Pentax K1 Super Resolution Mode has Color Problems, Definitely an Adobe Camera Raw BUG — 2nd Example
See my Pentax K1 wish list at B&H Photo.
I’ve sent an email to three Adobe engineers; I am hoping the email gets through and gets attention. I don’t have any direct phone contact with appropriate Adobe engineers, so I can’t get any immediate feedback before I leave on my 2 day trip today
UPDATE: This is what I heard from Adobe: “Known issue. It is fixed in the next ACR update. High ISO dngs shots with super resolution”. That sounds good, but both my examples are at ISO 100, the lowest available ISO.
SuperRes pixel shift mode (“SR-PSM”) merges 4 exposures into one raw file.The raw converter must then take those 4 exposures and (somehow) create an RGB pixel for each pixel in the image.
As demonstrated, color in SuperRes mode is inferior in contrast and color to StdRes mode; a veiling blue haze intrudes. And it is not easy to fix—I did not find a satisfactory solution.
As I show via RawDigger histograms and the Photoshop RGB histograms in ProPhotoRGB, there is a very strong case that this is an Adobe Camera Raw 9.5.1 (595) BUG. Since I observed similar discrepancies in color with the Pentax K3 II (but did not investigate) this is probably a longstanding/forever issue with Pentax pixel shift raw files in ACR.
Pentax K1 SuperRes Pixel Shift Mode vs Std Res: Color Inaccuracy (Dolls)
Discussion and analysis includes the images, RawDigger histograms, RGB histograms.