Comparing Nikon D850 to Nikon Z8 - different starting values in ACR?

Report · Dec 18, 2023

I have a new Z8 which I am just beginning to learn my way around. I have an existing D850 for several years. And I have used ACR & Photoshop as an amateur for many years. This Z8 is quite a different beast.

One thing (of many) that struck me right away was how different the images from the Z8 look in ACR. And particularly some of the starting values in ACR are not what I had expected and quite different from the starting values for a D850 NEF file.

See below image - there are two sets of comparisons from ACR. The first pair (D850 on the left Z8 on the right) show differnces for initial settings for sharpening and noise reduction. The second pair (whoops, the Z8 is on the left thistime and D850 on the right) show differences for claity & texture).

I am used to editing files from the D850 starting with Sharpening at 40, Radius 1.0, Detail of 25, and Luminance zero. But notice that ACR begins with very different values for files from the Z8. Radius of 2.0, Sharpening 24, Luminance 52. Why such radical differences? And why does the Z8 file begin with nonzero values for clarity & texture?

I feel that there is also something wanky with White Balance but I need to do more testing to see what's going on.

ACR version 16.1.0.1728

Peter

Report · Dec 18, 2023

The D850 writes camera settings (like sharpening) in a format that ACR doesn't understand, and it ignores them.

The Z8 writes camera settings in XMP, which ACR understands, and honors.

You can either zero out all these settings in the camera, or create a develop preset to use on import that overrides the camera settings. You can then use this preset to create a camera default in the ACR preferences.

See https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/acr-raw-defaults.html