14 Replies Latest reply: Jul 28, 2010 1:54 AM by areohbee RSS

    Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"

    Robert Eckerlin Community Member

      I recently bought a Nikon D5000 DSLR and noticed that very often, the jpeg Foto Files created by the camera are ***much*** better rendered than the RAW/NEF Foto Files, as rendered by Lr. This is true both with Lr 2 and with Lr 3.

       

      For this reason, for my Nikon D5000 Photos, I use/edit only very seldom the RAW/NEF Photo files and use/edit most of the time the Jpeg Foto Files. This is somehow a pitty.

       

      It is therefore my impression, that Adobe should allow (and motivate!) the camera manufacturers to provide for Lr (and for Adobe Camera Raw) their own Camera Profiles, which would render RAW Files as well as they (=the camera manufacurer) render their jpeg files.

       

      Such an enhancement would allow me (and other users) to benefit more from the combined use of two excellent products: my excellent camera and the excellent Lr Software. It is my impression that such an enhancement woulde also be benefitial for Camera Manufacturers (e.g. Nikon will be happy to know, that their customers can benefit more from Lr) and would also be benefitial for Adobe (Adobe will be happy to know, that those users who bought a brand-X camera can achieve for their camera with Lr the best RAW rendering).

       

      Adobe could leave it to each camera manufacturer, to decide if they prefer to sell or to give-away their Lr camera profile.

       

      --

      Notice: I am not a Lr expert and do therefore not know how easy or how difficult it will be to provide such an enhancement. But as a non-expert, I have the impression that since it is today possible for a user to define and use his own Lr Presets, it should also be possible to define and use Camera profiles that are not defined by Adobe. ....Perhaps, what I am looking for, could be achieved with some kind of Presets that will be provided by the camera manufacturers.

        • 1. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
          ssprengel Community Member

          This will not happen...camera manufacturers will not be able to provide a camera profile that produces the same results as the in-camera JPG with Adobe's RAW engine, simply because Adobe and camera manufacturers do not have access to each other's proprietary information to go off of.  Furthermore some camera manufacturers who sell their own RAW processing software (that uses the camera manufacturer's proprietary processing algorithms that duplicate the camera processing) would view Adobe as a competitor.  Nikon actually encrypted their white-balance information a few camera-generations back to thwart Adobe and others from processing their RAW files, but have long since relented.

           

          The user can already create a camera profile or group of profiles for their own camera but it will not have the hue-twists that Adobe profiles do that can provide more pleasing color in certain situations.  So it is unlikely that camera manufacturers would be able to do a better job. 

           

          Once thing we could with for is Adobe allow profile creation using a color-target with more colors than the 24-patch color-checker which is limited in the colors it optimizes for and allow the end user to specify the hue-twists in the Adobe profiles.

          • 2. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
            Robert Eckerlin Community Member

            Thank You ssprengel,

             

            I both fear and guess that for the time being, you are right.  The situation is however not satisfactory and it seems that more than one otherwise excellent company take such propriatary stance and merits to get blamed.

             

            While i both love Lr and my Nikon camera: I have problems to appreciate the claim, that Lr is one of the best (if not the best) workflow software for RAW-based photography....while it is not able to provide a good RAW/NEF rendering for some of the best cameras. And I have problems to understand the position of excellent camera manufactuers, who do not care to have their RAW files excellently supported by Lr.

             

            It is my impression that some serious discussions about better interoperability should happen between the managers of these excellent companies.

             

            Probably, I am just day-dreaming.

            • 3. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
              areohbee Community Member

              Robert,

               

              You've piqued my curiosity.

               

              What is it about Lr renderings versus in-camera that seems not as good?

               

              I mean, I have a D300 and color+tone-wise the Adobe Camera profiles give results very much like in-camera, and detail-wise I prefer Lr3. All this based on my memory - I used to always compare the in-camera jpegs to Lr-renderings but I haven't bothered for a long time now.

               

              One big difference: Lr renderings that use the camera emulation profiles should be very close to what your camera would do with Active D-Lighting: Off. - This is certainly one thing I miss from NX2/in-camera - "One-click" global contrast reduction without losing punch. On the other hand, with a little finagling and the improved fill-light + clarity slider + tone curve + local adjustments..., I can usually if not always get better results than in-camera, albeit takes more time.

               

              Are your issues related to tone, color, detail, ...?

               

              Can you post examples?

               

              You gonna disappear or see this through?

               

              PS - I'm not just a Lightroom-user/Adobe-fan-boy in denial - I'm willing to see Lightroom's shortcomings as well as its strengths - just wonder whether you are seeing both.

               

              Rob

              • 4. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                Robert Eckerlin Community Member

                Rob

                 

                I appreciate very much your willingness to help. This is really great. Thank you very much for it.

                 

                I will try to upload somewhere a couple of photos and will then update this Thread.

                 

                Meanwhile, I can already answer the following questions/report the following:

                1) Most of the times (or perhaps even at all times?), Active D-Lighting is active (this choice was based on recommendations, that I had read elsewhere - I do not remember where exactly)

                2)  One kind of problems, that I encountered: in bright skies (with photos taken more or less - not exactly - against day-light), in the RAW/NEF files as rendered by LR: I see very few details (or no details) in the clouds. The Jpeg Files created by the Nikon camera are much better.

                3)  Another kind of problem: small blue flowers are not rendered by Lr in a reasonable color. The Jpeg Files created by the camera are much better.

                4) Another kind of problem: yellow flowers in the sun are not rendered reasonably by LR - too few details. The JPEG Files created by the caqmera are much better.

                 

                5) Approximately one year ago, I had a Canon EOS 400D that stopped to function. I believe to remember (but I can be wrong) that I had not encountered similar problems with the Photos shot with my Canon Camera...... but I was not happy at all with my Canon Camera because in contrasty situations, the bright portions did not contain enough details (for example: red flowers in the sun were more or less white in the photo files). My Nikon camera handles such situations much better.

                For photos shot with my Canon Camera, I was prefering to use in Lr the RAW photo-copy (this is the opposite for photos shot with my current Nikon camera. I prefer to use the jpeg foto file).

                 

                A sincere "Thank You" for your offer to look at the problems, once i will have uploaded the photos.

                 

                Robert Eckerlin

                • 5. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                  ssprengel Community Member

                  Adobe's point-of-view is to make their RAW engine process RAW files consistently from 100s of cameras.

                   

                  Each camera manufacturer's point-of-view is to produce in-camera JPGs better than their competitors or at least good enough to turn a profit.

                   

                  These two sets of self-interests will not result in cooperation, because it is easier for most manufacturers to produce their own JPGs and easier for Adobe not to rely on every manufacturer to render that manufacturer's camera's JPGs.

                   

                  Such is life in a free society that includes competition and individualism.

                  • 6. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                    Robert Eckerlin Community Member

                    I am now uploading for three NIKON D5000 Photos Files showing yhow they have been rendered in jpeg format by the camera and how the NEF/RAW files have been rendered by Lr 3.DSC_0130.jpgDSC_0130-NEF.jpgDSC_0356.jpgDSC_0356-NEF.jpgDSC_0052-NEF.jpgDSC_0052.jpg

                    • 7. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                      Robert Eckerlin Community Member

                      This is how the photos files included in my previous post have been rendered:

                         1st photo file: jpeg rendered by the NIKON camera

                         2nd photo file: RAW (of the same photo) rendered by Lr 3

                       

                         3rd photo file: jpeg rendered by the NIKON camera

                          4th photo file: : RAW (of the same photo) rendered by LR 3

                       

                         5th Photo file: RAW rendered by LR 3

                         6th Photo: jpeg (of the same photo) rendered by the NIKON Camera

                      • 8. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                        areohbee Community Member

                        In my opinion, Active D-Lighting is great. Its a software techonology that opens shadows and enhances highlight detail in high-contrast shots, without sacrificing punch / mid-tone separation.

                         

                        Try shooting with Active D-Lighting Off, then check your jpegs against Lightroom (choose same camera profile in Lightroom as you did in camera) - to see which part of what your noticing is due to that.

                         

                        Its been a while since I've really scrutinized the difference in the camera jpegs versus Lr-raw. I'm remembering now having noticed before some of the things you've mentioned. In fact, I went through a phase trying to convince Adobe to address some of these issues - like implementing an even better version of Active D-Lighting and better shadow detail / highlight detail enhancement. For better or for worse - I'm presently in a more complacent phase...

                         

                        Some of the things I do to make up for no Active D-Lighting and lack of shadow / highlight detail in Lightroom:

                         

                        1. Reduce Contrast.

                        2. Increase Clarity - In fact, I often boost the global clarity way up, then spot reduce with the local brush the "overly clear" places.

                        3. Increase Fill Light

                        4. Use Highlight recovery, carefully - switching to a linear camera profile if necessary to avoid hue shifts, and maybe up the light tones to compensate - depending on whether you prefer more highlight detail or midtone contrast.

                        5. Tone Curve...

                         

                        Brush highlights with reduced contrast, and reduced brightness. If you got some head-room exposure-wise, you can combine increased exposure locally as well to increase intra highlight separation.

                         

                        Brush shadows with reduced contrast, reduced brightness, and increased exposure.

                         

                        Forgive me it this is all stuff you know and don't want to bother with, but I'm kinda on a roll now...

                         

                        - Global contrast increases midtone separation (contrast) but reduces separation / compresses tones in both shadows and highlights. Which is why local application of global contrast reduction actually increases intra-shadow contrast and intra-highlight contrast.

                         

                        - Clarity increases local contrast mostly in midtones, very little the highlights, and not much at all in the shadows.

                         

                        It seems to me that Active D-Lighting is like a mixture of reduced gobal contrast, with increased mid-tone clarity, with special attention to highlight detail recovery. And as you may be aware, it all starts with reduced exposure (via ISO-downshifting) in order to have more to work with in the highlights.

                         

                        Summary: Lightroom provides some tools to make up for lack'o Active D-Lighting, but you have to be willing to work for it.

                         

                        The color anomalies I don't understand as well as the tonal stuff, but some things to be aware of:

                         

                        Lightroom handles black-point and exposure adjustments very differently than camera or NX2, and can result in hue shifts, especially when profiles are twisted (and the camera profiles are). Likewise tonal adjustments like contrast and highlight recovery can result in hue shifts and hue compression. For example, increasing contrast can sometimes result in compression / flattening of blues in blue flower petals. I sometimes brush contrast reduction into midtoned colors as well to help restore color fidelity and separation - or switch to a linear profile if need be to make big tonal adjustments (e.g. ACR 4.4 (Adobe Standard is also twisted)).

                         

                        Rob

                        • 9. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                          areohbee Community Member

                          I was working on my dissertation while you posted the examples. I gotta run now but I will respond more later...

                           

                          R

                          • 10. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                            ssprengel Community Member

                            DSC_0052 is clearly under the influence of D-Lighting as the top of the mountains next to the bright sky is darker than the bottom of the mountains.  If you want to compare that D-Lighting JPGs to LR, then click the Auto tone button in LR.

                            • 11. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                              Robert Eckerlin Community Member

                              Thank You very much ssprengel.

                               

                              Indeed, you are right. The result of Autotone is quite similar to the jpeg. This surprised me a lot; and it surprised me also a lot, that you found a simple solution so rapidly. I was in the process of writing "you are a magician" and realized that I should instead write "you are a real expert".

                               

                              I will check whether Autotone is also fixing the problems in other photos that are (from my non-expert perspective) somehow similar to DSC_052. But this will take some time, because my sister and her husband are coming today (its now 4 am in Switzerland) to our home for a visit of a couple of days.

                               

                              On the problem with the blue flower: I just noticed that use of other Camera profiles will result in blues that are similar to the blues in the jpeg photo.

                               

                              Thank You very much

                              Robert

                              • 12. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                                Robert Eckerlin Community Member

                                Rob

                                 

                                function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}

                                 

                                 

                                Forgive me it this is all stuff you know and don't want to bother with, but I'm kinda on a roll now...

                                 

                                -

                                No reason to worry about a need to get forgiven. To the contrary, I can and will learn a lot from your descriptions which adress the problems that I am struggling with. Thank You a lot for it.

                                 

                                But of course, my wish (and probably also the wish of other Lr users who are very far away from being as sophisticated as you are) is to get from Lr a RAW rendering that is at least as good as the rendering provided in-camera for the jpeg Files ....and this without the need to spend a lot of time trying "this and that". Even if this will perhaps be very difficult to achieve: it is my impression that this is a very legtime wish/Feature Request.  Just hoping that Lr development read these "Feature Requests".

                                • 13. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                                  Robert Eckerlin Community Member
                                  function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}

                                  ssprengel wrote:

                                   

                                  Adobe's point-of-view is to make their RAW engine process RAW files consistently from 100s of cameras.

                                   

                                  Each camera manufacturer's point-of-view is to produce in-camera JPGs better than their competitors or at least good enough to turn a profit.

                                   

                                  ssprengel, on the above subject too, I fear that you are describing the somehow sad reality.

                                   

                                  But, sometimes enlighted managers also spend time to think about and to work on the objectives/point-of-views of ***their users***; this not only for the benefit of their users but indirectly also for the well-understood benefit of their products. 

                                   

                                  In this particular case, my point of view/objective is to get an excellent  RAW rendering for ***my*** particular camera. I guess that this is/will also be the case of a lot of other non-sophisticated Lr users ....and I believe that Lr has (thanks to its excellence) also a very interesting market potential within the segment of non-sophisticated users (who are a little bit like me: neither bloody beginners nor experts).

                                   

                                  If (what is very probable), Adobe can not afford to spend a very high amount of time on the RAW rendering for each one of the thousands of different camera models: it would be great if there would be a solution that would allow the camera manufacturers (and/or third parties) to provide "something" (perhaps something new, which is different from todays camera-profiles and from todays Presets) that will allow to render within Lr excellently the RAW File formats of their cameras.

                                   

                                  I understand that you will answer me: "please stop to bother us with your day dreams" and I will therefore stop.

                                   

                                  Thanks again for the help that you provided.

                                  Sincerely

                                  Robert

                                  • 14. Re: Allow Camera Manufacturers to provide their own Camera "Profile"
                                    areohbee Community Member

                                    So, it looks like you've got your answer:

                                     

                                    Two Active-D-Lightings and a Camera Profile.

                                     

                                    A couple things:

                                     

                                    1. I couldn't agree more that Lightroom could benefit greatly from better auto-toning / intelligent-contrast-handling / Adobe-D-Lighting... In fact, I have made more than one feature request about this and related things. You said it well - "Lightroom should be able to make pictures that look at least as good as the jpegs" - in short order, then you can spend time making them better still if you want. I believe it to be a true statement, certainly it's true in mine and your case, that sometimes it takes a good while just to make them look as good as the in-camera jpegs. Two cases come to mind: 1 - very high contrast shots (since its a challenge to reduce contrast whilst maintaining punch, and recover highlights without dulling and/or hue shifts), and 2 - very low contrast shots (since extreme black-point and exposure adjustments can have adverse side effects). I think Lightroom performs best when the initial tonal distribution is in the ball park.

                                     

                                    2. If you're going to process the raws yourself, you need to learn how to process the raws yourself. It took me months using Lightroom before I could get better results than my camera - sometimes its simple - just a few twists of the global sliders, and sometimes its hard - requiring local adjustments + time. ... edited out. For the first six months I shot Raw, extracted the jpegs, and compared them to what I could do with Lightroom, NX2, DxO, and trials of other stuff too. Now that I've gained confidence in my Lightroom skills, I shoot raw-only and never look back - I also spend a lot of time in front of my computer .

                                     

                                     

                                    Anyway, I think my point is that at first Lightroom seems easy, since there is only so many adjustments, and I've heard of one person who goes through just once - top-to-bottom, and then they're done (or so they say). Personally, I go all over the place, over and over again, and then they're done - for a while.

                                     

                                     

                                    So, to summarize: I agree that Adobe should add some sophistication to the auto-toning / dealing with contrast... Personally, I think they should be able to do better than what Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, and DxO have been able to do in that regard. But, we will have to wait until at least Lr4 if not Lr5 before we see it. Not only that, but it is also my opinion that additional sophistication in the area of color handling would be a boon. So you (and me...) have two choices:

                                     

                                    1. Learn to use Lightroom better to compensate for its limitations.

                                    2. Use NX2, or DxO, ..., despite their limitations.

                                     

                                    Raw image processing is still in its infancy...

                                     

                                    Rob