Emile posted this inside the LR2 post on this forum and in the Canon forum but I thought it deserved its own post here:
Adobe has just released new beta camera profiles that work with Camera Raw 4.5 beta (which can be used by Photoshop CS3) and Lightroom 2. Initially, pre-defined profiles are available for Canon and Nikon only but there is a DNG profile editor that apparently can be used to create custom profiles.
This could be a very important development for those of us that have had difficulty with skin tones, orange-ish reds, etc. in ACR and Lightroom.
Has Adobe finally made it possible to produce colors closer to camera manufacturers' software? I haven't tried it yet but Emile's initial comments sound promising.
works great, beware applying to already edited pics, cause it makes them really red.. (probably because you/me edited to add more red cause LR's canon reds used to suck, not any more)
People are saying they look like DPP - wether thats true, or better or what i dunno, never used it. I've always used LR/ACR/A2
Probably should not speak yet, since I've only been playing with the new ACR 4.5 profiles for a few hours. But my first experience is mixed. The "standard" profiles seem to work well, and make only slight changes in colors. But the "faithful, landscape, and portrait" profiles seem strange. The appear to significantly alter gamma in addition to color.
And they bear little or no resemblance to the same named profiles in DPP. But a discalimer, I never use DPP but keep a copy installed. I think I used it properly for the comparisons, but maybe not. Waiting to hear from others.
Keep in mind to reset your other color calibration settings to 0 when applying these profiles. As those will also work at the same time messing with the color response. At first glance these seem great
pjbishop wrote:
Neutral and Faithful give a color rendering that looks faded, though less orange.
As they should, standard clips the dynamic range. It only takes a second to add some contrast to a preset. I think Neutral looks great. I dont see drastic changes in the reds like you. Perhaps you have other settings on your calibration tab that conflict with the new profiles.
Yes, I said that 'of course' the neutral and faithful render drabber in immediate comparison. But I'm surprised that you don't see marked differences on screen between the reds in the different renderings. On my calibrated screen the difference is especially drastic between the 'Camera Standard', which is bright scarlet, and the two adobe profiles, which are magenta and closer in color, though, as I said, the rendering with the new Adobe Standard is somewhat bluer.
Would like to hear from other people- do you see the differences?
on my laptop (uncalibrated), the standard is red with a tinge of orange in it, Adobe standard is purple/magenta (looks true bougainvillea color) and the top one is reddish/purple.
Here some differences between the profiles. Color managed browsers include firefox 3 with color management enabled in config and safari. You will not see these properly in IE xx or firefox 2/3 ( not enabled CM by default).
For the Nikon profiles, (for a D200), see comparisons below. I like the look of the Camera Neutral profiles the best. I've shown them compared to the Adobe Standard. (For the Camera Standard profiles, not shown, they tend to have more contrast.) I'm color-blind, so I won't comment on the colors, only to say that when I went back and reset settings on most of my pictures, then applied the Camera Neutral profile, the overall sense I had was that everything looked a lot more like I remembered it when I took the picture. I think I'll be upgrading to LR 2.0 for this alone.
Shaun Cox wrote:
For the Nikon profiles, (for a D200), see comparisons below. I like the look of the Camera Neutral profiles the best. I've shown them compared to the Adobe Standard. (For the Camera Standard profiles, not shown, they tend to have more contrast.) I'm color-blind, so I won't comment on the colors, only to say that when I went back and reset settings on most of my pictures, then applied the Camera Neutral profile, the overall sense I had was that everything looked a lot more like I remembered it when I took the picture. I think I'll be upgrading to LR 2.0 for this alone.
Agreed Shaun, nice pics as well. Love the textures and water beads. As far as the colors yes they look more natural and neutral with an expanded dynamic range. I like neutral for my 5d also.
thepiecesfit wrote:
Agreed Shaun, nice pics as well. Love the textures and water beads. As far as the colors yes they look more natural and neutral with an expanded dynamic range. I like neutral for my 5d also.
Thanks for the nice comments.
I also like the new output sharpening options in export. The butterfly was done with Amount="High" and the Flower was "Standard". I think I'll be using Standard for the most part...High seems just a tad too much, but I think Adobe did a good job with this feature.
Overall, my default Import settings will probably be Camera Neutral, Vibrance=15, Saturation=10. (I like a bit more saturated colors by default -- though the examples above had no Vibrance or Saturation added.)
I also like the new output sharpening options in export. The butterfly was done with Amount="High" and the Flower was "Standard". I think I'll be using Standard for the most part...High seems just a tad too much, but I think Adobe did a good job with this feature.
Overall, my default Import settings will probably be Camera Neutral, Vibrance=15, Saturation=10. (I like a bit more saturated colors by default -- though the examples above had no Vibrance or Saturation added.)
where are these export sharpening options you speak of ? LR or ACR? i do not see them
I just read somewhere, I think at the Adobe Camera Raw forum, that the Nikon profiles are all designated D2X no matter what model Nikon you're using.
I also prefer less saturated color in default rendering, so will experiment with the Camera Faithful and Camera Neutral. I don't yet see the new Adobe Standard as an improvement over the the old ACR 3.3/4.4 rendering. I just found the differences between the reds given by the Adobe profiles vs the camera modes quite surprising. Basically, it seemed like a rose/red vs orange/red difference.
The comparison shots supplied by Shaun and thepiecesfit (can I call you 'Pieces'? Are you any relation to Patsy Cline?) clarify the differences better than my shots and conform pretty well to what I read about the renderings.
Shaun, do you think the difference in what you got from Adobe Standard and the Camera Neutral is all color, or also a matter of tone?
pjbishop wrote:
Would like to hear from other people- do you see the differences?
I definitely see a big difference in the three files you posted. I'm using Firefox 3 on a Mac with color management turned on.
I'm not savvy enough to tell you one has too much orange and another has too much blue but I asked my wife which one looks the most like bougainvillea and she says the first one does.
I think the new profiles are a big step forward, though. They may not be perfect yet, but at least they're there. Remember the profiles everyone who used Capture 1 used to buy? From Magne Nillson, I think? He could come out with profiles for ACR/LR now.
thepiecesfit wrote:
...
where are these export sharpening options you speak of ? LR or ACR? i do not see them
It's in LR. Under File/Export... there is an area labled "Output Sharpening". Options are for Screen/Matte Paper/Glossy Paper in Amounts of Low/Standard/High.
pjbishop wrote:
...
Shaun, do you think the difference in what you got from Adobe Standard and the Camera Neutral is all color, or also a matter of tone?
Yeah, I'd say the difference is more than just color. When I flip back and forth between Adobe Standard and and Camera Neutral while watching the histogram, it seems to shift right in the Shadows region by a bit (1/3 stop maybe?) Images are definately showing more shadow detail under Camera Neutral. HTH.
Hendrik wrote:
I just downloaded and installed the profiles, but were are the D200 profiles? I only got:
Those are the only options I see too. (When I mentioned D200, I only meant that I was showing images taken from a D200... but using those profile options you see there.)
The utility has an automated approach for using a GretagMacBeth ColorChecker to create a custom camera profile. This seems like a step forward for everyone that was using scripts to create custom camera profile in the past.
caveat: am just a relative beginner with extensive post processing.
In looking at these comparison images, I see changes that go beyond the color accuarcy. It looks like the processing is changing the dynamic range fairly significantly in the first 3 posted images. Additionally, the impression of the image gets altered fairly significantly when the background greens are altered. This seems to give the images a very different "impression look".
( I'm using the term "impression" to describe the way a human eye processes an entire image before it focuses on specific details within a photograph. ) fwiw
