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Participant
February 12, 2024
Question

Creative Looks (filters) are gone after uploaded to lightroom

  • February 12, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 2359 views

I have a Sony A7C2 and have been taking raws with creative looks.  I can see the photos with a filter on my camera, but the filter disappeared as soon as I uploaded the photos to LR.  Does anyone know why and how to fix this?

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3 replies

April 11, 2024

There is a way to do this with ARW or DNG files. Once an ARW image is imported into LrC most of the Creative Looks will be available in the Profile Browser. From then on, in the import module you can select Camera Settings (Apply During Import > Develop Settings > Camera Settings). Opening the Basic tab in the Develop Module will show that the profile has been applied to the file. Unfortunately you cannot create a Develop Preset to do this as you have to select a specfic creative look/profile such as Camera ST (for example) unlike the Import Preset that allows the selection of Camera Settings. The imported ARW file has the Creative Look tagged in its metadata so I assume LrC reads this. I do this because I prefer the Camera Settings to the default Adobe Color profile.

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 11, 2024
quote

There is a way to do this with ARW or DNG files. Once an ARW image is imported into LrC most of the Creative Looks will be available in the Profile Browser. 


By @11181651


Not really. What is available in the profile browser are profiles created by Adobe, not by the camera manufacturer, which are meant to look like the creative looks in the camera. However, because Lightroom uses a different raw engine than the camera, they will not be identical. They might resemble the creative look pretty well, and then again they might not. So it is indeed worth looking at, but if you really want the camera creative look, then you can only achieve that by shooting jpeg (or using the camera manufacturer raw software instead of Lightroom).

-- Johan W. Elzenga
April 11, 2024

Yes, I understand this and I should also mention that if the Creative Looks are customised (say by increasing sharpness) this will not be applied by LrC. I guess its a case of which starting point you prefer Adobe Color, Camera Settings or even a linear profile. Also HEIF (sRGB not HLG) files carry this data as an alternative to jpeg. Certainly in my testing the raw profiles are very close to the jpeg I see on the back of the camera which is what I am after.

Rob_Cullen
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 12, 2024

Only JPGs from the camera will show the creative looks as the camera does the edits to include the filter.

(You could Shoot Raw+JPG to see both.)

Raw files do not have any editing done in camera, thus you are seeing the untouched raw data of the image in Lightroom. You can use presets or your own editing technique in Lightroom to mimic the creative filters in camera.

 

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 12, 2024

These creative looks are settings that only apply to JPEG, not to RAW. So what you initially see is the look appied to the embedded JPEG preview, which gets replaced by a Lightroom preview that is based on the raw image. Bottom line: if you want to use these in-camera filters, then you cannot shoot in raw. You will have to shoot in JPEG.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
Participant
February 12, 2024

Thank you so much!