Adobe RAW editor and Sony RX100 M6 - Images look 'muddy'

[John Walker]

A bit of a strange one.  I've been a bit disappointed that my IQ results with the Sony RX100 M6 weren't as good as those from my old Sony RX100 M3.  I put it down to the different lens.

 

Today I was editing files from my old Sony RX100 M3 using the current Adobe RAW editor (v.11.3.0.197)  and noticed they also had what I can only describe as a muddy (over processed) look. 

 

I put the same Sony RX100 M3 image through my old Elements RAW (v.9.0) program and the same image seems much cleaner to me.

 

Have any of you experienced or read about this problem?

[MDM]

HI John. Would you care to post a few examples of raw images and the processed high res jpegs on Dropbox (takes raw files) from both cameras. I have the RX100 MVA which has a very similar or identical sensor to the M6 and would be really interested to see what you are seeing. I am using the latest version of Lightroom as well. I think the overall image quality is quite amazing for such a tiny bit of kit, especially at low ISO in good light. I certainly would not describe the results as muddy except at high ISO in poor light where I wouldn't expect great performance and where noise is an issue.

Edited June 12, 2019 by MDM

[wiskerke]

I agree with the lens IQ. The M6 lens is not as good as the 24-70 [eq] of the previous models. It's mainly at the widest end and a lot is being masked by some very clever computational pre-cooking of the RAW file. Which becomes apparent if you happen to view the file without the embedded profile being applied.

 

8 hours ago, John Walker said:

Today I was editing files from my old Sony RX100 M3 using the current Adobe RAW editor (v.11.3.0.197)  and noticed they also had what I can only describe as a muddy (over processed) look. 

 

I put the same Sony RX100 M3 image through my old Elements RAW (v.9.0) program and the same image seems much cleaner to me.

 

Is this using the same profile? There have been a couple of changes over time: the default profile is now Adobe Color and default sharpening is higher.

The other possibility is that you have saved your own settings to one or more of the profiles or presets.

Have you tried resetting Camera Raw defaults? It's in the Presets tab under the settings button; the last item.

 

wim

[MDM]

17 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

Is this using the same profile? There have been a couple of changes over time: the default profile is now Adobe Color and default sharpening is higher.

The other possibility is that you have saved your own settings to one or more of the profiles or presets.

Have you tried resetting Camera Raw defaults? It's in the Presets tab under the settings button; the last item.

 

wim

 

Having had a good look today at some files from my MVA, I think the default sharpening is a bit too high as it makes things look a bit noisy and oversharpened even at low ISO. I have been adding a touch of luminance noise reduction even at ISO 200 when using default sharpening of 40-0.8-35, especially when I open up shadow areas. I have just reset the default to 25-1-25 which I think was the previous default and things look cleaner in the darker areas. A lot depends on the monitor used to view them though. On a Mac Retina screen there is no visible noise because of the shine. 

 

The method of resetting prefs in Lightroom is different to ACR. In the Develop module, you hold down the alt or option key and click Reset at the bottom right which gives the option to use the currrent settings as default or to restore Adobe defaults.

[chris24]

Have you tried Capture One(for Sony)? Works well with my M3 and it's not the Pro Capture One  version.

Chris

Edited June 14, 2019 by chris24
correction

[John Walker]

Thanks for all your suggestions.  🙂

I'd been using more or less the same settings in ACR v.11.3.0.197 as I used successfully for ACR in Elements ACR v9.0. 

Following suggestions above I've reset ACR v.11.3.0.197 to Default and have started again.  Results are very much improved and no longer have the over-processed look.

 

John