RAW File Processing Destroying Detail

[Logan S]

I'm somewhat new to Pixelmator Pro and have been greatly enjoying it. However, I ran into my first issue today.

I tried opening up my RAW (.RW2) file of my dog to edit and noticed something weird with the tennis ball in the photo. On the JPEG the tennis ball has a lot of detail, but all of that detail is destroyed once I open up the photo in Pixelmator Pro. I thought it might be an issue with the RAW file itself, but when I opened up the file in RawTherapee the detail was still present.

Here's a screenshot comparison of RawTherapee, Pixelmator Pro, and the JPEG that was saved by the camera when taking the picture. The one in Pixelmator Pro looks completely different. This is with minimal edits on RawTherapee, and no edits on Pixelmator Pro or to the JPEG.



I tried to edit the image in Pixelmator Pro to bring out the detail in the tennis ball, but had no success. Here the image is more zoomed in. It appears that the detail is essentially stripped out of the picture in Pixelmator Pro. It's very odd.



I've only edited about 30-40 pictures with Pixelmator Pro so far but have never run into anything like this. I'm wondering if anyone has tips on what I might be doing wrong, or if I need to change the colorspace or something? Or would like to know if maybe this is a glitch.

[Lysander]

Pixelmator Pro relies on macOS for RAW support, so the RAW files you can edit in macOS Photos can be edited using Pixelmator Pro. Obviously, Apple Photos does also.
So does Gentlemen Coder's Raw Power.
It would be interesting to see the same image processed in Raw Power. They have Extended Raw which supports many more cameras than the official Apple Raw does. Here is a list https://www.gentlemencoders.com/extended-raw/

If the results are the same then you will have some more information to go on. If different then some settings are affecting your results in PMP.

P.S. You can download a free trial of Raw Power on the Gentleman Coders website.

The Pixelmator Pro help for Raw Processing is here. https://help.pixelmator.com/pixelmator-pro/2.4/#693

[Logan S]

Thank you for the suggestion. Using RAW Power, I was able to figure it out! It's the luminance noise reduction that's part of RAW Processing. Is there any way to reduce or disable that in Pixelmator Pro? I looked at the Pixelmator Pro Support link that you included but I couldn't find anything about it.

[Lysander]

As far as I know, there is not much noise reduction control in PMP. You may want to contact support directly and also add a feature request to address this.

[simonasd]

Hi Logan! In case you didn't see my reply in your other thread - it would be great if you could send the RAW photo over to us at support@pixelmator.com so we could take a closer look at this behavior!

Edit: Received!

[Lysander]

Hi Logan! In case you didn't see my reply in your other thread - it would be great if you could send the RAW photo over to us at support@pixelmator.com so we could take a closer look at this behavior!

Edit: Received!

@simonsd Could you post the result of your investigation when completed?

[simonasd]

Sure thing! Logan was correct - the issue is being caused by Apple's Luminance Noise Filtering. This has been reported to Apple and they'll get this fixed as soon as possible.

We've also noted the feature request for more control over specific parts of the RAW processing. We don't have any plans to add this in the near future, but will be keeping it in mind down the line.

[Alin Vatavu]

How did you fix this? I have the same problem with RAW files from my Fuji XT4