New Nikon D3, D300, and D700 "Camera" v3 beta profiles

[MadManChan2000]

Hi everyone,

I have posted a zip file containing updated "Camera" color profiles (Camera Standard, Camera Neutral, etc.) for the Nikon D3, Nikon D300, and Nikon D700. The zip file contains a copy of the readme, but I'll post it here for convenience, too:

For lack of a better name, I am calling these "v3" beta profiles.

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BETA RELEASE NOTES

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Overview

These updated Camera v3 beta profiles for the Nikon D3, Nikon D300, and Nikon D700 are designed to reduce banding and highlight color artifacts. They also address the "too bright" tone curve issues with the previous "v2" version of the D3 and D700 profiles.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When using these v3 beta profiles, if you wish to match the default tonality of Nikon's Picture Controls (e.g., match View NX / Capture NX), you must set the Exposure slider in Camera Raw / Lightroom to -0.5.

Of course, feel free to adjust Exposure to make your image brighter or darker as you like. But in terms of matching Nikon's default tonality, you must set the Exposure slider to -0.5, or the default will be too bright.

For workflow convenience, you can use presets in Camera Raw / Lightroom to take care of both (e.g., simultaneously set the profile to "Camera Standard" and set Exposure to -0.5).

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Installation

If you are on Mac OS X, drag the "Camera v3 beta" folder to:

    /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles

If you are on Windows XP, drag the "Camera v3 beta" folder to:

    C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

If you are on Windows Vista or Windows 7, drag the "Camera v3 beta" folder to:

    C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

Note that the above path on Windows Vista and Windows 7 may be hidden by default. Check your folder settings.

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Feedback

The profiles are currently in beta status. Please provide feedback via the online Adobe user-to-user forums here:

http://forums.adobe.com/community/cameraraw
http://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom

Thank you!

[gwynngee]

Most of the false profiles I did personally were done Pre DNG Profiler or CC Passport. In fact I refer to them as presets. They were presets using a Macbeth card and a combination of the Tone curve , camera profile and HSL tabs in ACR . Being a Nikon- Fuji user my main objective was to try to produce fuji -portrait -fuji - velvia look with my D200 -D2x cameras. I found reproducing the ACR interpretations of the Fuji more successful than reproducing the colors given by the Fuji software. None of them were perfect. But as presets I found it easier to address color problems on an image to image basis. The big problem colors from memory was Blue - Cyan and Orange - Brown . With skin tones on a Fuji the shadow is a lot redder and more saturated than the Nikon ( being more yellow and muddy). When this was addressed the oranges went way to red. Later after Dng profiler was released I had a couple of goes but from memory it had different issues. I still occasionally use these presets on my D2x's & D200 but if final output if within the confines of the S5 I will use one of my S5s, those files are like putty.

[Hudechrome]

Eric, since the D300 and the D90 share the same sensor, are these applicable to the D90 as well? If not but only slightly not, any caveats to using them

[Guest]

I made a brief test with NX2 using my special raw file with a test chart inside and ---- result from D300 and D90 isn't exactly the same, but differences are small - up to about 2 degree in hue and up to about 2% in saturation (but mostly less), while tone curve / brightness seems to be the same. So D300 profile should would work quite well with D90 (after changing camera model name in the profile)

[Hudechrome]

Thanks, Vit. I'll give it a try.

[Hudechrome]

Ok, I did as directed. Now I notice that there are two folders in Camera Profiles: Adobe Standard and Camera. Now also Camera v3 beta, highlighted in green. How do I know that Acr is using the new data, that green type color? Adobe Standard has the same file extensions as Camera v3 Beta.

Thanks

PS: Will this work in CS4 as well?

[Hudechrome]

I'm confused.

I have no idea what's happening. Everything works as before. Everything looks as before including the files already tweaked in ACR. I renamed "Adobe Standard" folder to "~Adobe Standard" (w/o the quotes). No difference. I moved that folder out of it's location to the desktop, no changes. Now there is no reference inside the beta folder for the D90, but there are profiles for the D3, D300 and D700. So, how is ACR, when looking for D90 profiles supposed to reference the D300 and not any of the others?

I have reset the Sdobe Standard folder to normal back in it's proper location.

Thanks!

Edit: I re-read Vit's comment about renaming the profiles. Opening the v3Beta folder, there are three profiles for the D300, which I assume I need to rename D90 individually. Correct?

OTOH, what was ACR looking at when I removed the Camera Standard folder from it's location? I still got all the expected profiles and like I said, no changes to any doc I opened. I would expect to at least see the default profiles one sees when moving to a new camera for with no profiles have yet been posted.

So I cannot trust what I am seeing.

Message was edited by: Hudechrome

[Guest]

ACR references profiles by exif tag "Unique Camera Model" and not by the file name. You can change it with exiftool, or decompile with Sandy's dcptool, change that string in resulting text file and compile file back to dcp format (which is a kind of tiff container, like dng and other raw files). I suggest doing it only with one profile first (standard for instance)

Behaviour regarding profile folders depends on operating system. In case of XP, ACR will look for the profiles in folowing folder and all of their subfolders, no matter which name they have (files and subfolders)

c:\documents and settings\All users\Application data\Adobe\Camera raw\Camera profiles

c:\documents and settings\<user name>\Application data\Adobe\Camera raw\Camera profiles

Since v3 profiles are calibrated for baselineexposure=0 and ACR assumes that it's not '0 for most cameras, you should see the difference in brightness when selecting v3 profile, including this one, made from a v3 profile for D300

[Hudechrome]

Thanks, Vit. I see it isn't a simple task at all. (More learning curves!)

The bottom line then is what's in it to go through the exercise? I don't shoot studio nor for the most part, need really accurate matches for color rendition. I get nice skin tones when I need them, which isn't often. But the enthusasim here for the beta is catching, so I became interested. I do landscapes and architecture. The architects like to have the colors match the building for sure. They don't mind departure from reality concerning tonal values, so long as it enhances the building.  However, if this beta profile gets me closer to "normal" to begin with, I am all for it as an upgrade to the current profiles, not unlike sccurate profiles in printing.

[amam123]

Hudechrome, try these profiles for D90 from D300. http://rapidshare.com/files/446896173/for_d90.zip

[Hudechrome]

Are these the v3 Beta version?

[amam123]

Yes. I just converted them for you. 😉

[Hudechrome]

Done and thank you.

How do I get them into ACR properly? Simply move the folder as Eric instructs? I'm running Win7 64.

[amam123]

anywere inside this folder "c:\Users\All Users\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles"

[Hudechrome]

Actually, the Win7 is a different path but it loaded.

Now for some feedback. here is a shot seen in Bridge, Camera Standard for the top and Camera Standard v3 for thebottom.

FAPP, they are identical, but they are not with respect to the ACR settings.

The one marked copy is processed with the v3 Beta but the settings in the Basic panel are dramatically different. WB is Temp, 5450 ; Tint +26.

The bottom one is WB is Temp 4800, tint -4, my As Shot values. The top image values show up as "As Shot" which they are not.Therefore, any of the canned WB selections are no longer valid. They are off by a huge margin.

What is interesting is the only correction I had to make manually was Exposure   which for the v3 Beta comes out to -0.3, a bit off Eric's suggestion of -0.5. That isn't surprising but the auto shift in WB is.

To tell the truth, it doesn't appear as if the beta buys me anything on a first look, but perhaps others might suggest places to look for subtle improvements worth noting.

Thanks

D90 Camera images

All images ©2011 Lawrence Hudetz

[amam123]

Hudechrome, I have made mistake and "vivid" profile for D90 in archive has remained for d300, but I hope you dont need it.

[Hudechrome]

I noticed!

I do use Vivid for tweaking colors so that I have greater range of tonal controls when converting to B&W but for that I can remain with the earlier profiles.

The probelm with the major shift away from the set value of 4800 in WB may be the deal breaker, for using D300 for D90.

[Guest]

Try this one

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D2LIA12Y

It's my D90 calibration using NX2, but I made it in a "quick and dirty" way, and also I can't test it right now (I must correct some tags in this dummy raw file for ACR to accept it, but exiftool doesn't want to write them), so I labeled it "NX2 standard test". Anyway, lookup table and tone curve looks similar to those in D300 v3 beta, so I hope it's ok. White balance is the same as in Camera standard (v1). Default value for blacks is 0 for my profiles (instead of 5). As about Exposure, Adobe dng converter returns strange value -0.55 for one raw file downloaded from imaging-resource.com, meaning it should be +0.55, but I'm quite sure it should be negative, probably -0.5 or so. Unfortunately, that photo was taken with d-lighting auto, so can't make comparison on that one

[Hudechrome]

I'm only running ACR, and View NX on another machine for my SO. I still would like some feedback as to the differences in normal shooting. I can live with the funny "As Shot" values because the WB tool does work. And the Standard Profiles are available as well.

I would like to hear from D300 users, and especially from Eric about this WB. It seems damn far off considering Vit's experience with tge D90.

[Hudechrome]

The link isn't working....temp unavailable.

[Guest]

It sometimes happens with megaupload, and links becomes available several minutes later. Checked it now and it's ok.

Strange baselineexposure value I got with that sample could be because of enabled d-lighting, causing Adobe DNG converter to set different value.

[amam123]

Hudechrome

With vivid profile fixed: http://rapidshare.com/files/446967418/for_d90_fixed.zip

[Guest]

Tested two standard D90 profiles in the meantime - The one, made from D300 v3 beta and the profile I posted yesterday. Result is very similar, hard to see differences between these two and NX2

However, on 1 of the 6 photos I used for testing, there are visible differences in blue highlights using both v3 beta and my profiles, that didn't show up on the test chart at the same position. Probably the same thing as in sample from D700 that menno100 sent me yesterday by PM. At this moment I'm not sure that this can be emulated with a profile, looks like a kind of automatic recovery algorithm in NX2 that can't be turned off. Also, I'm not sure that it makes sense to try to emulate this

Vit

[Hudechrome]

Do you have a D90 to validate my findings as to the WB values?

[Guest]

No, all my cameras are Canon

You mean WB  temperature/tint displayed in ACR both look too high with modified D300  profile? I presume that D90 has different WB than D300 for some reason,  although rendering is very similar. I wouldn't blame Adobe team for that  "mismatch", unless unmodified D300 profile, used on actual D300, has  the same issue, which I don't believe.

However, I also  copied Color Matrix1 and 2 from D90 Camera profile to modified D300  profile (and changed camera name to D90, of course), so WB is the same  as with D90 Camera profile

[Hudechrome]

Yes, the WB is the same "As Shot" visually but the numbers have changed.

As Shot is set in the D90 so that in ACR, the numbers are  Temp 4800, Tint -4

Using beta, Temp is  5450 ; Tint +26.

They look the same, a cool daylight which I prefer (and curiously enough, neutral gray under overcast skies is quite neutral). Now this puts
As Shot" in the beta version a bit lower than daylight in the WB  choice sequence and if Flash is selected instead of "As Shot" things look very green! (Flash Temp 5500, tint 0) ACR is posting 5450 but showing it as 4800.

No blame, just observation. I believe that is what is asked for here. I may be that the D90 is set up different than the D300, for whatever reason Nikon decided. I assume it is a disparity between cameras at this point until proven otherwise. Given that the D90 performs admirably for even professional submissions to agencies like Corbis, I am surprised that this difference shows up. It's supposed to be RAW. right?

And to Eric, if he is reading this, you know I use DXO for lens corrections resulting an a linear dng file. This test is run only on an original .nef file which has never been opened. I ran some new shots I took yesterday through DXO and the result in ACR is the same as the nef.

That's why I asked for feedback as to what the beta actually buys you in day to day performance.