Images look hazy in Photo Studio Ultimate 2022

[zBernie]

I've noticed that many of my photos shot with my Sony A7iii appear hazy in Photo Studio 2022. I thought it was the camera at first, but you can see the difference in the screenshots below. The first is in Photo Studio, and the second is in Affinity Photo. This is the same raw image. Any idea what could be causing the photos to look hazy in Photo Studio?

Photo Studio



Affinity Photo

[Greyfox]

zBernie

It would be better with more qualification of the conditions under which the screen shot views were taken.

I would hope both were taken with default application settings, but then:-

For Affinity, was it in the Develop persona, or after development in the Photo Persona. Either way what were the settings in Development Assistant, and in particular was Tone curve set to Apply or take no action, and what was the set action for Noise correction.

For ACDSee was the screen shot taken in View mode, or in Develop mode, and if in View mode was it set to Raw Decode, or Embedded Preview.

If the screen shot in ACDSee is of a RAW decode rather than the embedded preview, then perhaps the difference is mostly in the tone curve applied by default in the ADCSee RAW development process. I suspect applying a slight "S" curve in Develop mode would reduce the difference.

Note however that there are other factors to consider.
In Develop mode, ACDSee U2022 normally applies a default amount of color noise reduction, where as (depending on Development Assistant settings), Affinity may not be.

I personally would not expect a default "develop" in different applications to give exactly the same results. With RAW images, the default development is just a starting point, and the final development is up to the user.

[zBernie]

zBernie

It would be better with more qualification of the conditions under which the screen shot views were taken.

I would hope both were taken with default application settings, but then:-

For Affinity, was it in the Develop persona, or after development in the Photo Persona. Either way what were the settings in Development Assistant, and in particular was Tone curve set to Apply or take no action, and what was the set action for Noise correction.

For ACDSee was the screen shot taken in View mode, or in Develop mode, and if in View mode was it set to Raw Decode, or Embedded Preview.

If the screen shot in ACDSee is of a RAW decode rather than the embedded preview, then perhaps the difference is mostly in the tone curve applied by default in the ADCSee RAW development process. I suspect applying a slight "S" curve in Develop mode would reduce the difference.

Note however that there are other factors to consider.
In Develop mode, ACDSee U2022 normally applies a default amount of color noise reduction, where as (depending on Development Assistant settings), Affinity may not be.

I personally would not expect a default "develop" in different applications to give exactly the same results. With RAW images, the default development is just a starting point, and the final development is up to the user.

No processing was performed on this photo in either Photo Studio or Affinity Photo. It is an unprocessed raw .ARW file. The raw image looks fine in Windows Photo app, Windows Photo Viewer, Affinity Photo, XYPlorer preview, etc. The photo only appears hazy in Photo Studio, nowhere else. The photo appears hazy using raw decode or embedded preview. It's not just this one photo, but many appear hazy in Photo Studio.

[hectorsm]

Hello zBernie,

Throughout the years, I've seeing the same questions posted many times in forums for other software packages as well. Color, sharpness, brightness, etc. is not the same as some other photo software. That is normal. Grayfox is exactly correct, when dealing raw defaults, each software company has its own interpretation of what default should be. It will never be the same. In some cases, it could look noticeably different. You'll need to adjust the image to your taste. Some people will prefer the flatter look specially when dealing with portrait. Other people will prefer the more contrasty and saturated look for landscapes. There is really no "correct" default setting. Affinity appears to have a higher contrast by default. However, you may have to play with the other settings if you want the match the look in Affinity.

Maybe you can create a preset if you don't like the default and want to reduce your develop time.

Hector

[zBernie]

Hello zBernie,

Throughout the years, I've seeing the same questions posted many times in forums for other software packages as well. Color, sharpness, brightness, etc. is not the same as some other photo software. That is normal. Grayfox is exactly correct, when dealing raw defaults, each software company has its own interpretation of what default should be. It will never be the same. In some cases, it could look noticeably different. You'll need to adjust the image to your taste. Some people will prefer the flatter look specially when dealing with portrait. Other people will prefer the more contrasty and saturated look for landscapes. There is really no "correct" default setting. Affinity appears to have a higher contrast by default. However, you may have to play with the other settings if you want the match the look in Affinity.

Maybe you can create a preset if you don't like the default and want to reduce your develop time.

Hector

Did you look at the screenshots? This isn't simply a matter of "taste", there is a distinct haze in the raw image shown in Photo Studio. It's not just this photo, but many of them. I noticed this after upgrading to Ultimate 2022. To me this is unacceptable, if this is Photo Studio's idea of what a rendered image should look like.

[zBernie]

Here is an example of the same exact .jpg file opened in Photo Studio and Affinity Photo. It doesn't have that hazy look in any other photo application, just Photo Studio.


Photo Studio - Hazy



Affinity Photo and other photo apps

[hectorsm]

Here is some testing I did on my side. These are just screen shots and were not exported to jpg. They were all captured using the application default settings. Notice the difference in contrast, color, brightness, and saturation for each software package. For instance, check the difference between Capture One and Lightroom and DXO. They are very different.

ACDSee


Affinity Photo


Capture One


Lightroom


DXO Photolab


I also have ON1 Photo and Luminar, but I decided to stop here. None will be identical. The defaults are just starting point.

If you think there might be a specific problem in the rendering of your specific raw file, I suggest you submit a ticket to support so they can determine if maybe there's an issue with that specific raw file type.


Hector

[hectorsm]

Did you look at the screenshots? This isn't simply a matter of "taste", there is a distinct haze in the raw image shown in Photo Studio. It's not just this photo, but many of them. I noticed this after upgrading to Ultimate 2022. To me this is unacceptable, if this is Photo Studio's idea of what a rendered image should look like.

If you are saying your previous version of ACDSee did not show the image this way, then definitely, submit a ticket to have ACD help you out.

Hector

[zBernie]

Here is some testing I did on my side. These are just screen shots and were not exported to jpg. They were all captured using the application default settings. Notice the difference in contrast, color, brightness, and saturation for each software package. For intense, check the difference between Capture One and Lightroom and DXO. They are very different.

ACDSee


Affinity Photo


Capture One


Lightroom


DXO Photolab


I also have ON1 Photo and Luminar, but I decided to stop here. None will be identical. The defaults are just starting point.

If you think there might be a specific problem in the rendering of your specific raw file, I suggest you submit a ticket to support so they can determine if maybe there's an issue with that specific raw file type.


Hector

This problem isn't limited to raw photos. Look at the screenshots of the "Nashville Hot Chicken". These are both the same .jpg file, the one in Photo Studio is hazy, Affinity Photo and all other software, it is not hazy.

[zBernie]

If you are saying your previous version of ACDSee did not show the image this way, then definitely, submit a ticket to have ACD help you out.

Hector

Actually, I just determined that the "haze" issue is specific to Windows 11. I have the same version of Photo Studio Ultimate 2022 running on my PC running Windows 10, and the same photos that look hazy on my Windows 11 laptop do NOT appear hazy on my Windows 10 PC. I reported the issue to support.

-Thanks

[Greyfox]

hectorsm

zBernie

Sadly I can't see hectorsm images, they are just showing as outlined blank rectangles. I don't know why that is.

I would normally expect that the haze? that appears in zBernie's screen shots would be removed by a simple slight increase in contrast, or by the application of an "S" curve,. and it is something that occurs only rarely with the RAW images from my Sony SLT-A57 camera, or with RAW images I have from other cameras, including Sony A7ii, and A7iii.

In the following comparison screen shots, the source image was an ex camera RAW image from a Sony A7 MK3 (ILCE-7M3), downloaded from an online gallery.
The Exif details for the image show it was taken with a FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM lens, at a focal length of 24mm, at f/11, 1/30sec and an ISO of 200.

The first pair of screen shots show the RAW file sized "zoom to fit", as it appears in Affinity Photo's Develop persona (current version) and as it appears in ACDSee Ultimate 2022's Develop mode.

To keep the comparison as close to apples to apples as I could, In Affinity I disabled "Remove Lens Vignette" as that is not is not enabled in ACDSee, and set the output color profile.to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (no color profile is enabled in Affinity by default).

In ACDSee I also set the color space to sRGB IEC61966-2.1, and I disabled both sharpening and noise reduction (neither is enabled in Affinity by default.

Lens distortion correction was disabled in both Affinity and ACDsee.


I personally see little significant difference between the two.

The next two screen shots compare a section of the image zoomed to 400% in both applications (Affinity in Develop Persona, ACDSee in Develop Mode.)
In ACDSee I set saturation to +10 to provide visually around the same saturation as in Affinity. Other than that, no changes other than what was listed above were made.


to my eyes, the ACDSee image is ever so slightly sharper than the Affinity one, but there is very little in it, and again no apparent haze..

[Regor250]

First off, are these images color profile AdobeRGB by any chance?

[zBernie]

hectorsm

zBernie

Sadly I can't see hectorsm images, they are just showing as outlined blank rectangles. I don't know why that is.

I would normally expect that the haze? that appears in zBernie's screen shots would be removed by a simple slight increase in contrast, or by the application of an "S" curve,. and it is something that occurs only rarely with the RAW images from my Sony SLT-A57 camera, or with RAW images I have from other cameras, including Sony A7ii, and A7iii.

In the following comparison screen shots, the source image was an ex camera RAW image from a Sony A7 MK3 (ILCE-7M3), downloaded from an online gallery.
The Exif details for the image show it was taken with a FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM lens, at a focal length of 24mm, at f/11, 1/30sec and an ISO of 200.

The first pair of screen shots show the RAW file sized "zoom to fit", as it appears in Affinity Photo's Develop persona (current version) and as it appears in ACDSee Ultimate 2022's Develop mode.

To keep the comparison as close to apples to apples as I could, In Affinity I disabled "Remove Lens Vignette" as that is not is not enabled in ACDSee, and set the output color profile.to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (no color profile is enabled in Affinity by default).

In ACDSee I also set the color space to sRGB IEC61966-2.1, and I disabled both sharpening and noise reduction (neither is enabled in Affinity by default.

Lens distortion correction was disabled in both Affinity and ACDsee.


I personally see little significant difference between the two.

The next two screen shots compare a section of the image zoomed to 400% in both applications (Affinity in Develop Persona, ACDSee in Develop Mode.)
In ACDSee I set saturation to +10 to provide visually around the same saturation as in Affinity. Other than that, no changes other than what was listed above were made.


to my eyes, the ACDSee image is ever so slightly sharper than the Affinity one, but there is very little in it, and again no apparent haze..

Actually, I've determined that the "haze" issue is specific to Windows 11. I have the same version of Photo Studio Ultimate 2022 running on my PC running Windows 10, and the same photos that look hazy on my Windows 11 laptop do NOT appear hazy on my Windows 10 PC. I reported the issue to support.

-Thanks

[zBernie]

First off, are these images color profile AdobeRGB by any chance?

Actually, I've determined that the "haze" issue is specific to Windows 11. I have the same version of Photo Studio Ultimate 2022 running on my PC running Windows 10, and the same photos that look hazy on my Windows 11 laptop do NOT appear hazy on my Windows 10 PC. I reported the issue to support.

-Thanks

[zBernie]

I’ve determined the cause of the “hazy” photos. I compared my Color Management settings to Photo Studio on my PC which does not have the hazy photos problem and found the “Enable soft proofing” is checked on my laptop, where the photos appear hazy. I unchecked this option on my laptop, and all of the haziness is gone. I’ve included screenshots below which show the haziness with the soft proofing enabled and then disabled. The image is just a .jpg I took with my phone, but all images, raw and .jpg, appear hazy with this option enabled.

I replied to acdsee support with this information.






Hazy, soft proofing enabled:


Soft proofing disabled, no haze: