New Nikon camera profiles

Eric Chan a while ago posted some new camera matching profiles for certain Nikon cameras. My D300 is one of those. These fix the highlight rendering issues I identified before. I beta tested them a while before they were posted and they are great. Below is an example where it really matters. This is a waterfall I photographed shortly after sunset last weekend. Development is completely standard, except for choosing the camera standard profiles. This image was taken in Eldorado Canyon State park. Click on the image to get a larger version. Focus on the highlight detail in the snowy bank just right of the middle


Nikon D300, ISO 200, 62 mm on Nikon 55-200 f4-5.6, f/16 2.5 sec - tripod.

The left image is the standard camera standard profile in Lightroom. The middle image is the v3 camera standard with -0.5 exposure compensation as required to get the correct rendering. The right one is the Capture NX rendering. You can see that the old profile washes out the highlights quite badly, while the new profile, similar to the CNX rendering gives a lot of detail in the highlights. You cannot correct the left image with highlight recovery or negative exposure compensation and get this detail back.

Of course, the bland, default rendering is not how I develop the image in the end but I just wanted to illustrate the effect of the new profiles.

EDIT. Here is a closeup of the v2 and v3 renderings in the highlight area. The effect is quite major as you can see.

Camera profiles

I wrote a little piece for inside Lightroom on the final release of the camera profiles. Check it out here. I gave some examples on how the camera-matching profiles can often give you very good starting points for developing your images. Here is another example. This is a shot I never looked much at from Monument valley. It was quite hazy and my camera's command dial was shot because of a car incident the previous day. The ACR default rendering is quite boring and the colors are just completely weird explaining why I never paid much attention to this image. Nothing like what I saw over there. Hover over the text links to see the result of different profiles applied to this image. It sometimes takes a little time for the images to load initially, so be patient.

ACR 4.4 (the default profile for the D50)
camera standard
camera neutral
camera portrait
camera landscape
camera vivid
camera vivid with some optimizations


The last version shows the result of some minor changes to the development using the vivid profile. Mostly just black level increase and a white balance change to get some more magenta in the sky (as I observed when I was there). Clearly, these profiles are very useful even if you're not as bad of a color junkie as I am.

Adobe camera RAW and DNG converter update

Adobe has released the 5.2 update for camera RAW (only works in CS4) and an update for DNG converter. Contrary to what it says on the camera raw download webpage, the camera RAW and DNG converter are now separate installers (use the popup to find them or use the links further in my post), which is a good idea. If you have Lightroom 2.1 and CS3, only get the DNG converter installer. If you have LR 2.1 and CS4 install both. The separate DNG converter installer is here for Mac and Windows. Installing DNG converter will also give you the final release version of Adobe's new camera matching profiles. What's great about DNG converter is that it will allow you to convert RAW files from cameras not currently supported (at least until December) in Lightroom 2.1 to dng such as the Canon G10 and the 5D mk II. You can load the dng files in LR 2.1 and they will be fully supported.

The new grad ND tool

Lightroom 2.0 now has a new tool that allows for the very easy creation of simulated graduated neutral density filters. I used to do this all the time in Photoshop, but now we can do this far faster and far more convenient in Lightroom. Below I discuss an example of its use mixed with the new camera profiles. To prime you all, here is an the before/after view (larger in the link):



As you can see the left image is the default ACR 4.4 rendering (I only rotated it 1.5 degrees or so to level the horizon and upped the blacks). This image was taken right after sunset in Canyonlands National Park using my super backpacking friendly D50. On the right the same image, but with the camera landscape profile applied and two grad NDs. I also changed the white balance to cloudy. As you can see. Left - quite boring. Right - very nice saturated colors. The grad NDs can be applied by clicking on the little icon that looks like an actual grad ND filter. Without the grad ND filters, the image looks like this now:



First I applied a quick transition +0.8 exposure grad ND as in the image below.



Then I applied a broader -1.0 grad ND to darken the sky:



This trick allows one to create quite complex gradations. I added a tiny tweak of the curve and added a little clarity and vibrance and saturation.

Here is the final result (large in the link):

Lightroom 1.2 and ACR 4.2

Adobe just released the Lightroom 1.2 and ACR 4.2 updates (use the adobe updater app in CS3). It includes support for the yummy Canon 40D and, for me at least, it solves the weird watercolor paint effect that some pictures took on in Lightroom 1.1. This is a must have update if you use either.

Camera RAW 4.1

Camera Raw 4.1 has just been released and it has a ton of new goodies in it. Here is a very nice overview. I cannot wait for these features to show up in Lightroom. I am intrigued by the new sharpening controls and the clarity slider.