Lightroom exports bad quality Nikon D500 images

[stevek4]

Using Lightroom 5 or Lightroom CC I am getting poor quality exported pictures from the Nikon D500, when other cameras, D800E, D3S, D3, export with good quality.  I am using the same export settings for any camera, JPEG, 300dpi, quality 90%, long edge 3216, sRGB.  The images from D800E, D3S, D3, appear as expected, while those with D500 (Lightroom 5 or CC and ACR 9.7) have a degraded quality that looks compressed with additional noise.

This appears to be a LR issue, not with the camera, because processing with Photoshop 6 or Photoshop CC works just fine.

[dj_paige]

Can you show us a screen capture of before vs after export?

[stevek4]

yes I can.  Here are a couple of samples from D500

[dj_paige]

What do these images have to do with your Lightroom problem?

[stevek4]

each image shows what Lightroom does with processing vs what Photoshop or just Photo Mechanic does.  Lightroom is doing a terrible job of processing and adding 10x noise to each image rendering it virtually useless for news/wire services.

[stevek4]

the first image is what happens when using Lightroom, the second one is without lightroom

[ManiacJoe]

Assuming these are the exported images from LR, what processing did you do prior to exporting them?

What do the original files look like?

Using Dropbox.com or the like, link us to an unedited original file so that we can see what you are seeing.

[stevek4]

Those were screen shots so you would see what the viewer was showing and in the program they were edited in.  Lightroom is degrading the image quality, especially at and above ISO 12,800 and above with the D500, yet these were lower ISO, 2200 & 3200

[FSt0p]

Lightroom does not degrade anything.

Learn how to use it.

Talking about your images: too much Sharpening, too few Noise Reduction.

Especially the latter.

[stevek4]

Right, are you sure?  Here are the NEF files saved down to JPG.  The NEF files are 44mb and won't transfer

[stevek4]

these were saved using Photo Mechanic 5, not lightroom

[stevek4]

Joe,

I added the jpg files to this thread.  The NEF files are 44mb and cannot be sent, so I used Photo Mechanic 5 to open them, then save down to jpg.  Those jpgs were opened in LR CC, then applied auto tone, then saved as jpg quality 95%, 3216px long side.

[stevek4]

Thank you for replying and asking for information.  This is a real issue.  ccpasm was very rude in their response, so I will assume they do not work for Adobe or anyone else.

[stevek4]

Here are the three images, NEF brought into PS CC, apply auto tone, open image, save as jpg, quality 11.  You can see in the first two, QB and RB on the bench shots that LR CC is causing more noise than PS CC..

[stevek4]

here are the lightroom edited pictures.

[Abambo]

Photoshop and Lightroom (at the same version level) share the same raw file development engine. There can be no differences except if the parameters are different.

[stevek4]

Abambo, please read the above reasoning that the profile has changed from previous versions

[FSt0p]

So what? It is changed in both Lightroom and ACR, and they are still rendering exactly the same images.

The problem would be if you will try to match look from different cameras, but this does not seems to be your task (at least not clear from your messages).

[Todd Shaner]

In my reply #23 I mentioned, "I think you have a couple of issues going on here."

1)The first issue is that Adobe has changed the Adobe Standard profile to a new version (around Q3 2014) with lower color saturation and lower contrast around the tone curve's Shadows region (i.e. Black Point Compensation). This makes noise more visible in high ISO shots and colors look less saturated (Red especially). Images shot with the new Nikon D500 and D5 will look look slightly flat and noisier when compared to older camera images, especially the D3 models. We're not talking a huge difference, but enough to be a PITA getting images from older and newer camera models to look the same!

2) I investigated the differences observed in stevek4 posted image (21 on bench) in replies # 14 and 15 using the same version of LR and ACR. I used an EXIF reader to check the applied LR and ACR settings and a 'Medium Contrast' Tone Curve is being applied inside ACR and the default 'Linear' Tone Curve inside LR (see below screenshot). Obviously the images are going to look different! Ironically applying a 'Medium Contrast' Tone Curve is very close to the -10 Shadows Tone Curve I recommended to "fix" the issue. You do also need to increase the color Saturation to about +15 to fully correct the new Adobe Standard profile. The exact setting values required will vary slightly with different camera makes and models. You may also need to create "new versions" of any Develop presets you've created for older camera models. This means you'll need two sets of Develop presets AND you'll need to know, which camera models need the new presets and what models need the older presets. Are you getting the picture (pun intended)?

I think that addresses all of the issues presented here. People with both older and newer (2014 Q3 and later) model cameras who are experiencing this issue need to make their feelings known here in the forum. I suspect that many non-professionals may not even notice the change, but professionals and serious photographers certainly will. So how does everyone feel about the changes Adobe has made to the "Gold Standard" Adobe Standard camera profile?

[stevek4]

Thank you for the opportunity to say, out loud, THESE CHANGES ARE SIMPLY HORRIBLE AND UNCALLED FOR!!  This is a vendor that doesn't care about the usability and difficulty that they just put on photographers, especially professionals.

[stevek4]

Now having said that, if there were a way that I, or any of us, could change the standard profile to set a "personal" default that would override that default tone curve, without having to do those two changes on Saturation +15 and Shadows -10, to take us back to where we were before I would love to know how to do it.

[Jao vdL]

Thank you for the opportunity to say, out loud, THESE CHANGES ARE SIMPLY HORRIBLE AND UNCALLED FOR!! This is a vendor that doesn't care about the usability and difficulty that they just put on photographers, especially professionals.

One of the most important tips I give people that just want to get their images out and not fuss too much is to set the default profile for your camera to "Camera Standard" in Lightroom. You do this by taking in a raw file, resetting the Develop settings, go to the camera calibration section in Develop and changing the profile in the popup. Then hit alt/option and the reset button will change to "Set Default...". Hit that and change the default. All newly imported raw files will default to the camera default profile and you will not see big color shifts anymore from the initial preview. This will make the raw render the same as if you shot jpeg using default settings in your camera. Adobe messes around a bit too much with the "adobe default" profiles for my taste between camera versions.

[Todd Shaner]

Jao vdL wrote:

Adobe messes around a bit too much with the "adobe default" profiles for my taste between camera versions.

Jao, I assume you mean the Adobe Standard camera profiles. Please read my reply #23 in this post. It appears Adobe has changed the "standard" for Adobe Standard camera profiles starting about 2014 Q3 for all new camera models. This means if you shoot with both old and post 2014 Q3 new model cameras AND used the Adobe Standard profile you're going to need to change your editing workflow and probably add duplicate Develop presets for the newer camera models. Adobe Standard was supposed to provide the same rendering regardless of make or model camera. If you're running a commercial or wedding photography business and use camera equipment from more than one manufacturer (i.e. Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, etc.) the Camera Standard profile probably won't work well. Each camera manufacturer has their own idea of what 'Standard' rendering should looks like and they are all slightly different.

Even when using a ColorChecker to create calibrated "custom profiles" a 'Base Profile' must be selected, which is used to create the new "custom" profile. Most people choose Adobe Standard since it is the most uniform across camera makes and models and the best starting point. That's exactly what I'm doing now with each of my cameras. Unfortunately even when using a ColorChecker with the "new" Adobe Standard as the Base profile there are differences in the "custom" profile (i.e. lower color saturation and black point contrast). One solution is to use the Adobe DNG Profile Editor (DPE) to correct the tone curve and color saturation changes in the new Adobe Standard profile.

I've done that for the Nikon D500 camera model that stevek4 is using with this very issue. The D500 DNG responded abnormally to RGB Saturation slider changes causing the image to jump to 100% saturation increase with the first movement of the slider. I found that moving all RGB Saturation sliders to -30 provided what appears to be a slight increase in color saturation that matches the older Nikon models (D3, D800). So clearly there's some camera profiling issue that Adobe hasn't addressed...at least in DPE. I also added a slight 'S' shaped Tone Curve so the contrast also matches the older Nikon models (D3, D800). For the DPE app download and documentation do a Google search using  Adobe dng profile editor.

You can download the "corrected" profile here:

Dropbox - Nikon D500_Adobe Standard_Corrected.dcp

The DCP file needs to be installed at the below folder location and then LR restarted to load it:

Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ AppData \ Roaming \ Adobe \ CameraRaw \ CameraProfiles \

Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Library / Application Support / Adobe / CameraRaw / CameraProfiles /

Yes,-30 is actually increasing the color saturation in DPE.

Tone Curve Points: 0 0, 32 27, 64 60, 128 128, 192 196, 224 228, 255 255

[stevek4]

I'm assuming that this change will apply to editing JPG in LR CC, since that's what I shoot for sports events with the D500.

[DdeGannes]

When you shoot JPG the White Balance, Profile and in camera settings are "Baked" into the rendered jpeg file. LR by default will make no changes and will display the file as rendered by the Camera Firmware. i.e. you are no longer have the Raw data to work with.