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!

[Hudechrome]

I took a look at the skin tone problem mentioned by flyshow, and at this point, I definitely can see differences between v3, Vit's version and Camera Standard. Vit's version seemed the least damaging, and in any case, using Recovery at all is only a last resort, preferring Exposure first.

I had an image where the subject is 3/4 backlit so that the skin tones were uniform and the correct value but the white on the hat was a bit overblown, perfect for testing. None of the versions exhibited skin tone color problems when using recovery to try to control the blown whites, and Vit's version had the most interesting effect of all, tending to lower the skin tone somewhat to produce a more natural color while Camera Normal and v3 exhibited less width in it's range. On landscape images, Vit's went too far(dulled down high key values too much)so I would prefer the others when working there.

I also installed NX2 this morning. Nice that Nikon gives 60 days for the free trial (60 days Adobe! ) and a quick look at how they control highlight protection, as they call it, places it well behind ACR in all it's permutations/combinations. But that is a quick look.

Back to banding. Banding in any case has always been an issue, going back to PS5. I have a b&w photo of Mt.Hood perfectly reflected in Trillium lake I did in 1972 and still the best print of that neg is the analog, where, obviously, no banding can occur. This is the bane of digital However you look at it, a digital image is only an approximation of the captured image compared to analog.

[Louispc]

Yes it seems the 'bug' has existed for a long time. It's a shame as I was happy to see the advent of dng profiles only to find that they aren't as useful as I thought. Exposure can also alter colours slightly I've found.

I guess I have to stick with NX2 as my main processor but to me it's so much slower than LR so processing a large shoot can be a pain.

[Mishamsk]

Vit,

Can you point at the post regarding brush issues when using exposure correction please? I`ve heard nothing about it and I think I never encountered it myself.

[Guest]

After 20 min of searching, finally found that post ...

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/662886?tstart=360

[Mishamsk]

Thanks for that link Vit! I hope it didn`t disturbed you to much to make the search for me;)

However I wanted to make a notice that I`ve posted a question there in case you are not following that thread anymore.

[quantum 123]

Are these gonna work correctly with D3s as they only state D3.

[Thomas Geist]

It is unfortunately not very helpful in this case that LR's Exposure steps in Quick Develop are 1/3. Quick Develop is LR's only place for relative adjustments and -0.5 EV cannot be obtained this way.

This shows that LR would really need a better implementation for relative adjustments. They need to be accessible in the Develop Module and they need to be able to go into Presets!

For any already processed job it's almost impossible to implement the v3 profiles for now. And if processing is outsourced, it's also a problem. Processing service providers are not likely to add in v2 or v3 Beta profiles and, as stated above, it's pretty hard to apply the v3 profiles after the xmps come back from the service provider.

Better relative adjustments and full keyboard shortcut implementation - but that's another story ...

Thomas

[Hudechrome]

1/3EV (.333) is more accurate than 1/2 EV(.5). It possesses better resolution, leading to better accuracy. The most accurate, of course, would be continuous (stepless) changes, such as found on aperture settings for lenses for large formats. However, with those lenses, resetting to an accurate EV is difficult, because the shutters are discontinuous. The advent of EV started when camera manufacturers such as Hasselblad adopted the EV system, which required a discontinuous system to be effective. It was very annoying, perhaps the most annoying aspect of using Hasselblad, about which I grumbled quite a bit. Some people even resorted to having camera repairmen file off the gearing so that the iris became continuous again! (I didn't). Instead, I had to accept that while the exposure now possessed less accuracy, the repeatability was better. Now you could function mentally in either shutter priority or aperture priority

So, rather than have LR become less accurate in nailing exact exposure by changing the increment to 1/2, rather have the entire process be set to function in 1/3.

Of course, the sliders are continuous within the native limits imposed by the digital process.

[Bob_Peters]

Eric,

Please also post future updates like this on the Lightroom Forum.

Thanks

[kitkat169]

Could somebody be really kind and reupload the original v3 betas made by Eric as the link no longer works?

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/tmp/Nikon_D3_D300_D700_Camera_v3_beta_profiles.zip

Thanks very much!

[gwynngee]

Are theses profiles relevant to ACR in CS3? Thanks for any replies. Tony.

[Cristiano_Palazzini]

Hello,

are this Camera Profiles usable also on a D3X. Maybe not, I tried to install in the camera profiles folder under camera raw but they are not shown with files made by my D3x...

Thanks

Cristiano

[MadManChan2000]

Hi Cristiano, these particular profiles are not available for the D3X. They are for the D3, D300, and D700 only.

[Cristiano_Palazzini]

Thank you!

[Sucher888]

I draged the "Camera v3 beta" folder to (Win7): C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles.

There are 2 other folders: Adobe Standard and Camera

Within LR / ACR are just standard Adobe settings, nothing about "Nikon ...v3.dcp"

Tried different places, but still the same ...

What am I doing wrong?

PS: After unzipping filenames showed up in green instead of just black (Windows Explorer). Changeing this did not help either.

[Noel Carboni]

Given your mention of the color difference, is it possible you dragged a zip file into the CameraProfiles folder?  Windows Explorer attempts to make zip files look like folders, so there could be confusion there, but Adobe will not read information out of zip files directly.

Try making a subfolder under CameraProfiles called Custom.  Then try dragging the .dcp files specifically into that folder.

I'm assuming your camera is one of the ones noted.

-Noel

[Noel Carboni]

One more thing...

When I add profiles for my own camera, I don't put them in the location listed above, I put them here:

C:\Users\NoelC\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

This is more flexibly expressed in the general case as the following, which can be pasted into the Windows Explorer address bar:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

-Noel

[Sucher888]

No, I just unzipped it somewhere on my hard drive and it turned out to be green writing.

But changing it was easy within Explorer.

[John Blaustein]

It sounds like you are doing nothing wrong.

These beta profiles only support the D3, D300 and D700.  I assume you are using RAW (NEF) files in LR, and that in LR > Develop Module > Camera Calibration, you are clicking the Profile dropdown list.  The beta profiles use the same names as the Camera profiles, but the beta profiles have v3 after the name.

John

[Sucher888]

Oh, I guess the problem might be this: mine a D300s and this will not work?

I found somewhere else a dcp file for the D300s and this works.

Is there a change to "switch" the D300 files with the DNG-Editor?

[John Blaustein]

No, the beta profile for the D300 will NOT work for the D300s.

Would you mind posting the link to the D300s .dcp file that you found.  I'd like to try it.  Thanks.

John

[Hudechrome]

That's curious. Those profiles should work for the D90 as well since the sensors are the same. The D3 and the D700 have the same relationship as the D90 to the D300. Since I do have that folder in Camera RAW I thought about renaming the D300 to d90 to see if it works.

Noel, whay two loactions for the same data? Seems then that ACR has to then search both locationss if data is in both?

[Sucher888]

As far as I know these files are not selected by file name, but by data/settings/description in the file.

But I am still wondering if the D300 / D300s thing can be changed with some kind of DCP editor?

[Hudechrome]

There is a D90 version there as well, which I installed. The only difference from Adobe Standard is a shift in white balance, so far as my eye perceives.

[Sucher888]

It works for D300S with a little extra work.

1. Decompile DCP-file with dcptool (freeware) to XML

2. Open XML with Notepad or Wordpad

3. Add "S" (without " ") to D300 in the 2. last line: 

    <UniqueCameraModelRestriction>Nikon D300</UniqueCameraModelRestriction>

4. Save XML and compile with dcptool too DCP again

Anyway: Results come close to View NX, but not as brilliant ...