I eventually got to spend my halfhour on the phone with the expert from LifePixel, but I am having trouble getting my head around what he told me.

Firstly, I expected a 'shared-screen' setup, like you get with decent tech support operations, so I could demonstrate what I am getting. They can't do that, so I was left trying to explain to him the stuff I have been trying so hard to explain in this thread... The stuff he was showing me was the same as my watching one of his videos, and not a whole lot of help.

His comments:

1. You have to work in manual; if you use AV or TV, you will end up with an unrecoverable red cast... Huh? For a given exposure value, how on Earth can it matter which camera mode selected the settings? I spend 90% of my time in AV, so what difference does it make if *I* set the shutter speed, or have the camera set that same speed? I cannot for the life of me see how that can cause a different colour cast...

NONSENSE! -- You can pick your mode.

2. Lightroom is a waste of time, and cannot process these images...

Lightroom adjustments before the Channel Swap are useless. But after Channel Swap, it is fine.

3. The reason that DPP is showing the embedded jpeg instead of the raw image, is because I shot raw+jpeg... Double-huh? So, I open a .CR2 file in a program, and this program somehow deduces that there is an equivalent .jpg of this image in a different folder on my PC, and opens that file instead... ????? He said that shooting raw only should solve all my problems... Again, once that raw file is on my PC, there is no way for any software to know whether I shot a jpeg with it!

AGAIN NON-SENSE! I regularly shoot RAW + JPEG. The JPEG is for me to look at the images while in the camera. And I set the camera to B&W. I can judge what I am doing from the B&W JPEG, but RAW still records color. I normally import into Lightroom, and then channel swap in Photshop since it can be called from Lightroom. And when done, I return to Lightroom for final tweaks.

None of these points has been raised in *any* of the videos I have watched on the subject, *even* those on the LifePixel site, which I believe are narrated by him!

To be honest, I am so confused right now, that I can hardly figure out which way is up... Having been on the go since 5 this morning isn't helping any either!

I guess I need to wait for another decent weather day to shoot some more images, using manual mode and doing a custom WB. He says that using a custom WB will not work with images shot in any other mode but manual. How the software on my PC knows that is beyond me. Anyway, I have to at least *try* his method.

AGAIN NON-SENSE! You can shoot in any mode in which the camera is not going to override your manual WB setting. You need to stay away from the various names for idiot mode that the cameras offer. If you can turn a knob and make it emulate a Point n Shoot, it is not the mode you want to be in. It has to retain the custom WB mode that you set up.

Oh, and in all his years of training people, he has never seen a system where the programs (except LR & PS) will appear to open the embedded jpeg and not display the raw image. I swear that is what I have happening here, but it is impossible to prove since I can't send my raw file through email.

If you don't use Photoshop, just download the free RAW Therapee program. I find that it pays no attention to the JPEG when you tell it to open the RAW. It channel swaps just as good as Photoshop does.


None of the software methods I have seen on any of the dozens of videos I have watched over the past couple of months is any help. They all explain either DPP or the DNGProfileEditor almost as a throw-away, like "you do this, and that is the result..." Except when I do *this* I don't get *that*... If you have followed the thread, you will know what I am talking about.

I had high hopes for this session tonight, and thought he would be able to help me see what is going on. Instead, he has just thrown so many new issues out there, that my head is spinning.

Time for bed said Zebedee...

I eventually got to spend my halfhour on the phone with the expert from LifePixel,
His comments:

1. You have to work in manual; if you use AV or TV, you will end up with an unrecoverable red cast... Huh? For a given exposure value, how on Earth can it matter which camera mode selected the settings? I spend 90% of my time in AV, so what difference does it make if *I* set the shutter speed, or have the camera set that same speed? I cannot for the life of me see how that can cause a different colour cast...

The camera WB needs to be matched to green grass or green leaves. Or if you don't have any of those, just set it really low. The result is going to be a value that is down in the 2000's. If the WB is not set properly, the channel swap won't be of any value.

When the WB is set first, the channel swap will get the image very close to where you want it to be. And then after channel swap, tweak like you would any regular picture. At this point, the WB adjust in Lightroom might have to be moved a little to get the effect you want to see. But it shouldn't be very far that it has to be adjusted.

Ok, I had to run a field trip this morning, so I took my camera along in the hope of getting some sunshine. It wasn't great, but I figured it was workable.

I tried following through on what the instructor told me to do, pretty much. He was adamant that it had to be shot in manual mode, but if the light is bright enough to take the photo, I can't see the screen! My conversion was to use the Live View for focus.

Anyway, I shot in Av, set to f8, and let the shutter speed fall where it may.

I took a custom white balance on the grass, following exactly what the camera manual says.

I shot raw only, since he figured that added jpegs was somehow messing up my raw images... Don't see how, but I went along with it.

Came back home, uploaded the images, changed nothing.

I cannot upload the raw image, but what I have here are jpeg screenshots of the raw image opened in both DPP and PSCC. Now, remember, there is no jpeg version of this shot in existence...

What I am still trying to figure out is, how can I use DPP to remove a red cast which shows up in PS/camera raw, if that cast does not show up in DPP??? I am assuming that DPP is opening an embedded jpeg, which the raw would use for icons, thumbnails, and suchlike. But why? You can see that the colour temp in camera raw is set hard over to the left...