p.1 #1 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
So I took my ancient EOS 450D out for a spin just for fun. And after years with Canon mirrorless system what I noticed right off the bat was the color rendition in ACR/Lightroom. These old RAW files just fly with lovely pleasing, and especially warm colors already with default settings. Even Adobe Standard looks great and that is NOT the case with my R8 or R7, I can tell you that. I need to push sliders pretty severe in order to get rid of that anemic washed-out look. I am sure the old ones are not as technically correct as modern cameras but they sure as hell look better to my eyes when served on a plate.
So it got me thinking...did Adobe treat old files differently with different color tables and matrices or are modern canon files more restrictive in order to max out DR and also perhaps be grade friendly for the video market? I know a RAW files does not contain colors per se but it does contain the spectral response of the sensor and some treatment from the Digic processor which has an impact on final color "dna" of course. But it is also down to profiles so I wonder if anyone knows?
I've ported some old Canon profiles to my modern Canons and while it does change the look a bit it's not really close. Which of course is expected since the profiles are made for a completely different sensor and image processor.
This is way way deeper than just the WB settings. I have noticed this before in other old models and the original 5D is a legend of course.
This is not a about "better" or "worse". Just an observation related to my personal (and others?) taste.
p.1 #2 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
I have found over the years that you can't really judge anything by using third-party RAW conversion software. Adobe's own profile treatments for Canon cameras have varied widely in quality over the years. They generally provide pleasing results with older models, but anything newer than the 5D Mark III tends to look washed out and unsaturated with Adobe Color.
To get the best results from ACR / Lightroom, I have always used Adobe's Camera Standard profile. This is generally the closest match to the default color science that Canon itself uses for each particular camera model. Even then, it is an approximation.
To obtain the best measure of the behavior of the sensor and its color rendering, you may want to open the files in Canon's own Digital Photo Professional software. DPP provides a near-perfect match for the original in-camera JPEG rendering and will help you make a better comparison of the color science in older vs. newer cameras.
Do know that DPP takes *all* of the in-camera settings into account, including color space (sRGB or Adobe RGB), Picture Style, sharpening, noise reduction, lens aberration corrections, etc. When making comparisons, you would want to normalize any such in-camera differences. (For example, images with the camera's color space set to sRGB will look different than images captured in Adobe RGB in DPP and will give you a false comparison. This is not the case for Lightroom.)
So, I am not saying that there are no differences over time, just that it is difficult to judge given the vagaries of how third-party software handles the files.
And yes, color is purely in the processing. CFAs have slightly different color, but not enough to have an impact to this extent.
Mar 30, 2026 at 09:32 AM
AmbientMike Offline • • • • • • [X]
p.1 #4 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
People have definitely commented that the 12mp rebel has nice colors before. Interestingly pixel density is about the same vs 5D4, one of Canon's most popular cameras, ever.
I haven't used ps/lr but I tried different processors at one point, one thing I realized is DPP is excellent software. I preferred the output, overall, so I just continued using that. Recently I tried opening a raw from an older cameras on win 11, the auto correction ruined the color (like on other processors I tried) and it was soft so raw processor plays a big role
I haven't used 450d but I felt like 20D and 30D more muted color than newer cameras , although I haven't used latest, either. The red channel doesn't seem to blow out as easily on 20D, maybe 30D, as well, if you set the camera up right stuff doesn't blow out (blinkies) as easily, either.
p.1 #5 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
+1 What Gary posted. You'd be best to compare with DPP but even there you don't know what kind of compensation are being made 'under the hood' by the software to equalize the final appearance of images generated from camera models across a significant time span.
Older sensors tend to have lower dynamic range, which in turn means higher default image contrast, which in turn also means higher color saturation. Third party software such as Lightroom might be tuned to retain information across as full a range as possible, depending on the chosen profile, for a given camera. That could mean that with a modern, higher dynamic range camera, the default appearance will be lower contrast and more muted colors. In Lightroom, if you click the auto adjustment option, you should find that it significantly boosts contrast and color saturation.
I use Lightroom for editing and see exactly what you are saying about the default look of images, especially with Adobe's general profiles. I actually start with Lightroom's camera standard profile simulation because it's closer to what I see SOOC
Mar 30, 2026 at 12:21 PM
AmbientMike Offline • • • • • • [X]
p.1 #6 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
You can definitely shoot at low contrast on older bodies if you set the camera up right overall i consider the contrast less sooc. Even 450D might be too recent to do it, completely, but 20D can. Idk that you can compete vs modern bodies on DR,but I'm wondering if 3rd party software has as much DR especially if you set the camera up right, since DPP keeps in camera settings
p.1 #7 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
rscheffler wrote:
That could mean that with a modern, higher dynamic range camera, the default appearance will be lower contrast and more muted colors...
That may be the most plausible explanation I have seen for why the default Adobe Color profile appears so washed out and flat with modern cameras, yet can look quite appealing with older models.
To me, however, this seems odd and counterintuitive to how things should work.
When Adobe announced Adobe Color, my expectation was that it would become Adobe's default look for processed images, calibrated to achieve consistent results across different brands and sensors, sort of like how Canon Picture Styles work.
For example, Canon "Standard" JPEGs look almost the same across virtually all camera models, regardless of the dynamic range of the sensor or other sensor characteristics. And this has been true over time, even as the sensor technology has evolved. I imagine this is the same for most other camera manufacturers' approaches to color science as well.
Yet with Adobe this is not what happens! You have this weird variance in results with different bodies. I find the Adobe Color or Adobe Standard profiles to be almost unusable with Canon cameras released in the last 10 years.
Anyway, there was a time in the early days of the R-mount when Adobe did not offer Camera Standard profiles for Canon models. I remember this was quite painful and I went on a search for third party custom profiles. Fortunately, Adobe and Canon apparently hashed out whatever the issue was and got it sorted.
In any case, I don't believe Adobe has ever explained why their camera profiles behave this way, so we are left to speculate...
p.1 #8 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
Recently, I've been editing old RAW files from a couple decades plus ago—6D, 20D and 5D—and colors are very good once processed, JPEGs, not so much. Dynamic range and noise is terrible compared to modern cameras so no shadow lifts and most blown highlights that can't be recovered. I didn't dare go past ISO 800 as noise looked like river pebbles. Canon's RAW converter from 2003 was almost useless and results were horrid. All it could do was convert from RAW to TIFF or JPEG. Took lots of time in Photoshop to make those images presentable. Now those old RAW images really shine in LR with a couple minutes of clicks and strokes. Glad I didn't toss those files.
p.1 #9 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
Gochugogi wrote:
Recently, I've been editing old RAW files from a couple decades plus ago—6D, 20D and 5D—and colors are very good once processed, JPEGs, not so much. Dynamic range and noise is terrible compared to modern cameras so no shadow lifts and most blown highlights that can't be recovered. I didn't dare go past ISO 800 as noise looked like river pebbles. Canon's RAW converter from 2003 was almost useless and results were horrid. All it could do was convert from RAW to TIFF or JPEG. Took lots of time in Photoshop to make those images presentable. Now those old RAW images really shine in LR with a couple minutes of clicks and strokes. Glad I didn't toss those files....Show more →
Yes, I have been doing the same, and have been having fun treating old favorites from my 6 MP camera bodies to modern AI noise reduction and super sampling.
I fortunately never shot JPEG exclusively at the expense of RAW. However, I have to kick myself for having shot a number of projects (including some professional gigs) using Canon's mRAW format. This must have seemed like a space-saving life hack to me at the time, but these files are not nearly so malleable in post.
For those who don't know (or don't remember) what mRAW and sRAW were, these were "medium" and "small" RAW files that were downsampled to lower resolutions after being demosaiced and encoded to a linear format. (This is similar to how CLog compares to RAW in video encoding.) This was meant to mirror the same feature that JPEGs offered where you could choose large, medium, and small file sizes.
Canon has basically dropped this on new cameras and today we only get full resolution RAW captures in either uncompressed or compressed formats. (As it should be!)
p.1 #10 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
boldcolors wrote:
So I took my ancient EOS 450D out for a spin just for fun. And after years with Canon mirrorless system what I noticed right off the bat was the color rendition in ACR/Lightroom. These old RAW files just fly with lovely pleasing, and especially warm colors already with default settings. Even Adobe Standard looks great and that is NOT the case with my R8 or R7, I can tell you that. I need to push sliders pretty severe in order to get rid of that anemic washed-out look. I am sure the old ones are not as technically correct as modern cameras but they sure as hell look better to my eyes when served on a plate.
So it got me thinking...did Adobe treat old files differently with different color tables and matrices or are modern canon files more restrictive in order to max out DR and also perhaps be grade friendly for the video market? I know a RAW files does not contain colors per se but it does contain the spectral response of the sensor and some treatment from the Digic processor which has an impact on final color "dna" of course. But it is also down to profiles so I wonder if anyone knows?
I've ported some old Canon profiles to my modern Canons and while it does change the look a bit it's not really close. Which of course is expected since the profiles are made for a completely different sensor and image processor.
This is way way deeper than just the WB settings. I have noticed this before in other old models and the original 5D is a legend of course.
This is not a about "better" or "worse". Just an observation related to my personal (and others?) taste.
You can't just, by virtue of shooting raw, open the same files and expect to get the same results in different raw processors.
There are probably exceptions for instance the open source ones used DCRaw to process the raw files so it might not be too hard to get close. Adobe apparently has a profile that matches DPP and if you are color managed and do your own profiles might help a lot. Bit if you think you are going to open the same file in DxO Darktable and DPP and get the same result after playing with a few slider bars for a minute or 2 good luck you're gonna need it
Mar 30, 2026 at 04:10 PM
AmbientMike Offline • • • • • • [X]
p.1 #11 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
Gochugogi wrote:
Recently, I've been editing old RAW files from a couple decades plus ago—6D, 20D and 5D—and colors are very good once processed, JPEGs, not so much. Dynamic range and noise is terrible compared to modern cameras so no shadow lifts and most blown highlights that can't be recovered. I didn't dare go past ISO 800 as noise looked like river pebbles. Canon's RAW converter from 2003 was almost useless and results were horrid. All it could do was convert from RAW to TIFF or JPEG. Took lots of time in Photoshop to make those images presentable. Now those old RAW images really shine in LR with a couple minutes of clicks and strokes. Glad I didn't toss those files....Show more →
Just not my experience, I might use DPP 4 if trying to recover highlights, not sure if DPP existed in 2003 even (did you use DPP?) Granted I dont use DR all that much 1600 on a 20D isnt really a big difference vs later bodies imo though, a lot of the time you're going to run either through NR and either cleans up, 6D looks pretty modern at high iso in online files. Remember picking up the exposure maybe 1-1.5 stops on a photo of an alpine lake using 30D and painting it in in layers, didn't necessarily have DR issues myself
p.1 #12 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
In 2003 there was only Canon ImageBrowser (Zoombrowser for PC) for RAW conversion. DDP came out not too long afterwards but was just as terrible and very buggy. It wasn't until 2014 or 2015 that DDP 4 appeared, and was a big improvement over ImageBrowser and DDP 1/2, but still only allowed global edits. By then I was using Aperture and was used to being able to selectively apply NR, masks, WB, etc., to small sections of the imagine, rather than only globally.
p.1 #13 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
Gochugogi wrote:
In 2003 there was only Canon ImageBrowser (Zoombrowser for PC) for RAW conversion. DDP came out not too long afterwards but was just as terrible and very buggy. It wasn't until 2014 or 2015 that DDP 4 appeared, and was a big improvement over ImageBrowser and DDP 1/2, but still only allowed global edits. By then I was using Aperture and was used to being able to selectively apply NR, masks, WB, etc., to small sections of the imagine, rather than only globally.
There was also DPP 3, which was better than DPP 2 and the nearly useless DPP 1.
DPP 1.0 was late May 2004, but progressed rapidly to version 3 in less than 3 years.
Then there was a 7-year gap until DPP 4 in June 2014. By then there were various more advanced Abode and other RAW processing software, but the DLO in DPP was quite good at lens aberration corrections for that time.
I have found looking at older files with later DPP there are definitely differences between the cameras not attributable to the DPP. Other converters can be all over the place with the colors.
p.1 #14 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
AmbientMike wrote:
You can definitely shoot at low contrast on older bodies if you set the camera up right overall i consider the contrast less sooc. Even 450D might be too recent to do it, completely, but 20D can. Idk that you can compete vs modern bodies on DR,but I'm wondering if 3rd party software has as much DR especially if you set the camera up right, since DPP keeps in camera settings
Sure you can do low contrast on a low DR sensor. If the scene DR is lower than the sensor's. If you set the camera's contrast to the lowest setting, it's just modifying the tone curve but has no effect on the black and white clipping points. With a newer, higher DR sensor, there are more tones captured between the clipping points, which if tone mapped to 8-bit jpeg or SDR display, will look flat in comparison.
garyvot wrote:
For those who don't know (or don't remember) what mRAW and sRAW were, these were "medium" and "small" RAW files that were downsampled to lower resolutions after being demosaiced and encoded to a linear format. (This is similar to how CLog compares to RAW in video encoding.) This was meant to mirror the same feature that JPEGs offered where you could choose large, medium, and small file sizes.
Canon has basically dropped this on new cameras and today we only get full resolution RAW captures in either uncompressed or compressed formats. (As it should be!)
I'd like to see Canon revisit multiple in-camera RAW resolution options, but do it right, the way Leica has with cameras like the M11. That camera will do full/60MP and reduced ~36 and ~18MP.
There are tons of times I don't need 45MP from the R5II. And considering the escalating cost of storage currently, would love the option to shoot lower resolution 'proper' RAW files with it. With the R5II, I'd like full/45 and at least 24MP options.
p.1 #15 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
Colors shift because lenses and sensors are a system & not independent. EF lenses from the 80s–00s carry coatings, glass types and dispersion characteristics tuned to their era. RF lenses of the last eight years use new optical formulas, advanced coatings like BR optics and reduced chromatic aberration. On an RF body those old EF lenses get their signals interpreted by modern Digic processors and sensors with higher dynamic range. Resulting in old lens color + new sensor DR = contrasty, sometimes warmer, sometimes punchier depending on the scene and ISO.
Sensor evolution is massive. Early EOS DSLRs (think 10D, 40D, 7D Mark II) had lower DR (~8–10 stops), higher native contrast and limited highlight recovery. Modern RF sensors exceed 14 stops DR of tonal data spreads over more stops so raw files look muted straight out of the camera especially under Adobe’s Color or Standard”profiles. Adobe profiles are designed to preserve DR and give grading latitude. Canon JPEGs in-camera compress DR, boost contrast,and enhance saturation causing the old warm look.
DPP 1–3 (2004–2007) were crude with limited adjustments, buggy and mostly global tweaks. DPP 4 (2014) finally allowed better lens corrections, noise reduction and partial tone adjustments but is still global by default. Lightroom/ACR handles modern sensors differently with auto exposure, highlight recovery and DR retention flatten colors unless sliders or Camera Standard profiles are applied. Legacy profiles ported to new sensors approximate but never perfectly match old output due to differences in spectral response, CFA design and tone mapping.
mRAW and sRAW were Canon’s half-measure for limited CF card sizes through downsampled, linear-encoded RAW. Modern bodies abandoned these as today you get full-res RAW only, compressed or uncompressed. This impacts perceived color where lower-res RAW could exaggerate contrast, older sensors’ limited DR means colors pop faster. Modern R5/R7/R8 RAW files are flatter, less immediately pretty but more malleable. Storage and workflow tradeoffs matter where lower DR sensors + legacy lenses = pleasing punch vs modern high-DR sensors + RF lenses = flat until processed.
You want the old punch? Pull EF lenses onto RF bodies, drop contrast in-camera, use Camera Standard profile in LR/ACR and embrace old-raw workflows. Want the modern malleable base? RF lenses + R-series sensor + flat profile. Science & not magic.
p.1 #17 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
garyvot wrote:
I have found over the years that you can't really judge anything by using third-party RAW conversion software. Adobe's own profile treatments for Canon cameras have varied widely in quality over the years. They generally provide pleasing results with older models, but anything newer than the 5D Mark III tends to look washed out and unsaturated with Adobe Color.
To get the best results from ACR / Lightroom, I have always used Adobe's Camera Standard profile. This is generally the closest match to the default color science that Canon itself uses for each particular camera model. Even then, it is an approximation.
To obtain the best measure of the behavior of the sensor and its color rendering, you may want to open the files in Canon's own Digital Photo Professional software. DPP provides a near-perfect match for the original in-camera JPEG rendering and will help you make a better comparison of the color science in older vs. newer cameras.
Do know that DPP takes *all* of the in-camera settings into account, including color space (sRGB or Adobe RGB), Picture Style, sharpening, noise reduction, lens aberration corrections, etc. When making comparisons, you would want to normalize any such in-camera differences. (For example, images with the camera's color space set to sRGB will look different than images captured in Adobe RGB in DPP and will give you a false comparison. This is not the case for Lightroom.)
So, I am not saying that there are no differences over time, just that it is difficult to judge given the vagaries of how third-party software handles the files....Show more →
Thanks, yes I agree. Older Canons did look great in Adobe and starting with 5D mark IV it went south IMO. And this just happens to be the first model from Canon with some DR improvements so as someone else suggested - this might also be a contrast thing where flat files desaturates. But other cameras have great contrast and saturation AND great DR so not sure if that is the full picture.
It is also Adobes color tables I reckon. There is something much warmer in the 450D files that is not native contrast. Blues have a deep warm tone instead of the purple blues today. And that warm tone in the blues balances so well with the overall rich brown hues. The greens colors are also warm and rich instead of muted and bluish.
I guess what I am trying to say is that from an aesthetic point of view the files have a better starting point if one is used to (and like) the old school (almost organic) look.
DPP - yes it is good if you want Canons true colors but I am not so sure I want that. I have noticed that Adobes rendition of files can be vastly different and in many cases I prefer that to Canons JPEG look. For older files that is.
The native contrast is interesting. That might explain why my EOS 70D files are so forgiving to edit. Just a few slider adjustments and the files pop like crazy. Not just with color but a very nice contrast that takes much longer to achieve with my R8. It's ironic in a way that new tech requires more work.
p.1 #19 · Old Digic colors. Sensor or profiles? Or both
AmbientMike wrote:
People have definitely commented that the 12mp rebel has nice colors before. Interestingly pixel density is about the same vs 5D4, one of Canon's most popular cameras, ever.
I haven't used ps/lr but I tried different processors at one point, one thing I realized is DPP is excellent software. I preferred the output, overall, so I just continued using that. Recently I tried opening a raw from an older cameras on win 11, the auto correction ruined the color (like on other processors I tried) and it was soft so raw processor plays a big role
I haven't used 450d but I felt like 20D and 30D more muted color than newer cameras , although I haven't used latest, either. The red channel doesn't seem to blow out as easily on 20D, maybe 30D, as well, if you set the camera up right stuff doesn't blow out (blinkies) as easily, either. ...Show more →
DPP is good but I am not sure it gives the colors I am looking for. This seems to be an Adobe thing. Or was actually.
And yes, color is purely in the processing. CFAs have slightly different color, but not enough to have an impact to this extent.
Thanks, yes I bought that pack when I was shooting the EOS R6 years ago. They are OK but not really close to be honest. The profiles do improve the rendering but...nah. Not as close as they want them to be IMO.
