the OS or hardware. I wouldn't worry about this myself.

 

[Ronald M]

Ronald, you obviously don't need any help and I'm very happy for you however given that the advice I chose to accept improved my pictures hugely i'll accept it with thanks. He saved me many hours, days, weeks that it would have taken me to get the kind of results I was looking for. I personally have better things to do than sit in front of a computer imagining I'm doing something unique. I'm only interested in the final result and prefer to take photos rather than manipulate them. A bit of a contradictive post be it that you are using Adobe's preset and painting with their brush and colour choice which I presume was written by a human but thanks for the constructive comment.

I just think anybody can make a preset more satisfying than a canned one. A preset is just a photoshop action.

 

[tajart]

post process

post process

After trying various programs over the years, what I've arrived at is using Capture One (9) and PhotoShop CC via the Adobe program for photographers @ $10 a month. I like certain aspects of each program and how they render the files from my M9, and even improve older files from other cameras.

 

[jaapv]

Exactly what I am doing. PS CC for routine work and C1 for (colour) critical images.

All this talk about Aperture... It was pretty decent five years ago, and still works nicely, but Photoshop and Capture One have progressed by leaps and bounds since then. Noise performance is at least one stop, maybe two, ahead of the best we could get five years ago, colour fringe correction has become effective, detail performance has improved, colour performance in Capture One Pro is amazing, moiré supression (Aperture cannot do that) the list is endless.

Anyway, I find Adobe's camera profiles as doubtful as any embedded one. Far better to make one's own, adjusted to the light one shoots in. I have profiles for most light types.