Using an iMac Pro, Lightroom Classic, and current PhotoAI version, 1.1.1 (prior version behaved the same).
If I send to PhotoAI using Process with PhotoAI, the resulting DNG matches the original raw file color when it comes back into Lightroom. If I then apply the same edits (either using sync or manually adding them) to the file as I did to the original raw, the color comes out significantly different and warmer.
I also processed the photo using Export to PhotoAI, and the returning TIFF file matches the edited raw, so it’s definitely an issue with the resulting DNG file. For testing, I exported an unmodified ORF to DNG, reimported the DNS, then synced with with the edited raw file, they looked identical as expected. Here are the results
Lightroom ORF (Olympus Raw File) with edits compared to PhotoAI DNG with edits that look warmer
You cannot add the same edits as the DNG returned is NOT a RAW file but a TIFF with a profile in a DNG file.
It has been converted using the Photo AI RAW converter which will never be the same as the Lightroom RAW converter.
If you want to have the same RAW conversion as Lightroom use Edit in and send a TIFF, with Lightroom changes, to Photo AI which will be processed, updated and returned
So I’m guessing I’m missing the benefit of this workflow over the edit, convert to Tiff workflow. If my edits look different on the DNG than they do on the original RAW, then it isn’t really true RAW editing, right? Yes, this is true “Proceed with your raw workflow. All LR adjustments and profiles will still work.” but if the appearance of the image is different and I can’t achieve the same look from my images, then I’m not sure how to make it work. For example, if I have one image that doesn’t need PhotoAI and another that does, for noise reduction, if I can’t get the same color tones out of both by doing the same edits, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do?
You could still achieve the same look but with different settings to what you used on the original in LR.
You cannot get the same color tones out of two different RAW converters with the same settings as there will always be differences because of the basic conversion.
For what you’re trying to do you will need to pass a image, suggest TIFF/ProPhotoRGB with all settings, to Photo AI to update and return.
Thanks, that workflow is what I was doing until I saw the suggestion from PhotoAI to use the DNG method. Maybe once it will process and include your raw edits using the DNG output, it will be a little more accurate, until then, I’ll stick with the TIFF workflow. Thanks for the answers and suggestions!
