Dealing with Fujifilm worms
Not my typical entry in my Medium feed, but I’ve thought about this for a long time and watched a dozen YouTube-videos on this. It is obviously a topic that occupies people since there is so much talk about it. I am talking about the worms that the x-trans sensor in Fujifilm X-Tn series. I have an X-T2 my self and the picture below is shot with a XF 50mm f/2.0 R WR. Exif information is f/2.0 1/250 -1,67 ISO400. Film simulation is ACROS.
I always shoot BW and JPG+RAW compressed. This way I can see, plan and capture the image in BW and get both a JPG straight out of the camera AND a RAW-file that I can do with what ever I want to. Even convert to colours and a range of film simulations in either Adobe Lightroom or ACR.
This is a informal test done with just one image in BW, but the effect and the solution applies for colour images too.
SOOC image
So here is a shot straight of out the camera (SOOC):
And a closeup:
Even closer:
ACR treated RAW-file with no sharpening applied
And here is the RAW-file converted in Adobe Converter Raw (ACR) and saved without sharpening it.
With a close up:
Even closer:
An ACR treated RAW-file with sharpening using masking
And here is the RAW-file converted in ACR and sharpened using masking.
With a close up:
Even closer:
Conclusion
This might get subjective but in my judgement the SOOC image is the worse with worms. They are big and visible at the 400% magnification I show here, but also on 200%. So the problem is perhaps not as big as I feared as images are usually viewed at maximum 100% — often less. Pixel peeping is a nasty hobby but as this is a technical test and not about the image I will allow it.
The untreated RAW-file is actually better than the SOOC. Worms are visible but less contrasty and smaller.
The sharpened RAW-file is almost clean of worms. The the process further down for how I sharpened the image.
The process of shooting JPG+RAW really pays of here as the sharpened RAW-file is way better than the SOOC in regards to the worms. In addition I can apply any film simulation I want to in post-production.
The process
I don’t use Adobe Lightroom. I use Adobe Bridge and ACR. It is basically the same thing. Only difference is that Adobe Bridge doesn’t build a catalog and import images and all that stuff. It works straight on my disk (or cloud depending).
I open the image fra Adobe Bridge and ACR takes over as a pre-processor to Adobe Photoshop. I work in the Basic tab with the exposure, highlights, shadows, blacks and whites etc. Then I switch to the Detail tab and I go straight for the Masking slider. Holding the option/alt key pressed as I up and down the slider to create a silhouette image.
When holding the option/alt key pressed I can see how and where the adjustment will affect my image. All the white parts will be affected but not the blacks. This means that I can apply sharpening to the edges of the person and not the large areas with uniform tone or contrast — where all the worms reside.
Then I work the Radius slider so that I get a crisp defined edge in my silhouette. The Detail slider comes next with adjustment to get the best effect. The amount of sharpening is the final touch and I let go of the option/alt key to view my creation (actually I press and unpress the option/alt key all the time, but I keep it presses as I move the sliders to see the effect).
This means that I am not sharpening the worms. Just the edges of his face.
So the down-side of this is that this adjustment is unique to each photo. So there is no way you can automate this. Meaning that you will have to “develop” each and every photo you want to keep. But is it worth it? Yes.
The final image
In this version I have brought the colours back and applied a film simulation (Red Lift Matte in the ACR creative styles). Further sharpening is done in Photoshop using High Pass sharpening (Google it).
Thanks for reading, would love to hear you thoughts about this. I will go back to my images and my storytelling now. I just had to get this out of my system.
