So I’m just looking for some post processing advice here, I want to use RAW for the texturing and clarity, but not being familiar with the workflow before using RC I seem to be doing it all wrong.
I’m using a camera from the sony a6000 line, great cameras, but aren’t considered the best for JPGs. Some of that however, is because rival cameras put a bit more saturation and kick into their JPGs while Sony’s are a little more true to life (and therefore flatter). Their RAW capability is supposed to be very impressive.
I get more alignments with the JPGs from my shoot than I can from the same RAW files. So I’m not doing something right in Light Room (or Capture One, which I’ve been also using - I don’t want to learn another program in this area unless my life depends on it). I’m losing about 20 percent of processed tiffs that find alignment when I compare it to JPGs in RC. Sometimes I can connect a few components with control points, but for some shots it’s been a losing battle and I revert back to JPGs and the crappier textures.
So what am I doing wrong? Lightroom (LR) / Capture One (C1) have solid camera and lens profiles that do the basics like removing distortion and vignetting without any worries, and the 14-bit files let me almost completely remove highlights and pull shadows with no noticeable difference in image quality. On the other hand, while it looks a lot better when I pixel peep, I don’t know if I’m removing too many highlights or pulling too much shadow - does it ruin RC’s ability to find tie points?
Generally I correct the obvious (distortion, etc.), tweak highlights and shadows and exposure, export to 16 bit TIFF and am always disappointed at the RC result. I’ve tried messing with other things, such as clarity and color and have only made it worse (but I only slightly understand what I am doing in these areas so lay off of it).
I can’t find good tutorials as they are all talking about processing RAW files for portraits or other fanciness that have nothing to do with improving photogrammetry and all about improving artistic photography.
A lot of my work lately has been indoor shooting, so my exposure is all over the place as I jam myself in a corner between four objects and horrible lighting to get an object with good detail. Again, RC manages to stitch all of this with the JPGs, but not nearly as much so as the RAWs. Should I be tweaking exposure for each shot as some go from 1/15th of a second to 4 seconds? I’m taking thousands of pictures so REALLY want to avoid that.
Any advice would be welcome - all the other stuff in my workflow I’ve been able to figure out with research, but all the post processing stuff seems so far away from photogrammetry I don’t know my next steps on how to improve this and I think my work will get a lot better/faster when I figure it out.
Thanks!