topic Canon 5D Mark iii RAW images coming in muted in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Canon 5D Mark iii RAW images coming in muted

sdpowers — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 15:31:18 GMT

I am shooting on a 5D Mark iii but the images are coming off the camera and into Lightroom 4 muted. I shoot in RAW and when I load them into Lightroom they initially look good but then after it looks like they process for a second they all become muted. Any suggestions? Is this a software thing? I know that images right off the camera for this equipment should be much better.

Re: Canon 5D Mark iii RAW images coming in muted

hsbn — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 20:50:40 GMT

That's normal Lightroom and third party software behavior. Basically, what you see in the back of your camera LCD screen and when first imported into LR is the embeded JPG of your RAW file. It's a embeded JPG with all the effects, saturation, sharpeness, and many other settings; thus it looks "good". Then LR will give you the "real" version of of your RAW image in which a little lack of contrast, a little wash out, dull and muted. However, if you know how to use LR, you can process your RAW to look even better than the JPG.

Some photographer will disable most of the in-camera setting, lower contrast and saturation to make the JPG photo as close to the RAW as possible in oder to maximize the camera dynamic range.

Re: Canon 5D Mark iii RAW images coming in muted

sdpowers — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 01:04:41 GMT

Thank you for the input - any suggestions about learning more about how to set up relative Lightroom presets?

Re: Canon 5D Mark iii RAW images coming in muted

mls13 — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 02:52:43 GMT

You can try the DPP software that came with your camera. DPP can read your camera settings to provide images that match your direct from camera images.

Re: Canon 5D Mark iii RAW images coming in muted

hsbn — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 03:44:11 GMT

You can make your own preset or download it here for free: http://www.presetsheaven.com/presets/a-perfect-lightroom-preset-to-start-with/

I suggest you develop a set of photos in LR. Adjust all the settings around until you're pleased with all the photos. Then make a preset out of most common adjustments you've made in these photo as a starting point. So next time, when you import new photos, just choose the preset you made and you will get the result you want or at least close to it.