I have bought myself my 1st DSLR camera (Nikon D3100) as i now want to shoot Raw instead of Jpeg. I've always shot Jpegs in the past with my old cameras. The in-camera Jpegs from my new Nikon don't show any lens distortion. However, when i open the Raw (NEF) files in Lightroom and tick 'enable profile correction' in the Lens corrections section, the distortion correction seems too much and i have to manually adjust it every time.
The lens profile comes from Lightroom itself (not from other users), & so this doesn't seem quite right to me that the correction is somewhat wrong each time.
I'm wondering if i'm doing something wrong or that maybe its even normal to have to adjust the correction further yourself each time (and perhaps most users have to do that too)?
I've included 3 Jpegs of the same image to demonstrate the problem (detailed below):
1) The export from Lightroom with the lens distortion corrected by Lightroom (note the straight red line).
2) An exported Jpeg version of the uncorrected Nef from Lightroom (to show the full original lens distortion)
3) The original in-camera Jpeg (obviously the distortion corrected by the camera)
I've drawn straight red lines on to the images to demonstrate the differences.
Any ideas?
^ above image is a Lightroom exported Jpeg (from NEF) with lens correction ON (note the red line along the top of the roof)
^ above image is a Lightroom exported Jpeg (from NEF) with NO lens correction yet, thus showing original distortion.
^ above image is the ORIGINAL in-camera JPEG showing no distortion at all (note the red line along the top of the roof).
P.s i've taken different shots too and the problem is the same for them all (at least at 18mm anyway).
Additional information:
The Nikon D3100 has an APS-C sensor (I'm not sure if that's significant or not). Also the lens described in the profile correction matches the one from my camera.
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Replies
This might help:
You can see a typical digital camera sensor (see pic). Each pixel on the sensor is capable of recording light intensity (photons), but not color.
 Bayer Filter |
Bayer Filter: To overcome this inability to see color, the sensor is covered by a pattern of colored filters, typically in a 
Bayer Filter configuration. The green filter only allows green light to pass through to the sensor, and so on for red and blue. The result is that the image sensor can now 'see' color intensities, but only a single color per pixel. For the entire sensor, it sees 50% green, 25% red, and 25% blue. That is enough to reconstruct the photo information via a process called demosaicing
Statement / my claim: Lightroom lens correction is inferior to DxO.
Question:
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A. Is there something inherent in the Lr algorithm such that no matter how thoroughly/carefully a feller constructs a lens profile, it will still be inferior?
B. The technology is 100% capable, but the lens profiles are just not done thoroughly enough?
~R
Well I'll be danged. I guess I'd not tried exporting (saving-as) from Nikon software (instead of Lr). I actually talked with somebody at DxO (after discovering the profile-based corrections were not available for tiffs, or so I thought) who told me the profile-based lens corrections were only supported for raws. I guess I need to re-learn not to believe company reps - they disseminate an alarming amount of misinformation. One can indeed use DxO's profile-based lens corrections on a Nikon-saved TIF (or JPG) - good to know. Thanks for the tip, Paul.
Worth noting: such workflow allows one to use Nikon's raw engine instead of DxO's whilst taking full advantage of DxO's lens corrections.
Begging the question, is it possible to do DxO lens corrections on an Lr-exported tif or jpg, as a last step in the workflow, maybe with the help of exif-tool for massaging the metadata - that would be tits 
.
R
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Strange
Confirmed at my end too: Only works from CaptureNX2 and not Lightroom (i didnt try ViewNX 2 either because no way to turn auto distortion control off before rendering (would have to be turned off in camera settings instead))
Luckily CaptureNX's (or ViewNX's) highlight recovery tool is arguably as good as Lightroom's?
Bottom line is, at least we now have one good solution (i'm happy with that 
)
Thinking about it, the only problem i can foresee with the above program is incompatible metadata, i.e the jpegs/tiffs exported from ViewNX/CaptureNX are in Nikon sRGB, whereas the Tiffs/Jpegs from Lightroom wont be Nikon sRGB.
Maybe we need a way just to copy the Lens data.
Looking forward to your reply Rob 
Pbeck1 wrote:
Maybe we need a way just to copy the Lens data.
Looking forward to your reply Rob
"makernotes" is the secret ingredient (lens data etc. is already present in Lr-exported rgb files), and can be copied from the original source file, like this:
exiftool -tagsFromFile DSC_1234.NEF -makernotes DSC_1234.JPG
after executing such a command, Lr-exported jpegs or tiffs can be lens-corrected in DxO (be careful not to double-apply lens corrections in Lr + DxO).
PS - I added an option to Exportant to add maker notes to exported file, so you can apply DxO lens corrections to them:
R
Rob Cole wrote:
I'm still trying to figure out how to best take advantage of lens softness correction. I mean, the distortion and vignette correction are easy - turn Lr's off and use DxO's. Chromatic aberration? - dunno (maybe toss a coin...). But, one of DxO's most coveted features is the lens falloff correction:
Result is very similar to original nef in Lr (sharpness/noise-wise), except with a modicum of sharpness falloff somewhat corrected.
Here's what I use inside LR, which works similar to DxO's "softness correction:" Unfortunately there's no way to save it as a Develop Preset, but you can create an Adjustment Brush preset. I use this with PS's Adaptive Wide Angle Filter, which can introduce softness in stretched areas. Apply it to one image and then Copy & Paste 'Brush' to all images in a series with similar lens settings. It works quite well without creating over-sharpening halos.
The brushed area isn't that critical, but it works best with 'Feather' at 100 maximum. Try processing an image with DxO's softness correction and then in LR with this method. I'd be interested in the results......
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