The newer Nikon Z cameras offer a way to get high dynamic range shots using ‘HDR Overlay’. The HDR photo is actually made from a pair of shots that are taken in quick succession and then automatically combined in-camera. It’s also possible to save the pair of shots that are used to create the HDR photo, if desired. Even if you’re shooting in raw format, the final HDR shot is saved in jpeg format only. The pair of shots used to create the HDR photo, if you opt to save them, are saved in raw format when you shoot in raw format. Because there are two shots taken to create the HDR photo, this technique only works for static subjects and you’ll need to use a tripod. HDR Overlay, assigned to the ‘i’ menu It’s possible, of course, to use any camera to take a series of photos with different exposures and then combine them using an editor. The HDR Overlay technique, however, makes this really easy and nearly instant. Access HDR Overlay from the Photo Shooting menu HDR on/off, intensity, and optional saving of shot pair creating the file HDR mode On/Off, single HDR, or stay in HDR mode There are options to activate HDR mode and then remain in HDR mode (series) or else immediately exit HDR mode (single photo) after getting the shot. Assign HDR strength or let the camera choose (Auto) You might think that it would be optimal to let the camera decide on how strong to make the HDR shot, but I found the ‘Auto’ setting to be nearly useless. I almost always use the ‘High’ setting for the best effect, but your own taste may differ from mine. For combining the raw shot pair into an HDR shot using an editor, I usually prefer to select the ‘Extra high’ setting. I don’t think the camera-generated jpeg HDR shot using ‘Extra high’ looks very realistic. No HDR, HDR Auto, and HDR High (left to right) In the jpeg examples above, the left-hand shot shows how the light areas are blown out and shadows have very little detail. The ‘Auto’ HDR shot looks barely any different from using no HDR at all. The ‘High’ HDR shot has tamed the blown highlights and really brings out shadow detail, too. Jpeg HDR Extra high vs Capture One HDR DNG from raw shots (right) The in-camera jpeg HDR ‘Extra High’ setting tends to make that faky HDR look with distorted tones. Taking the same pair of raw-format shots and merging them into HDR using the Capture One editor, I was able to create a DNG-format shot that looks much more realistic. Note that the bright areas aren’t nearly as blown-out, while the shadow areas are more detailed, too. To get the best quality, I use the option to “Save individual pictures (RAW)”. I use the HDR jpeg shot that gets created in-camera as just quick feedback. In one of my favorite editors, Capture One, I select the pair of saved raw shots and then choose the feature “Merge to HDR”. I alter highlights, shadows, black level, white level, and exposure in the DNG-format merged HDR shot to get the lighting effect that I want. I can always equal or exceed the visual quality of the in-camera HDR jpeg shot using the Capture One editor, and the HDR result is DNG format instead of jpeg to boot. If you’re in a hurry, the jpeg HDR shots are totally usable. When you’ve got the time, it’s always best to combine the saved raw-format shots into an HDR shot using a good editor. Also note that editors such as Capture One are capable of auto-aligning the raw shots while merging them into HDR. This means that you can take the shots hand-held and not need to use a tripod. The in-camera jpeg HDR shot would be ruined without a steady camera, but the raw shots can still be combined without a problem in an editor. I keep the HDR Overlay assigned to my ‘i’ menu, so that I don’t have to go searching for it inside the menu system. The HDR Overlay feature makes it really quick and easy to get the shot pair needed to later generate quality HDR photos, and the auto-generated jpeg shot looks pretty good as well (if you use a tripod). Most subjects get handled just fine with combining a pair of exposures. It’s of course possible to just manually take multiple shots at different exposures (like 4 or 5) while using a tripod and combine them using an editor. Many Nikons also have an “Auto bracketing” feature, where you can select “AE” mode (auto-exposure), the number of shots to bracket, and the number of stops of exposure to change between each shot. This is a bit more tedious, and you won’t get any jpeg shot for feedback, either. With these techniques, it’s mandatory to use an editor to combine the shots. You’ll probably have to resort to methods like these for really extreme brightness ranges. Used Bracketing (5 shots, 2 stops between shots) and Capture One As shown above, with an extreme brightness range you’ll need more than two shots. The shot above combined 5 shots at -4EV, -2EV, 0EV, +2EV, +4EV beyond normal exposure. This allows the outdoors to get properly exposed along with the indoors. I merged the 5 shots using Capture One. Remember, the best-looking HDR shots don’t look like they’re HDR. They just look like normal.

Here’s a great use of the ‘pixel-shift’ feature, such as what’s available on my Nikon Z8 camera. Pixel shift is only advertised to create high-resolution shots, but here’s something that is just as useful. Camera manufacturers that offer pixel-shift capabilities on some of their models include Fuifilm, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, and Hasselblad. I tested making some shots at really, really, high ISO values. Normally, I don’t ever go there, because the quality is so terrible at extremely high ISOs. Sometimes, for instance shooting after dark, you would really like to be able to crank up the ISO to capture whatever tiny sliver of light that exists. The digital camera sensor gets moved by fractions of a pixel in each subsequent shot during pixel-shift shooting. Special software can then combine these pixel-shifted shots together to enhance both resolution and image noise. I did some testing using my Meike 85mm f/1.8 lens at f/2.8 on my Nikon Z8 camera. ISO 25,600 raw-format crop from Nikon Z8: looks terrible The shot above is an extreme crop from a shot taken 5.455 meters away. I shot from this distance to force some of the bars in the label to basically disappear, due to the high ISO and resulting image noise. ISO 25,600 pixel-shift shot using 32 photos: Amazing The same distance, without any re-focus, was used for my 32-shot pixel-shift shot shown above. There’s hardly any image noise, even without using my usual noise-removal software Topaz Photo. I combined the 32 shots using the Nikon NX Studio, which made an ‘NEFX’ format. The NEFX is short for “NEF-extended”. I converted the NEFX format shot into DNG using Adobe DNG Converter, which then allows me to process the shot further in almost any photo editor. This pixel-shifted photo is 11,008 X 16,512 resolution, or 181MB. Now I got greedy. What would happen at ISO 102,400?? ISO 102,400 raw-format from Nikon Z8: Awful A single raw-format shot from the 32-shot sequence at ISO 102,400 looks horrible, as expected. The text can’t be read, and the bar-code wouldn’t be able to be successfully scanned. ISO 102,400 pixel-shift shot using 32 photos Incredibly, the ISO 102,400 32-shot pixel-shifted photo looks pretty good. Again, this shot is un-retouched without any noise removal or sharpening applied. Pixel-shift photography costs quite a bit in terms of disk storage; a typical 32-shot NEFX shot by itself is 916 MB. After converting into DNG format, the size shrinks down to 683 MB. Huge. I generally delete the individual raw-format shots comprising the pixel-shift shot after creating my NEFX photo. After converting NEFX into DNG, I can then also delete the NEFX shot. ISO 102,400 at E.V. -3.4, 1/10s f/2.8 85mm lens The shot above was done in extremely low light, where your eyes could barely see anything. Grain is just plain terrible at this ISO. Pixel-shift 32 shots, ISO 102,400 at E.V. -3.4, 1/10s f/2.8 85mm lens The 32-shot pixel-shift at ISO 102,400 shown above just looks like a “normal” shot. You’d never know that it was shot basically in the dark. Also, this photo hasn’t had any editor processing to enhance sharpness or remove any image noise. Some noise removal and sharpening, ISO 102,400 with 32-shot pixel-shift I used Topaz Photo on the shot, and the results are shown above. I used ‘strong noise removal’ and ‘standard sharpening’. Aside from a few hot pixels (easy to rid with a healing brush), most people would be none the wiser about the extreme conditions under which this photo was taken. This kind of photography is definitely niche, but if you really, really need to shoot a (static) subject at a super-high ISO, here’s a technique that’s unbeatable. It isn’t some subtle enhancement; it’s night-and-day different.

Image resolution is generally considered to be unaffected by the ISO being used. This assumption has always left me feeling slightly uncomfortable. I have always used ‘normal’ ISO ranges when evaluating lens resolution (typically between 100 and 400), because it doesn’t make sense to do an analysis outside of typical shooting conditions. I have had a suspicion that extremely high ISO’s would eventually cause a plunge in measured resolution, and what follows are some typical results from those tests. Spoiler: I didn’t get what I expected to get. I’m not referring to lens resolution in my tests, because resolution measurements are a combination of camera sensor characteristics, the lens, lighting, and (possibly?) the ISO in use. Years ago, I had done some tests with resolution-versus-ISO, but I stopped at ISO 6400, since my camera at that time had severely degraded image quality even at ISO 3200. Through that modest ISO range, there wasn’t much of a change in measured resolution. Modern sensors are really, really good, and when I use Topaz Photo AI for noise reduction I get impeccable results at high ISO’s. I did the following tests using my Nikon Z8 with the Meike 85mm f/1.8 lens, shooting at f/2.8. I use the MTFMapper program to measure the resolution, and my resolution target is 42”X57”, or 107cm X 145cm. I used a wired shutter release, and my mirrorless camera doesn’t suffer from mirror or shutter vibrations to affect sharpness even at low shutter speeds. I also keep IBIS active, which works well even on a tripod. After I focused the lens on the resolution target, I took each (raw) photo after only adjusting the ISO value, and never re-focused. For the measurements, I used the unedited raw shots. Resolution target, ISO 400 (left) and ISO 51200 (right) Sample shots of the annotated resolution target are shown above after processing in the MTFMapper program. These are two shots out of the 11 shots taken, ranging from ISO 100 through 51200. The little trapezoids in the target get measured on all 4 sides, with the MTF50 measurement overlaid on the edge, displayed in “line pairs per millimeter” units. Resolution plots, ISO 400 (left) and ISO 51200 (right) Resolution plots were made for each shot. You would think that the plots would look more similar than they do, since the focus wasn’t changed in any of the shots. I had expected to see a plunge in the resolution at the extreme ISO 51200 shot, but that isn’t what happened. I did a series of tests, where I refocused before each series, and each time I got similar measurement results and trends to what is shown above. Zoom in on same target location, ISO 400 (left) and ISO 51200 (right) The left side shows ISO 400 measurements at the same location in the target as the right side, which was shot at ISO 51200. The ISO 400 shot got an MTF50 measurement of 74.6 lp/mm on the same edge that got a measurement of 85.9 lp/mm in the ISO 51200 shot. The ISO 51200 shot looks darker, but theoretically that should reduce contrast/resolution instead of increasing it. So much for my theory that the measured resolution would plunge at extremely high ISO’s! The high ISO shots start getting pretty noisy, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem in regards to measured resolution. For this lens, the sagittal (wheel spoke) direction is much sharper than the meridional direction when you get away from the lens center. At this point, I need to mention the “Nyquist Limit”, which limits the camera sensor resolution according to the pixel density. For my Nikon Z8/Z9 sensors, this limit is (8280pixels / 35.9mm)/2 or 115.5 lp/mm. Another factor, called the “Kell Factor”, takes into account the space between the light-sensitive portions of the pixels. This Kell factor is 0.7, so the practical sensor resolution is (115.5 * 0.7) or 80.85 lp/mm. Any resolution measurements higher than 80.85 lp/mm are considered unreliable for this sensor. Web sites that quote resolution measurements beyond 80.85 lp/mm for a lens measured using a camera sensor equivalent to the Nikon Z8/Z9 should be considered suspect. Peak MTF50 measurement at each ISO I noted the highest MTF50 measurement in each shot of the target, and plotted the result. There was a clear pattern of increased resolution as ISO was increased, which is exactly opposite of what I would have expected. At lower ISO’s, the resolution change is actually pretty minimal as the ISO changes. As ISO increases, the resolution seems to climb at an accelerating pace instead of falling off of a cliff. Now, it’s time to step back and do a reality check. Programs that measure resolution do so by looking at the number of pixels on the sensor required to go from the target white background to the targets’ fully-black edge. But is that really the best measure of resolution? Seimens Star, ISO 51200 (left) ISO 400 (right) I took some shots at 7.7 meters away with my 85mm lens at f/2.8 with ISO 51,200 and ISO 400. What’s shown above is the cropped portion of the photos with the Seimens Star target. This is what ‘real’ resolution looks like. Indeed, you’d have to conclude that high ISO in actual fact does ruin resolution. Current resolution-measuring software (like Imatest and MTFMapper) don’t know how to evaluate closely-spaced lines to estimate resolution, and instead depend upon measuring the pixel distance between light and dark on an edge. This ISO test shows that the edge contrast-measuring technique for determining resolution can fail spectacularly when considering high ISO. Web sites rarely specify the ISO they use when measuring lens resolution, but it looks like there’s yet another way to manipulate the results. Shooting with jpeg instead of raw format is probably the biggest fraud to artificially create better lens resolution measurements, but using a really high ISO is evidently another way. ISO 51,200 after using Topaz Photo Just for fun, I tried using Topaz Photo on the ISO 51,200 shot shown above. Still hopeless. ISO 500 versus ISO 102400, 100% crop at 15 meters For an even more extreme example, I shot a label with barcodes on it, as shown above, from 15 meters. This is an un-sharpened photo with the pixels shown at 100% magnification. You can still read the ISO 500 text and see the bars, but the ISO 102400 shot is pure garbage. Pretty outrageous that resolution-measuring software is actually happier with the 102400 shot. At extreme ISOs, the image contrast can get quite high. This high contrast is what fools the resolution software into concluding that the resolution is high, when it’s obvious that the resolution is actually terrible. If you want the best resolution, definitely stick with low ISO (even if the resolution-measurement software doesn’t think you should).

If you export a raw-format photo (e.g. Nikon NEF and also Adobe DNG) into Topaz Photo AI for editing, it will often ruin the red colors. Ironically, opening up the same raw-format shot from inside Topaz Photo AI works without any problems. This color-shift problem only happens with my Nikon Z8 and Z9 cameras, using either raw with lossless compression or raw with the HighEfficiency formats. Using raw format on, for instance, my Nikon D500 camera, the colors are fine. This problem doesn’t seem to be the fault of the photo editor you use, but with Topaz itself. I recreated the same issue using both Capture One and Lightroom. When I tried On One Photo 2023, however, the problem wasn’t there! Others have reported color shift problems to Topaz regarding the Nikon Z8, but the problem hasn’t been resolved, at least through version 1.6.1 of Topaz. A raw-format loaded directly into Topaz Photo AI looks like you expect The red/orange feather colors look just exactly like they should when a raw photo is directly loaded into Topaz Photo AI. Topaz Photo AI ‘Open’ dialog to edit a photograph The dialog shown above demonstrates browsing for a photo to open directly inside Topaz Photo AI. You could also just drag a raw file onto the Topaz desktop icon to run Topaz Photo AI with the desired shot. The raw-format photo inside Capture One looks just fine Using “Edit With”| Process with Topaz Photo (Studio) Using the dialog to send the NEF file into Topaz after converting into the DNG-format is shown above. Disaster! The red/orange colors are ruined inside Topaz Photo AI As shown above, the DNG-format file sent into Topaz Photo AI is ruined. The colors are wrong. The view above is now inside Topaz Photo AI. Using “Edit With”| Process with Topaz Photo (Studio) as TIFF Instead of choosing DNG format, tell Capture One to convert the raw photo into 16-bit TIFF format before sending it to Topaz Photo AI. Colors look correct when sending a TIFF file to Topaz from Capture One As shown above, using a non-raw format photo such as TIFF will yield correct colors inside Topaz. You can then export the edited file from Topaz, retaining the TIFF format. DNG file sent into Topaz via Lightroom: ruined colors again From inside Lightroom, using the command: File | Plug-in Extras | Process with Topaz Photo (Studio) You end up with the exact same color problem as seen when using Capture One with raw-format shots. The same ruined colors happen when Topaz opens up the raw-format DNG file that was sent from Lightroom. Using TIFF, the problem goes away. I have seen this same problem in every version of Topaz Photo Studio (latest version 4.0.4) and Topaz Photo AI (version 1.6.1). The simplest fix to this issue is to merely drag your raw-format shot(s) into Topaz or use the “File Open” dialog from inside Topaz and perform any desired editing/exporting there before opening the edited file in another photo editor for further processing. This procedure lets you keep using raw format (via the exported DNG) in subsequent editors. If you don’t mind using TIFF, then that format has no color-ruining issues while using Topaz.

Are you missing a little drama in your life? Sometime when you’re bored, here’s something you can do for entertainment. Creative Picture Controls are available for the Nikon Z cameras, even shooting in raw format. This feature can only be understood with examples. Nikon presently offers 20 options here; some are extremely subtle and some are absolutely wild. I personally prefer the wilder options, since other photo editors can easily emulate the more subtle ones. Before you try this stuff with whatever photo editor you like, a word of caution. The versions that I am using for Lightroom and Capture One don’t support these controls. Zoner Photo Studio does support them, but not when selecting the ‘Raw’ editing tab (use ‘Editor’ tab). Nikon’s free NX Studio does support this, so you can experiment without having to incur any cost. The Binary picture control To access these options, you start by going into the PHOTO SHOOTING MENU | Set Picture Control | scroll down to Creative Picture Control. These are the options (numbered 1 through 20): 1 Dream, 2 Morning, 3 Pop, 4 Sunday, 5 Somber, 6 Dramatic, 7 Silence, 8 Bleached, 9 Melancholic, 10 Pure, 11 Denim, 12 Toy, 13 Sepia, 14 Blue, 15 Red, 16 Pink, 17 Charcoal, 18 Graphite, 19 Binary, and 20 Carbon. The 19 Binary control, for instance, looks exactly like Kodak Kodalith film. I think they stopped selling Kodalith somewhere during Aristotle’s time. The 13 Sepia closely resembles old black-and-white photos that were stained using the sepia toner, but with a little twist of added color. I actually used to do this when I had a darkroom. 19 Binary picture control: like old Kodak Kodalith film 13 Sepia. Sort of like old sepia-toned black-and-white 17 Charcoal, more conventional black-and-white 6 Dramatic 5 Somber 20 Carbon 8 Bleached These controls can really make some blah scenes look pretty cool. They’re kind of like eating licorice instead of your vegetables; once in a while you should try skipping the proper adult thing to do. If you’re worried about potentially ruining a shot by choosing one of these speciality color schemes, not to worry. In NX Studio, for instance, all you have to do is change the “Picture Control” value from the “Recorded Value”, which is something like “([CV16]PINK) into something more suitable like “[NL]Neutral” or “[SD]Standard”. That’s the beauty of shooting in raw format. If you’re still uncomfortable about shooting with these unusual picture control color schemes, then you can always do the job totally inside the editor, instead. In NX Studio, you can take your raw photo that was shot in maybe ‘Neutral’, and just select Picture Control | Creative Picture Control | [08] Bleached to perform the picture drama after the fact. What about other Nikon cameras (non-Z mount)? Using NX Studio, you can go to the Picture Control and select Latest Picture Control and then scroll down to Creative Picture Control and finally select from the same set of 20 picture controls! 3 Pop

I have tried out many features of the Topaz Photo version 1.6.0. Overall, it works very well. I have found, however, a few problems with it. The version 1.6.0 of Topaz Photo seems to have fixed the “Dust & Scratch” version 2 feature, and seems to do a really good job. Prior to this version, the program would leave some strange blotches in the picture. Don’t try this feature unless you have a really, really fast GPU, however, because it will take forever to complete. Dust and Scratch: before (left) and after (right) As shown above, all of the little spots of dust on the bird were automatically removed without having to guide the program in any way. ‘Remove v2’ fails after ‘Spot Heal’ I found a severe bug while using the combination of the “Spot Heal”, followed by the “Remove v2” feature, where the “enhanced” view will cause the enhanced image to be completely black. You can only see the image by clicking the little ‘eye’ icon to go back to the “Show Original” view. ‘Remove v2’ when not using ‘Spot Heal’ works well In the example above, I got rid of a distracting leaf in front of the bird using ‘Remove v2’. It worked very well in making the leaf disappear like magic; artificial intelligence is really remarkable. Red colors get shifted to orange with Nikon Z8 and Z9 raw format I still have the problem when sending a DNG-format into Topaz from another editor, where the bright red/orange colors get ruined. Using Topaz stand-alone with raw images doesn’t have this problem. Sending the image as 16-bit TIFF instead of DNG also works. This color-shift problem only happens with my Nikon Z8 and Z9 cameras, using either raw with lossless compression or raw with the ‘High Efficiency’ formats. Others have reported color shift problems to Topaz regarding the Nikon Z8, but the problem hasn’t been solved. DeNoise ‘Strong’, ISO 8000 The denoise feature is still world-class. In this Nikon Z8 example, I had to send the raw photo converted into 16-bit TIFF format from Capture One into Topaz for editing in order to retain correct colors. I could have directly used my Nikon Z8 NEF raw format if I just used the Topaz Photo stand-alone instead. Sharpen ‘Standard’ Sharpening is excellent, too. Be aware that Topaz will probably automatically place a mask on what it considers the subject and only sharpen that. You can always alter the mask, or tell it to sharpen everything. There are many types of sharpening that you can select, including an option to counteract image motion smear. ‘Spot Heal’ is simple The built-in intelligence in ‘Spot Heal’ works well; it figures out how to blend using AI. Just don’t combine this feature with ‘Remove v2’! Adjust lighting (and color) There are 3 versions available for lighting (plus color) adjustment, which includes automatic adjustment and sliders to customize it to taste. There’s also a separate control called ‘Balance color’ to adjust the color temperature, along with masking options. Be aware that using ‘Adjust lighting’ or ‘Balance color’ will then prohibit you from exporting the edited photo as DNG. Before and after Topaz I had to do a two-pass edit in Topaz to avoid the ‘Dust/Scratch/Remove v2’ bug. I also had to use TIFF editing instead of DNG to avoid the red-shift bug. High ISO shot after Topaz denoise and sharpening Enough features to be a one-stop editor? There are enough image manipulation options in Topaz Photo that some people might just use this program for all of their editing. Summary I’m willing to tolerate the shortcomings in Topaz Photo to get the fantastic end results. I’m hopeful that a future version can fix up these bugs. I will still combine use of this program with other editors, such as Lightroom and Capture One. I still need other features such as vignette control, cropping, distortion correction and image rotation.

Lenses usually behave very differently in resolving details that are in the sagittal versus meridional direction. Why is this? A target designed to separate sagittal and meridional measurements The sagittal direction is like the spokes of a wheel, pointing at the lens center (optical axis). Meridional direction is tangent to circles around the lens center. Test charts for checking resolution are available from the same site that provides the MTFMapper program, written by Frans van den Bergh. The test charts have been designed to separate out the sagittal and meridional measurements. Many of the charts also include the round ‘fiducials’ shown above, which help the program identify things like rotational errors for chart alignment issues. The name ‘sagittal’ comes from Latin, and it means “as the arrow flies”, and is meant to indicate an arrow shot from the optical axis toward a subject. That’s also why the zodiac sign of Sagittarius is the archer... The name ‘meridional’ is the same as ‘tangential’, referring to the meridional plane. MTF50 plot separating out sagittal and meridional measurements The pair of plots above show the measurements from a resolution target separated into meridional and sagittal. It’s obvious that the sagittal measurements are better than the meridional measurements throughout the photo. Typical MTF50 resolution measurements (lp/mm) In the image above, MTF50 resolution measurements are overlaid on the resolution target. The black trapezoid edges that are nearly vertical above are in the meridional direction, while the near-horizontal edges are sagittal (pointing toward the center of focus). Notice how all of the meridional measurements shown are much lower than the sagittal measurements. The lens optics are fairly weak in the meridional direction. This is very typical of camera lenses; very few lenses are equally adept at resolution in both directions. So, why are lenses sensitive to the direction of edges (light rays)? One of the main culprits in lenses is called ‘oblique astigmatism’, which causes the sagittal and meridional rays to focus at slightly different distances when off-axis from the lens center. Decentering or tilting of lens elements during assembly can exaggerate sagittal/meridional differences. Even a very tiny slop in manufacturing tolerances can yield assembly variation causing astigmatism, and the problem worsens the further you get from the lens axis. Designers favor making lenses that have better sagittal than meridional resolution, since they usually have to choose. Visually, lenses appear sharper with good sagittal resolution compared to equivalent meridional resolution. Light rays in the meridional direction cross many more lens element boundaries at steep angles, compared to sagittal light rays. Lenses with coma also affect meridional light rays more than sagittal. Meridional light rays are refracted more steeply, and this causes the image to get focused closer to the lens. Sagittal light rays pass through the lens at a flatter angle, and therefore focus further from the lens. Designers try to account for this effect, but the inevitable slight astigmatism in lenses usually causes the meridional rays to focus less well than the sagittal rays. All of these effects are just generalizations, and there are cases where lens designs actually cause meridional rays to focus better than sagittal rays. Designers are constantly faced with a very complicated balancing act. What to do? Not unsurprisingly, the resolution in both directions will get improved by stopping down the lens, and usually the meridional direction will improve slightly faster than the sagittal direction. Web sites that evaluate lens resolution almost never mention the differences between the meridional and sagittal resolution, or even discuss that such a thing exists. The best they will do is show the MTF ‘contrast’ plots, which are usually just a theoretical line plot of sagittal and meridional contrast. I think it’s important that the measurements are segregated from each other to better understand how a lens really performs. A single “edge resolution” measurement, for instance, is almost meaningless.

I have read some really glowing reviews of the Rokinon (Samyang) AF 85mm f/1.4 lens. They made it sound like it was better than my Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AF-S G lens in every respect. I respectfully disagree with most of what I have read. I only have a single copy of this lens, but I would regard it as pretty disappointing. Rokinon 85mm f/1.4 on Nikon Z8 (with FTZ II adapter) Rokinon AF 85mm f/1.4 with AF/MF switch Rokinon AF 85mm f/1.4 with bayonet hood You buy an f/1.4 lens for its bright aperture and narrow focus depth. In the testing that follows, you’ll see that at f/1.4 it has terrible resolution, noticeable lateral chromatic aberration, red/green longitudinal chromatic aberration (LoCA), and huge spherical aberration. The lens looks nice, it feels solid, and the focus is smooth. It just doesn’t perform where it counts. By f/5.6, the lens is fine; unfortunately, this isn’t why somebody buys an f/1.4 lens. Specifications 9 elements in 7 groups, with 1 aspherical element 77mm filter thread 0.9 meter minimum focus 480 grams Dual Linear Sonic Motor focus Metal construction Weather sealed 9 rounded aperture blades, with minimum aperture f/16 Rokinon 85mm at f/1.4 on Nikon Z8 If you’re not very concerned about being sharp at f/1.4, then this lens could work for you. Backgrounds melt away just fine. Note that there is some color fringing around the out-of-focus edges of the neutral gray vase. Eye at f/1.4 (left), f/2.0 and f/2.8 (right) at 200% magnification Eye at f/4.0 (left) and f/5.6 (right) at 200% magnification Eye with sharpening at f/1.4 (left) and f/5.6 (right) Even with sharpening (I used Topaz Photo Studio), you can’t get sharp shots at f/1.4. If you like the wide-open effect, however, then this lens might work for you. Resolution Measurements This lens has some very unusual sharpness results. The location of maximum sharpness does some traveling around when the aperture is changed. Wide open, the lens looks like it has tilt to it, but smaller apertures make it go away. I consider a lens to look sharp at an MTF50 of about 30 lp/mm. This lens has some sharp aspects starting at f/2.0, but the edges are mostly dismal. MTF contrast f/1.4 actual measurement versus Rokinon claims The measured contrast results aren’t even close to the ‘theoretical’ predictions. I have included the 50 lp/mm measurements, besides the traditional 10 lp/mm and 30 lp/mm. f/1.4 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 29.0 lp/mm Sharpest results are at the bottom edge, in the sagittal direction. Very unusual. Not really sharp anywhere. f/2.0 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 36.1 lp/mm Sharpest results are still at the bottom edge, in the sagittal direction. Only a sliver of acceptable sharpness in the lens midsection. f/2.8 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 54.9 lp/mm f/4.0 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 55.3 lp/mm Now, the sharpest location has shifted to the top of the lens. This is the lens sharpest aperture. Still dismal results on the edges. f/5.6 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 54.3 lp/mm The sharpest zone is finally moving toward the lens center. The meridional direction is finally starting to sharpen. Edges are starting to become acceptable. f/8.0 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 52.4 lp/mm f/11.0 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 46.7 lp/mm f/16.0 MTF50 Results. Maximum is 37.9 lp/mm Field curvature 85mm f/1.4 field curvature It looks like there’s just slight field curvature.The red/green hue is indicative of the lens longitudinal chromatic aberration, with purple/red in the front and green behind the focused subject. Londitudinal Chromatic Aberration (LoCA) LoCA is noticeable: purple/red in front, green behind f/1.4 Longitudinal chromatic aberration is definitely there at f/1.4, but not terrible. Lateral Chromatic Aberration (CA) Lateral Chromatic Aberration (CA) will be noticed at f/1.4 9 lens elements in 7 groups, courtesy of Rokinon Bokeh Cat’s eye out-of-focus lights, not objectionable, f/1.4 Out-of-focus highlights are brighter around the edges, but not too severe. They seem slightly asymmetric, too. Vignetting and Distortion f/1.4 fairly heavy vignetting, but minimal distortion Spherical Aberration Spherical aberration causes focus shift I drew arrows showing how the center of focus changes as the lens gets stopped down. The lens was focused at f/1.4, and then subsequent shots were taken while only changing the aperture. Focus keeps moving away from the camera, caused by spherical aberration. This effect is very common for fast lenses. It shows how you need to focus at the shooting aperture to nail correct focus. f/5.6 looks sharp and vignetting has disappeared Summary This lens was a big disappointment, primarily due to its poor resolution. The edges of the frame are particularly bad until f/8. It’s always possible that I got the proverbial ‘bad copy’. I’m definitely not going to get another one just to see if that’s true. Needless to say, I got rid of this lens; I felt too guilty to actually sell it, so gave it away.

I tested this lens on a Nikon Z8 and Z9 camera with the Z mount, but the same optics are available for E, Z, L, and RF camera mounts. This is a full-frame lens with manual focus. This lens is only 0.23 stops slower than the fast f/0.95 lenses, such as the Nikkor 58mm f/0.95 Noct Z-mount and Leica 50mm Noctilux-M f/0.95 lenses. That Leica lens is selling for over $14,000 U.S.! This all-metal lens weighs just 632 grams, is 70mm diameter, and 84mm long. It’s a little larger than typical 50mm lenses. For comparison, the Nikkor 58mm f/0.95 Noct lens weighs 2000 grams, 153mm long, 102mm diameter, and it’s also manual focus without any built-in anti-vibration. Also note that the Noct costs about 26X more than this lens. There aren’t any electronics in this lens, so your camera has to be configured with “Non-CPU Lens Data” in the Setup menu. This will allow the camera IBIS system to correctly handle anti-vibration, and to know the lens maximum aperture. Unfortunately, the file EXIF data won’t record the aperture in use. Camera IBIS systems are good enough that in-lens vibration reduction features aren’t really much of a priority anymore. With really fast lenses like this one at f/1.05, I’d recommend that you shoot in ‘continuous’ mode when hand-holding and the focused subject is near the camera. The focus plane gets razor thin, and missed focus is really common. This way, you can just delete the missed-focus shots after the fact. For critical focus, it’s highly recommended that you configure your camera to use focus-peaking at “low sensitivity”, which is also the most accurate. I also programmed my camera “fn2” button for “Zoom on/off” at 100%. This way, I can toggle between normal magnification and high magnification for critical focus at the touch of a button. The Z9 and Z8 let you go all the way up to 200% zoom, if desired. Even at 100% zoom, the focus-peaking still works at f/1.05. The focus ring rotates about 135 degrees, which is a little tough to fine-tune focus when zoomed in at 100%. There’s no weather sealing, so stay out of the rain. And never, ever photograph those festivals where they throw colored powder at each other. Brightin Star 50mm f/1.05 with 15-blade aperture on Nikon Z8 Who makes lenses with 15 aperture blades? Even the Nikkor 58mm Noct lens only has 11 blades. You’ll need to look at the aperture scale on the top of the lens to set the aperture. The aperture ring is continuous (no clicks) and only stops down as far as f/11. The lens uses 58mm filters. You don’t get a lens hood included with this lens, but you can buy cheap screw-on hoods. I got a screw-on lens hood that has 82mm threads on its front end that accepts my 82mm filters and 82mm lens caps. I always keep the lens hood on while shooting. Lens aperture has no-click and range of f/1.05 through f/11.0 The lens focus scale shown above lets you focus down to 0.557 meters, where the lens front is 0.443 meters from the subject (which I measured). Both the focus ring (toward the lens rear) and the aperture ring (near the lens front) are pure metal with a black anodized coating. It takes a little getting used to the no-click aperture, although most of the time I leave the aperture parked at f/1.05. You need to look at the lens top to set the aperture. Spherical Aberration Most high-speed lenses suffer from spherical aberration. This effect causes focus to shift as you change the lens aperture. This Brightin Star has a very slight spherical aberration, and focus shifts away from the camera as you stop down. Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration (LoCA) LoCA at f/1.04 (top) versus f/2.8 (bottom) This lens has moderate LoCA when the lens aperture is wide-open, and it almost disappears by the time you stop down to f/2.8. The bright neutral subject fringes are reddish in front of the focused subject and greenish behind the focused subject. Lateral Chromatic Aberration The worst lateral chromatic aberration (CA) this lens exhibits is at f/1.05, where it has about a 5 micron shift. This is minor, but visible. You can correct for this in photo editors. Lens Elements Lens elements, via Brightin Star web site The lens has 10 elements in 8 groups. If that sounds complicated, the Nikkor 58mm f/0.95 Noct Z lens has 17 elements in 10 groups! Distortion There’s a very, very slight barrel distortion. I have never bothered to correct for it when editing, because it’s ignorable. Infrared This lens can be used for infrared, although it starts showing central flare when stopped down. At wide apertures, it’s just fine. The central light spot starts appearing at f/4 (using 850nm IR) depending upon your subject. At shorter infrared wavelengths, you should see fewer problems. I like shooting with very long IR wavelengths, including 850nm. 850nm infrared at f/1.05 850nm infrared at f/5.6 doesn’t have any central hot spot. Some subjects start to show a hot spot by f/5.6, but most don’t. MTF Contrast Plot Brightin Star claimed MTF versus my measured MTF The upper plot, from the Brightin Star website, shows their theoretical MTF contrast (at 10,20,30 lp/mm). I measured the MTF contrast at f/1.05 myself, at 10,30, and 50 lp/mm which I show in the lower plot. Reality is a tough mistress. Cat’s Eye Out-of-focus lights show typical cat’s eye. f/1.05 I really like the bokeh from this lens. It’s very easy on the eyes. Field Curvature Field curvature: none Photoshop "Find Edges" feature Flat lawn grass shot at f/1.05 was processed in Photoshop. This is a very effective way to visualize if the plane of focus stays flat or not. This lens shows no noticeable field curvature. Sharpness versus aperture f /1.05 edge-to-edge sharpness The small subjects above were shot at about 1 meter, including the left and right frame edges to observe loss of acuity on the frame edges. This lens did pretty well across the frame. Note how shallow the plane of focus is. Central sharpness crop at f/1.05, f/1.4, f/2.0 (top-to-bottom) Just looking up close at the middle bird in these crops. Central sharpness crop at f/2.8, f/4.0, f/5.6 (top-to-bottom) Even wide-open, this lens is acceptably sharp. It just keeps getting sharper as you stop down. Even the small fibers are resolved at f/1.05. Contrast takes a jump going from f/1.05 to f/1.4. Brightin Star 50mm f/1.05 1/200s ISO 140 Crop from the shot above The whiskers of this bunny are sharp, even though I shot it at f/1.05. Super skinny depth of focus. Bokeh Brightin Star 50mm f/1.05 1/500s ISO 64 The background melts away quite nicely. Resolution Tests f/1.05 MTF50 lp/mm peak values: Mid 35.4, Edge 35.0, Corner 26.1 There is a small amount of barrel distortion, which is easily corrected in an editor if it bothers you. The resolution chart photo shows what the vignetting at f/1.05 looks like. Again, this moderate vignetting can be easily corrected with an editor. I have always maintained that lenses start looking sharp at about 30 lp/mm, so this lens passes that criteria even at f/1.05. Corners are still slightly blurry, though. f/1.4 MTF50 lp/mm peak values: Mid 38.0, Edge 39.6, Corner 23.5 f/2.0 MTF50 lp/mm peak values: Mid 41.4, Edge 45.5, Corner 33.1 Starting at f/2.0, the corners are now acceptable. f/2.8 MTF50 lp/mm peak values: Mid 63.2, Edge 55.9, Corner 54.7 f/4.0 MTF50 lp/mm peak values: Mid 68.8, Edge 67.7, Corner 66.1 This is the sharpest aperture in general, but f/5.6 is about the same. f/5.6 MTF50 lp/mm peak values: Mid 68.2, Edge 68.1, Corner 64.9 f/8.0 MTF50 lp/mm peak values: Mid 63.1, Edge 61.8, Corner 61.2 Sample shots 50mm f/1.05 1/125s ISO 8000 50mm f/1.05 1/80s ISO 8000 A very rare 1936 Chrysler Imperial Airflow Sedan. These were actually designed with the help of a wind tunnel. Shot in very dim lighting. 50mm f/2.8 1/25s ISO 8000 Those 15 aperture blades make really nice subtle spikes on lights (with 30 spikes). No coma observed; just some bunnies doing lawn maintenance. 50mm f/1.05 0.5s ISO 8000, extremely dim lighting Summary I really enjoy shooting with this lens. Manual focus isn’t that much of a hardship when using focus-peaking combined with my camera’s zoom-toggle function button assignment. It’s liberating to be able to shoot in the dimmest of conditions. The corners of the images aren’t sharp wide-open, but that’s rarely a problem. Given the price of this lens, the optical performance is really remarkable. I’m not claiming that this lens is on the same level as the $8,000 Nikkor 58mm f/0.95 Noct or the $14,000 Leica 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux-M, but you could probably get this lens along with a used car to drive it around in for the same price. I have no idea about the manufacturing quality control that Brightin Star has, but this particular lens is a keeper.

In what should be a surprise to nobody, companies that make camera lenses have started turning to Artificial Intelligence for their designs. Have you ever wondered how modern lenses are getting so much sharper and lighter than even a few years ago? Figuring out how to combine pieces of glass to create a lens of a particular focal length (or a zoom) is unbelievably complicated. Until computers were available to help lens designers, camera lenses were really, really, bad. It used to take teams of lens designers many years to come up with a viable lens. They would have to begin by imagining the number, shape, and composition of the lens elements, and then do light ray-tracing calculations to find out if a decent image would get rendered onto the film or sensor. It was many decades before anybody even attempted a zoom lens design. It was another few decades before serious photographers would even consider buying a zoom lens. Nowadays, some zooms are within a whisker of being just as good as a fixed focal length lens. Combine lenses to rid chromatic aberrations (Image courtesy of phys.libretexts.org ) A typical equation used in light ray-tracing (Courtesy of phys.libretexts.org ) Try to imagine performing calculations like what’s shown above millions of times over as you adjust multiple lens element shapes, spacing, and glass materials with different refractive indices. It’s miraculous that any decent lenses exist at all. Next, consider focus. The light rays shown above no longer come into the lens in parallel, because the subject isn’t at infinity. For near objects, the light rays come in more like a cone, with the peak of the light cone at the subject. The lenses now require some moving elements to focus things that aren’t at infinity. A near subject: more complicated (Courtesy of http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/ ) Notice the “lensmaker’s equation” above has some “R” terms, that assume the lens shapes are slices from a perfect sphere with a well-defined radius. Modern lenses usually include aspherical shapes, with complicated functions replacing the simple “R” terms. Now, a designer’s job just got a whole lot tougher. Fresnel lens (courtesy EdmundOptics.com ) I’m predicting that in the future, companies will come out with lenses comprised mostly (entirely?) of fresnel lenses, including negative fresnel lenses (with concentric rings of troughs in glass instead of raised rings in the glass) and even the equivalent of aspherical fresnel lenses, where the concentric rings aren’t all the same height. This type of lens could be extremely light and well-corrected. Talk is cheap, however, since I have no idea how difficult it would be to manufacture the precision ‘troughs’ in glass. Companies and research efforts are increasingly incorporating AI (including machine learning and deep learning techniques) into ray tracing for camera lens design, simulation, and optimization. This isn't yet ubiquitous in every major lens manufacturer like Canon, Nikon, or Sony for their consumer camera lenses (based on public info), but it's an active and growing area in optical design software, specialized firms, and academic/industry collaborations. Ray tracing is the standard method for simulating how light rays propagate through lenses to evaluate aberrations, image quality, etc. Traditional ray tracing in tools like Zemax (now Ansys OpticStudio ), CODE V ( Synopsys ), or LightTools is computationally intensive, especially for complex systems or high-volume optimizations. AI helps by: Accelerating simulations (e.g., via differentiable ray tracing, where gradients enable faster optimization). Automating lens design (inverse design: specify desired performance, and AI proposes lens configurations). Enabling end-to-end optimization that combines optics with computational imaging (e.g., pairing lenses with AI post- processing). Here are some key examples of companies and approaches involved: Paraxial Optics offers an AI-powered optical design platform that uses differentiable ray tracing and hybrid AI tolerancing, claiming 10–100× faster workflows for optical engineers designing lenses and systems. Peak Nano developed HawkAI, a prompt-driven AI tool that leverages machine learning to test millions of lens permutations, configurations, and materials for optimized prescriptions—aimed at revolutionizing optics design while integrating with traditional tools. 3DOptix provides an optics simulation platform with GPU ray tracing and an "Optics AI search copilot" for design assistance. Anax Optics specializes in automated optical design using inverse ray tracing, topological optimization, and AI. Larger players like Ansys (Zemax OpticStudio) and Synopsys (CODE V, etc.) support advanced ray tracing for lens design, and the field is evolving toward AI integration (e.g., for optimization and multiphysics simulations), though not always strictly branded as "AI ray tracing." Research institutions have produced methods like DeepLens, which uses deep learning and differentiable ray tracing to autonomously design lenses (including computational ones with extended depth-of-field) from flat surfaces—highlighting AI's potential to transform refractive optics design. Tools like NVIDIA's OptiX enable GPU-accelerated ray tracing used in scientific optical modeling (including camera/lens sims). GPU hardware will immensely improve the speed of modeling, to allow vastly more what-if efforts. Artificial intelligence is a hot frontier in optics—AI doesn't fully replace expert designers yet , but it's making ray-tracing-based lens work faster, more automated, and accessible. The camera companies that most fully adopt artificial intelligence are going to be the winners, while companies that ignore this approach or wait too long to adopt it are doomed to wither and die.

Here’s a tool that applies sophisticated technology to remove atmospheric haze from your landscapes and bring out details in images that are severely back-lit. RawTherapee is a free editor found here . RawTherapee is an editor meant for raw-format photos. If your camera raw format isn’t supported (it uses the LibRaw library), then use the free Adobe DNG Converter to make a DNG file that it can use. A hazy valley Retinex in RawTherapee is an advanced image processing tool based on the Retinex theory  (short for Retina + Cortex). It models how the human visual system perceives color and lightness under varying lighting conditions, such as poor light, colored surroundings, or atmospheric haze/fog. What It Does The human eye adapts well to uneven lighting and haze, but cameras often produce flat, veiled, or low-contrast results. Retinex tries to mimic this biological adaptation by analyzing the image at multiple spatial scales (MultiScale Retinex or MSR algorithm). It estimates the "illumination" component of the scene and removes or reduces its uneven effects. This leads to better local contrast, restored details in shadows and highlights, reduced haze/veil, and more natural-looking colors without globally shifting the overall tone. In practice, it acts like a sophisticated local tone mapper  or dehaze tool . It can: Cut through atmospheric haze or fog. Reveal hidden details in backlit or high-dynamic-range scenes. Improve perceived depth and separation in flat-looking images. Preserve original colors better than some other contrast-boosting tools (unless you deliberately adjust chroma). It is not a simple brightness/contrast slider — it works by comparing each pixel to its neighbors across different scales (similar in concept to a Difference of Gaussians). Where to Find Retinex in RawTherapee Main pipeline  — Advanced tab → Retinex (appears early in the processing chain, right after demosaicing). Local Adjustments (Selective Editing / RT-spots) — Available as Dehaze & Retinex or Soft Light & Original Retinex (with simplified controls in some modes). There is also a version integrated with Wavelets (in older branches or specific panels) for more complex control. Common Uses Dehazing — Especially effective on landscape photos with atmospheric veil (e.g., distant mountains, foggy scenes). Recovering details in high-contrast or backlit scenes without creating an artificial "HDR look" (when used moderately). Local contrast enhancement that feels more natural than global curves or simple clarity sliders. Astronomy or medical-style enhancement (revealing faint structures), though most users apply it to everyday photography. Key Controls (in the main Retinex tool) Strength / Gain / Offset — Controls the overall intensity. Variance / Threshold  — Affects how aggressively local differences are enhanced. Transmission map  — Central to the algorithm (represents the estimated haze/illumination layer); you can adjust its curve for finer control. Chroma slider (in some RawTherapee versions) — Lets you decide whether to affect color saturation along with luminance. Method options (e.g., normal vs. inverse). There is also a Local Retinex  in selective editing with fewer sliders but applied later in the pipeline. Tips for Best Results Start with low-to-moderate strength to avoid halo artifacts or unnatural looks. Combine with Haze Removal (Detail tab) for stronger dehaze effects. Use alongside Wavelets (for multi-scale contrast) or Local Adjustments for targeted application. It works best on RAW files but can be used on JPEG/TIFF too. Watch for noise amplification in shadows — pair it with good noise reduction. Retinex vs. Similar Tools in RawTherapee Haze Removal  — Simpler dedicated dehaze. Tone Equalizer / Log Encoding — More modern tone-mapping approaches. Wavelets / Local Contrast — Good for detail-level contrast but less "perceptual" than Retinex. Dynamic Range Compression  — More global. Processed with Retinex. looks washed-out but less haze. Add Retinex to rid haze Add saturation, lighten shadows, increase color temperature In the same ‘Advanced’ tab, you might want to try out “Color Appearance & Lighting”. Adjusting Chroma and Temperature can really enhance and/or recover what Retinex does to the photo. Hazy mountains Mountains with just adding Retinex defaults Just activating Retinex really clears up much of the haze. Retinex control settings for mountain shot above There are several other settings that you can play with here, but I generally just adjust the “Strength” slider. Note that there is “Process: Settings” that can be expanded in Retinex for even more control. Retinex after increasing Strength from 21 to 40 You might have noticed that there are a few undesired artifacts that have been added to the sky in the shot above, which look like faint squares. To fix this, I’d rather send the shot to another editor that has a healing brush. RawTherapee  does have a ‘Spot Removal’ feature in the Detail  tab, but fixing the sky using that tool would be very tedious. Occasionally, Retinex adds wierd artifacts that are only noticeable in blank skies. Hazy waterfall Haze Removal tool with defaults (Detail tab) For comparison purposes, the “Detail” tab offers “Haze Removal”. Haze removed using ‘Haze Removal’ tool using defaults Haze Removal using Strength 75, Depth 69, Saturation 74 'Retinex' tool instead of 'Haze Removal' tool, plus increasing color temperature Given the right kind of shot that has a lot of haze, Retinex can do a truly amazing job that looks like no other editor “dehaze” tool that I’ve used. I’m willing to put up with having to fix up some shots to get the ‘sky defect’ corrected. The Retinex tool definitely falls into the category of “niche”, but I think you’ll find that sometimes it can be golden. Using Topaz Photo AI ( or another editor )  via RawTherapee When it becomes necessary to do some extra operations in another editor outside of  RawTherapee , there’s a way to make that job easier. To process the edited photo using Topaz Photo AI , you will first need to configure the use of Topaz: Click on the ‘Equalizer’ icon to get at ‘Preferences’. Scroll down the ‘General’ tab to locate ‘External Editor’ Click Change Executable Browse to TopazPhotoAI.exe, usually located here: C:\Program Files\TopazLabsLLC\TopazPhotoAI\TopazPhotoAI.exe Assign a name, such “Topaz”. If you select Native command , then you can return back to RawTherapee after editing in Topaz. Click OK to save the assigned external editor. Finish all desired edits in RawTherapee. Click the ‘down arrow’ (bottom-left, near the ‘Save current image’ icon for ‘Edit current image in external editor’ and then select the “Topaz” or whatever you named the external editor when ‘Change Executable’ was set up. When ready, click the icon just to the left of the down-arrow, which should now be assigned to ‘Topaz’ Photo AI editor. You can also use the Ctrl+e shortcut. It should then execute Topaz and send the edited file to that editor. Export the finished photo, and then exit Topaz. Return to RawTherapee , if you want to do further editing. You can use a similar procedure to send a photo from  RawTherapee  to any other editor. To save an edited photo as a jpeg from RawTherapee , do this: Quick Single-Image Save (Recommended for one photo) Finish editing your image in the Editor  tab. Click the hard disk / Save icon  at the bottom-left of the preview area (just below the image). Or press the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + S  (Cmd + S on macOS). In the Save current image  window that appears: Choose the folder  where you want to save the file. Enter a file name  (RawTherapee will automatically add .jpg). Under File format , select JPEG . Set the Quality  slider — default is usually 92 (very good). Use 95–100  for maximum quality (larger file size). Use 85–90  for smaller files with still-good quality. Subsampling : Leave at Balanced  (or try 4:4:4 for best quality if needed). Optional: Check Automatically add a suffix if the file already exists (so it becomes photo-1.jpg, etc.). You can also choose to save the processing profile (.pp3) alongside the JPEG. Click Save immediately  (or OK ). The JPEG will be created right away in the chosen folder. Your original RAW file is never changed.

I came across a very irritating bug when I was editing some shots that were saved in the 16-bit TIF format. For photos that had saturated, shiny surfaces in them, the Capture One editor (I tried both the 22 and 23 versions) ruined them. I'm actually a big fan of Capture One, but here's a case where it does an absolutely terrible job. I generally avoid using the TIF format, mostly because of its large file size. Using LZW compression certainly helps, but the files still tend to be big. In some cases, editors force you to make files with this format to retain the best image quality that they can export. Black edges that aren’t really there on the red flowers More black edges that aren’t really there Look at the obvious black edges on the bright, shiny plastic flower above. This looks like something a really cheap digital camera from the 90s might do. This is a crop from a Capture One23 editor. The photo was loaded from a 16-bit TIF file that was using LZW compression. I tried various editor adjustments to get rid of the false black borders between shades of red-orange, but nothing really worked to eliminate it besides resorting to using the ‘healing brush’. Lightroom : no ugly black black edges on TIF ON1 editor: no ugly black edges on TIF Zoner Photo Studio editor: no ugly black edges NXStudio editor: no ugly black edges I don’t normally edit TIF images, since I deal in raw-format whenever possible. I was using some shots that were exported from my DaVinci Resolve video editor, which can’t save frames in a raw format. I saved the frames in 16-bit TIF format with LZW compression, which should still yield great quality. My Capture One editor consistently makes the shots look awful when there were are bright, saturated, shiny surfaces in them. At first, I was blaming the DaVinci Resolve program for exporting garbage. I just couldn’t find what I was doing wrong in DaVinci . Out of desperation, I tried editing the exported TIF shots in Lightroom . No problems found. I then tried various other photo editors, which all succeeded without any issues at all. Only Capture One fails. I actually have 3 versions of Capture One , and every version failed. After doing some internet searches, I found out that other photographers have noted this same problem with the Capture One editor. This is just another excellent reason to try using raw-format files whenever possible. It’s always good to have a backup editor available, too.