Great Joy EF Mount 1.8 Anamorphic Lens: For Stills, how to do a RAW workflow with de-squeeze of anamorphic image?

[cayenne]

Hi all,
I'm looking at this indegogo Lens in EF mount:

Great Joy 50mm 1.8 Anamorphic Lens

It appears I can use this on older Canon Cine cameras with adapter AND on RF mount mirrorless with adapter (just not the one with drop in filters).

Anyway, as I've posted previously I'm slightly obsessed with panoramic aspect ratio images.
I've shooting film because I can shoot pano without having to do multiple images and stitch...helpful when you want to shoot long exposures of water landscapes with ND filters, etc....things you can do with multi-shot and stitch.

I'm going to play with using the anamorphic lenses to shoot stills, and desqueeze into pano. I may play with video a bit too, but believe it or not, I'm looking at this for stills primarily to start with.

My main question is...HOW can I do a RAW workflow with the need to de-squeeze?

I don't know that there is a way in Capture One, my primary RAW stills tool to de-squeeze the image. If I use C1, I think I'd need to start with RAW image in squeezed mode and do my adjustments as best I could and when done, send it to Affinity Photo to de-squeeze it, etc.

I have On1 and I don't think it would desqueeze in there either.

Heck I don't believe Lightroom had de-squeeze or does it these days?

I had one other thought...perhaps use Davinci Resolve or FCPX...those should be able to de-squeeze it...and I know they will work with still images. But...do they treat a file from a canon camera or Leica or a fuji camera as a "raw" image....and allow you do do your adjustments, etc in an analogous RAW workflow like I would do in C1?

Or, does anyone know a de-squeeze tool.....

What if I sent the raw image, for example a Leica, that shoots raw in DNG files. If I sent that to FCPX or Resolve only to de-squeeze, and exported that out as a DNG file...would it still be RAW when it came back into say Capture One and allow me the same breadth of editing power for RAW work as when it came straight out of the camera?

Would it do the same for a Canon file or Fuji RAW file on a Resolve->C1 work flow.

I'm a bit confused how RAW an image stays if it come and goes and DNG files?

Anyway...hoping someone can give me some advice or insight into RAW workflow with an anamorphic still image.

Thank you in advance,

cayenne

 

[cayenne]

Anyone?
Anyone?

Bueller?

 

[cayenne]

Goodness...no one works with anamorphic lenses here?

 

[stevelee]

Is the squeeze linear? If so, can’t you just resize the picture with the aspect ratio unlocked? Or you could just change the shape of the pixels to rectangular.

 

[snappy604]

not an expert here, but always like to help where I can. A quick look at On1 Photo Raw and the TRANSFORM tool (not crop), you can drag one side or other and it seems to squeeze or pull the image which is what I imagine you need. I'm sure other editors can do similar. It also can be done in ON1 Lens correction via the transform tool and changing the aspect ratio, but seems a bit more challenging to work with. This is a hummingbird I stretched.. can squish too.

 

[snappy604]

this is via the transform tool vs lens correction

 

[snappy604]

Goodness...no one works with anamorphic lenses here?

see my replies above... I'm sure photoshop or LR will do same or others via Transform tool

 

[cayenne]

Is the squeeze linear? If so, can’t you just resize the picture with the aspect ratio unlocked? Or you could just change the shape of the pixels to rectangular.

Hm. I can look into that.

I've shot anamorphic with video and on FCPX and other NLEs, you basically in the transform area multiply the horizontal by 1.33 (or whatever your squeeze factor is)...and boom, it de-squeezes it and looks normal.

I could experiment with brining in my RAW images into FCPX or Resolve....and desqueeze it, but then I'd lose the RAW editing capability on the image when bringing it back into Capture One....

 

[cayenne]

see my replies above... I'm sure photoshop or LR will do same or others via Transform tool

Ok thanks.
I use C1...and at a glance it doesn't appear that the transform tool allows for as much stretch as I'd need....

As I'd mentioned above with video, in a NLE you can go to the transform there and set a multiply factor on the width....example if you have a 1.8 squeeze, you just multiply the horizontal by 1.8 and voila, it stretches it out and all looks normal.

The thing here is, I'd rather try to do it in a RAW photo editor and keep being able to do adjustments to the de-squeezed image in RAW for all those benefits.

I believe I could de-squeeze in a pixel editor like Affinity Photo...but again, what comes out is no longer RAW.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Once you desqueeze a image, its no longer raw. The image itself does not know that the lens distorted it, so a factor must be introduced during the conversion to a tiff or jpg image. You can write it into a DNG file, but its a linear DNG, not a raw DNG.

 

[stevelee]

Once you desqueeze a image, its no longer raw. The image itself does not know that the lens distorted it, so a factor must be introduced during the conversion to a tiff or jpg image. You can write it into a DNG file, but its a linear DNG, not a raw DNG.

Couldn't you just import the squoze version into Photoshop as a smart object? I'm never sure of the limitations on what you can do to smart objects, so I rarely use them. But if you can desqueeze them, then you still can edit the RAW file and have it update the Photoshop version as needed. And if not, you can still retain the Raw edits and take each new version into PS and "save as" different names for different versions.

 

[privatebydesign]

In Photoshop open as a smart object, then stretch, then when you save the file as a PSD/PSB or TIFF or DNG the RAW file is still raw inside. It is referenced rather than actually altered, that is the changes to the raw file are referenced from a sidecar file rather than the raw file actually altered. You can always go back into the smart object (original raw file) and reset to original. Well that is my understanding of the way smart objects work.

 

[koenkooi]

You could try something like https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=11524.0

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Couldn't you just import the squoze version into Photoshop as a smart object? I'm never sure of the limitations on what you can do to smart objects, so I rarely use them. But if you can desqueeze them, then you still can edit the RAW file and have it update the Photoshop version as needed. And if not, you can still retain the Raw edits and take each new version into PS and "save as" different names for different versions.

Once you desqueeze it and save it, its no longer raw. Saving to Tiff or PSD does not result in raw files. You can save as DNG if you select the option to embed the original raw. That makes it a huge file but its one way to get everything in a single file. If you can keep the sidecar file with desqueeze settings with it or incorparate them in the DNG, then you can develop the raw with desqueeze settings from the sidecar. Those settings can't go into the original raw file though.

Adobe Lightroom gives you the option to embed the settings in your DNG file so you can preserve the raw plus the settings. My file size from my R5 went from 54Mb to 115 MB so there is a cost. Its close to actually including the edits in the raw file but just a trick to make it work that way.

 

[cayenne]

Once you desqueeze it and save it, its no longer raw. Saving to Tiff or PSD does not result in raw files. You can save as DNG if you select the option to embed the original raw. That makes it a huge file but its one way to get everything in a single file. If you can keep the sidecar file with desqueeze settings with it or incorparate them in the DNG, then you can develop the raw with desqueeze settings from the sidecar. Those settings can't go into the original raw file though.

Adobe Lightroom gives you the option to embed the settings in your DNG file so you can preserve the raw plus the settings. My file size from my R5 went from 54Mb to 115 MB so there is a cost. Its close to actually including the edits in the raw file but just a trick to make it work that way.

Interesting.....and thank you!!

I'm going the non-adobe route.....but will see if I can do the same type thing with Capture One and Affinity Photo....

 

[stevelee]

Once you desqueeze it and save it, its no longer raw. Saving to Tiff or PSD does not result in raw files. You can save as DNG if you select the option to embed the original raw. That makes it a huge file but its one way to get everything in a single file. If you can keep the sidecar file with desqueeze settings with it or incorparate them in the DNG, then you can develop the raw with desqueeze settings from the sidecar. Those settings can't go into the original raw file though.

Adobe Lightroom gives you the option to embed the settings in your DNG file so you can preserve the raw plus the settings. My file size from my R5 went from 54Mb to 115 MB so there is a cost. Its close to actually including the edits in the raw file but just a trick to make it work that way.

No, of course the TIFF and PSD files are not Raw files. I don't use Lightroom enough to work out the various minuets one might employ in it. But shouldn't smart objects in Photoshop retain their connection to the .cs2 or .cs3 file plus settings sidecars?

And even if not, couldn't you just bring the new Raw edit into the PS file and apply the adjustment layers you have already used on the old smart object? The Raw files don't go away just because you have used them to create something else. The aspect ratio change does produce pixels, but it takes less than 30 seconds to do. So it is not worth jumping through a lot of hoops to keep from having to do it again once you have reedited a photo.