Solution to blue/green color shift in M3P images

[MS Coast]

12mp photo shot on auto mode this morning, no editing.

I'm seeing the same exaggerated blue/green colors in the boat canvas, shrimp nets, trash cans, and one truck that others have reported.

Here's a thread to discuss solutions. Any options other than waiting for DJI to modify the image processing via a firmware update?

 

[Eagle Eye 62]

I have a M3 and have never seen anything like that. Are you using RAW or JPEG?

 

[globetrotterdrone]

The boats are overexposed too.
Did you play with the values of saturation, sharpening etc. in the Fly app? They affect the JPG but not RAW if you shoot both.

Have a look there.

 

[Cymru]

The 12mp is simple chromatic aberration - a one click fix in your editing software of choice.
The 48mp is not simple CA so much harder to fix.

 

[MS Coast]

I have a M3 and have never seen anything like that. Are you using RAW or JPEG?

JPG, straight from the drone without alteration. Auto mode with no EV bias. Mini 3 Pro.

All the drones I've flown tend to overexpose the boat hulls. This shot seems generally overexposed. I usually stop down 0.3 - 1 full stop shooting similar scenes.

I'm not aware of any adjustments for saturation or sharpening in the Fly app. Have I missed something?

 

[globetrotterdrone]

I'm not aware of any adjustments for saturation or sharpening in the Fly app. Have I missed something?

Then check if you may have or the app inadvertently switched these.
They are used to generate the JPG but not the RAW.

I would anyway recommend you to shoot JPG+RAW. You then have best of both worlds.
If the JPG is enough for you, just drop the RAW later on your PC, if not, better make adjustments from the RAW.

Of course you need more space on your card but that's hardly an issue these days, is it?

 

[Cymru]

I'm not aware of any adjustments for saturation or sharpening in the Fly app. Have I missed something?

There aren't - those fine tuning useful options were in Go4 but ditched in the Fly app.

 

[MS Coast]

The 12mp is simple chromatic aberration - a one click fix in your editing software of choice.
The 48mp is not simple CA so much harder to fix.

I know it can be remedied in Photoshop, though with more than one click. But I've not seen this sort of thing with any of my other DJI drones.

I've seen other reports of odd things with color shifts in Mini 3 photos. One person here on the forum posted some examples of white highway centerline stripes showing up as pinkish purple.

I'll put the drone up and shoot some photos of the same scene in 12mp and 48mp and see if the problem repeats itself with a different sun angle.

 

[Cymru]

I know it can be remedied in Photoshop, though with more than one click. But I've not seen this sort of thing with any of my other DJI drones.

I've seen other reports of odd things with color shifts in Mini 3 photos. One person here on the forum posted some examples of white highway centerline stripes showing up as pinkish purple.

I'll put the drone up and shoot some photos of the same scene in 12mp and 48mp and see if the problem repeats itself with a different sun angle.

Mavic 1 and 2 certainly had CA issues. So do my $3000 camera lenses for my DSLR. Its a simple click fix in post.

It was my images showing the colour shifts on lines. Its in the 48mp only and likely a result of bad or buggy debayering (its a 12mp sensor only getting to 48 via a filter and algorithm). Those are harder to fix as its not the same cause as normal CA.

 

[MS Coast]

12mp


48mp, cropped to allow uploading
View attachment DJI_0045.cropped.jpg
12mp and 48mp shots. No post editing. Auto exposure with -0.7 bias. ISO is set to auto in this an earlier photo.

Again, the blues and greens are abnormal in both. There's little red in the scene but what there is doesn't look as bad.

It looks like their jpg algorithms are really pushing the saturation. And it seems to be worse in the blue/green. Is this typical of what others are seeing with the Mini 3 Pro?

 

[globetrotterdrone]

I reviewing your pictures on calibrated monitors and I can only estimate what are you referring to.
I see that the turquoise and green colours are a bit more saturated but I guess they stand out cause of the high contrast to the white boats.

What I can really see is what @Cymru said, there are some CA on the bright spots of water - but that's also normal.
All in all, I cannot see a real problem here, either in the 12 MP or 48 MP.

 

[Cymru]

I produced a colour checker accurate DNG profile for the Mini as soon as i had it (as i do for all my cameras). The actual measured colours of the Mini 3 weren't far off actual standard colours both in tone and saturation- it took very little adjustment to correct them. I was surprised just how close it was direct out of the box with no calibration.
The images however were all 0.5 stops darker than standard.

FWIW the 48mpixel quad bayer images were absolutely identical in colour tone and saturation as the 12mp. So whatever its doing software wise there makes no alteration to that at all.

You're not going to get rid of all the CA on things like water ripples - we're talking a tiny, f/1.7 lens on a tiny sensor. There's only so much you can push out of that setup. The mini does a good job at this but its not perfect.

I've not seen a single 12mp image i cant fix with a 1 click job in post yet. The 48 though is different, correcting the one form of fringing produces opposite lines elsewhere (as expected because its not CA as such).

 

[MS Coast]

I reviewing your pictures on calibrated monitors and I can only estimate what are you referring to.
I see that the turquoise and green colours are a bit more saturated but I guess they stand out cause of the high contrast to the white boats.

What I can really see is what @Cymru said, there are some CA on the bright spots of water - but that's also normal.
All in all, I cannot see a real problem here, either in the 12 MP or 48 MP.

Thanks. I do appreciate a more informed opinion. If you're running calibrated monitors, you're obviously deeper into this than I am.

I see the CA on the water ripples as just being something to be expected when shooting up sun like that.

Subjectively, it just seems to me that the overall image, and especially the blue/green, is over saturated. But, I've thought that some of the other Mini 3 photos posted here also look oversaturated, though it's hard to know what's been done to them.

Maybe it's my eyeballs that need calibrating. I'll try shooting the same scene with the Air 2 S.

 

[Cymru]

Ultimately unless you're using a calibrated monitor and fully colour managed applications (ie definitely not mobile or tablets and mostly windows apps) you'll struggle to see accurate saturation and colour.

The JPGs do look a bit overdone but thats fairly common. The raws themselves aren't THAT far off out of the box (as i created a calibration profile for the drone immediately when i opened it).

Some monitors are *way* off and often oversaturate greens etc to make scenes look "pretty".

Colour management is a vast, complicated, pain-in-the-neck workflow.

 

[globetrotterdrone]

@MS Coast
Will I do understand what you mean, I guess your eyes are a., more used to the output of your Air 2S from where the Mini 3 Pro certainly derives in JPEG output following some comparisons in YT and b., the relatively monotone colours of white and light grey emphasise this feeling.

If you use LR or most likely any other program, you can also reduce saturation for instance upon import.
As @Cymru pointed out, it's a shame you don't get any controls in DJI Fly, so you are for now stuck if you want to stick with JPG as what DJI think it's meant to be (and nowadays quite commonly more punch in the colours and contrast). Or use RAW.

But I cannot really see a problem in your pictures, if that at least eases your mind.

 

[MS Coast]

I flew the Air 2S and found that the photos seem to have a little less of that sharpened & saturated look of the ones from the Mavic 3. But the difference was smaller than what I remembered. So, with that self-calibration and the input from you folks, I feel more at ease with what's coming out of the Mini 3.

Yes, it seems like most amateur photographers and snapshot sharing enthusiasts now reflexively boost the saturation and contrast on their shots and then sharpen them. I suppose the result appeals to many on a Twitter feed or Facebook page, but it's too artificial and affected for me.

But then, I still miss Ektachrome and those nifty little cans the 35mm rolls came in.

Thank you both, @globetrotterdrone and @Cymru, for the input.

 

[globetrotterdrone]

@MS Coast
You are very welcome. Have a lot of fun flying and I am sure, the photos can be easily tweaked if you still feel the need for it.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Colour management is a vast, complicated, pain-in-the-neck workflow.

Especially doing it for printing for printers all over the world that have to match from one to another.

 

[Dave Maine]

The basis for all critical color work starts and rely on a calibrated pc monitor. Without that, all anybody can do is guess, and make data less conclusions.

The problem gets more complex when one tries to share with others on different displays, which are mostly not calibrated as well. Professional color correction suites use $25,000 monitors to do their work. When their work is shown in theatres, it is shown on projectors that are also calibrated to the theatrical standard for both color and illumination levels.

Obviously we drone pilots aren’t likely to have, or want, such equipment, but without any kind of starting place cinematic results are unlikely.

 

[Dale D]

12mp photo shot on auto mode this morning, no editing.

I'm seeing the same exaggerated blue/green colors in the boat canvas, shrimp nets, trash cans, and one truck that others have reported.

Here's a thread to discuss solutions. Any options other than waiting for DJI to modify the image processing via a firmware update?

View attachment 150047