Lightroom 4 Notes

The 2012 development process in Lightroom 4 contains a rethought workflow. I'm still getting my head around how each control affects the tonality of the photo. The refined clarity control stands out as being much improved. Even at high values, the halo effect on high-contrast edges is almost completely absent. This alone is reason to start using the 2012 process, and to look at reworking previous photos.

Nikon color goodness in Camera Raw

An update to an earlier post about getting Nikon colors in raw converters other than Capture:

It turns out that in July Adobe released camera profiles that give Camera Raw colors very similar to those from Nikon Capture (and by extension Nikon cameras in general). The results aren't exactly the same as what Capture outputs, but by my subject quality factor testing they are pleasing and are now part of my normal workflow.

Nikon-specific profiles in UFRaw

UFRaw by default produces rather different output than Nikon's in-camera rendering. Looking through my files after a shoot, I found myself disappointed that the color from UFRaw lacked the contrast and saturation of the preview JPEGs.

After some fiddling with UFRaw's settings, I found references to Nikon's own color profiles being useful. If you have a copy of Nikon Capture (even the demo will work), you can retrieve the temporary profiles it produces from an NEF. Use that profile as your input and presto — rendering just like Nikon's.

The problem is that Adobe Camera Raw uses yet another approach, and I can't specify an input profile like in UFRaw. So I must tweak my Camera Raw defaults until I get something approaching the Nikon rendering. And so far it's proven a bit tedious…