Lightroom exports bad quality Nikon D500 images

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
November 22, 2016
5 replies
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Using Lightroom 5 or Lightroom CC I am getting poor quality exported pictures from the Nikon D500, when other cameras, D800E, D3S, D3, export with good quality. I am using the same export settings for any camera, JPEG, 300dpi, quality 90%, long edge 3216, sRGB. The images from D800E, D3S, D3, appear as expected, while those with D500 (Lightroom 5 or CC and ACR 9.7) have a degraded quality that looks compressed with additional noise.

This appears to be a LR issue, not with the camera, because processing with Photoshop 6 or Photoshop CC works just fine.

This topic has been closed for replies.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Steve, another thing you should be aware of is that the D500 in your list of cameras is the noisiest system you have. This is expected as it is a crop sensor and all your other cameras are full-frame sensors. The result of this can be seen in the test numbers here: Nikon D500 vs Nikon D800E vs Nikon D3s.

Click on measurements, select SNR 18% and then make sure "print" is selected to compare the images scaled to the same resolution. You'll see that the D500 is about a stop (3 dB) lower signal-to-noise ratio exactly as you expect for a sensor that is about half the size. You see the same result in tonal range and in the color sensitivity measurement. Cameras unfortunately cannot break the rules of physics yet and the noise in these cameras is mostly determined by the amount of light hitting them (i.e. shot noise statistics) and there area trumps everything else.

S

stevek4Author

Participating Frequently

Jao, that would make sense for the D500, but not for the D5 which has seen similar issues with our other shooters. I'm thinking the corrupted preferences file may have something to do with both issues, but we'll see. I still point the finger at Adobe for this.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

The D5 is apparently also slightly (about 1dB) worse at signal to noise than the D3s: Nikon D5 vs Nikon D500 vs Nikon D3s in the "print comparison". This is likely due to the higher resolution sensor being less efficient at light collection per unit area due to more area masked off due the borders between pixels. It is even worse on a per pixel comparison (the screen option) obviously due to the 50% smaller pixels of the D5 vs the D3s which results in an exactly 3dB poorer SNR exactly like you expect. If you look at your images 1:1 (100% zoom in PS) the D5 should look far more noisy than your D3s. Obviously you are zooming in much more on the D5 than on the D3s to do that.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

To further illustrate. I took one of your NEF files higher up and downloaded including the xmp file and opened in Lightroom and without doing any changes to your settings exported from Lightroom to a high quality sRGB jpeg without scaling. Then I took the same file and opened in Photoshop and exported to an sRGB jpeg without any editing. They are identical in noise and color. In the image below I zoomed 100% to show this. Guess which one is Lightroom and which is Photoshop?

Todd Shaner

Legend

stevek4 wrote:
Using Lightroom 5 or Lightroom CC I am getting poor quality exported pictures from the Nikon D500, when other cameras, D800E, D3S, D3, export with good quality. I am using the same export settings for any camera, JPEG, 300dpi, quality 90%, long edge 3216, sRGB. The images from D800E, D3S, D3, appear as expected, while those with D500 (Lightroom 5 or CC and ACR 9.7) have a degraded quality that looks compressed with additional noise.
This appears to be a LR issue, not with the camera, because processing with Photoshop 6 or Photoshop CC works just fine.

I downloaded your D500 NEF files and get the exact same image quality rendering using LR CC 2015.7 and ACR 9.7. The only way you can be seeing a difference using PS is if one or more of the ACR settings is not the same as LR's settings. I think you have a couple of issues going on here, but let's talk about what you are actually seeing as "degraded quality:" Lower Color Saturation, Lower Black Point Contrast

I made a discovery recently concerning changes Adobe has made to the Adobe Standard profile starting with all new camera models introduced around 2104 Q3. The cameras you are using (D800E, D3S, D3) were all introduced before 2104 Q3 except for the D500 model (2016 Q1). Please read the replies starting at the below link and onward to the last reply for more details. It discusses Canon EOS cameras, but applies to ALL camera models:

Re: Canon 1dx II Color Issues with LR 6.7 HELP

THE ISSUE

The new version Adobe Standard camera profiles have lower color saturation and lower contrast around the Black Point (Shadow) Tone Curve area. Here's a test image shot with the Nikon D800e and D500 using the Adobe Standard camera profile. These differences make it difficult to achieve the same rendering as older model cameras from the same manufacturer. Using a different camera profile such as Camera Standard or Neutral will work, but it's not going to look like the "original" Adobe Standard profile rendering.

So what do you do? The first thought that comes to mind is scream "bloody murder" to Adobe about this "unannounced" change. What has surprised is how few people have complained about this here in the LR and PS forums. Pros like wedding and commercial photographers that need ALL cameras to produce very similar rendering should be screaming "bloody murder," but very few are.....so far. I've held-off posting a Problem Report in the Photoshop Family forum fearing it will simply fall on deaf ears.

SUGGESTED SOLUTION

So what can you do for now? I've found that adding Basic panel Saturation = +15 and Tone Curve Shadows = -10 will make the new Adobe Standard profile (i.e. 500D) look near identical to the older models. No, it's not the best solution, but give it a try.

(click on image to see full-size)

S

stevek4Author

Participating Frequently

that would make total sense, that the standard profile has changed. I haven't seen issues with the older cameras, just the D500, and others have seen it too with the D5.

While I agree that screaming "bloody murder" is one way to go to Adobe with this, the other would be to get in touch with the correct contacts there and have them acknowledge this, and to also make recommended setting changes public (while I would like the profile to take this into account with these higher ISO capable cameras so it is again automated and no differences are seen or experienced). This profile change, without user knowledge, is a problem and has caused us a lot of issues and gnashing of teeth about how to fix it.

I will try this now to see what I can tell with my images. My basic processing is to only touch up exposure and shadows, possibly add some noise reduction when approaching ISO10,000 or more.

While adding these two steps is not perfect, at least it could help.