Obtaining accurate camera colour within Lightroom 5, in other words making the pics in your Lr Library look like they did on the back of the camera; is a problem that I’m asked about more and more since the advent of Lightroom 5 AND the latest camera marks – especially Nikon!

UPDATE NOTE: Please feel free to read this post THEN go HERE for a further post on achieving image NEUTRALITY in Lightroom 6/CC 2015

Does this problem look familiar?

Back of the camera (left) to Lightroom (right) – click to enlarge.

The image looks fine (left) on the back of the camera, fine in the import dialogue box, and fine in the library module grid view UNTIL the previews have been created – then it looks like the image on the right.

I hear complaints that the colours are too saturated and the contrast has gone through the roof, the exposure has gone down etc etc.

All the visual descriptions are correct, but what’s responsible for the changes is mostly down to a shift in contrast.

Let’s have a closer look at the problem:

Back of the camera (left) to Lightroom (right) – click to enlarge.

The increase in contrast has resulted in “choking” of the shadow detail under the wing of the Red Kite, loss of tonal separation in the darker mid tones, and a slight increase in the apparent luminance noise level – especially in that out-of-focus blue sky.

And of course, the other big side effect is an apparent increase in saturation.

You should all be aware of my saying that “Contrast Be Thine Enemy” by now – and so we’re hardly getting off to a good start with a situation like this are we…………

So how do we go about obtaining accurate camera colour within Lightroom?

Firstly, we need to understand just what’s going on inside the camera with regard to various settings, and what happens to those settings when we import the image into Lightroom.

Camera Settings & RAW files

Let’s consider all the various settings with regard to image control that we have in our cameras:

• White Balance
• Active D lighting
• Picture Control – scene settings, sharpening etc:
• Colour Space
• Distortion Control
• Vignette Control
• High ISO NR
• Focus Point/Group
• Uncle Tom Cobbly & all…………..

All these are brought to bare to give us the post-view jpeg on the back of the camera.

And let’s not forget

• Exif
• IPTC

That post-view/review jpeg IS subjected to all the above image control settings, and is embedded in the RAW file; and the image control settings are recorded in what is called the raw file “header”.

It’s actually a lot more complex than that, with IFD & MakerNote tags and other “scrummy” tech stuff – see this ‘interesting’ article HERE – but don’t fall asleep!

If we ship the raw file to our camera manufacturers RAW file handler software such as Nikon CapNX then the embedded jpeg and the raw header data form the image preview.

However, to equip Lightroom with the ability to read headers from every digital camera on the planet would be physically impossible, and in my opinion, totally undesirable as it’s a far better raw handler than any proprietary offering from Nikon or Canon et al.

So, in a nutshell, Lightroom – and ACR – bin the embedded jpeg preview and ignore the raw file header, with the exception of white balance, together with Exif & IPTC data.

However, we still need to value the post jpeg on the camera because we use it to decide many things about exposure, DoF, focus point etc – so the impact of the various camera image settings upon that image have to be assessed.

Now here’s the thing about image control settings “in camera”.

For the most part they increase contrast, saturation and vibrancy – and as a consequence can DECREASE apparent DYNAMIC RANGE.  Now I’d rather have total control over the look and feel of my image rather than hand that control over to some poxy bit of cheap post-ASIC circuitry inside my camera.

So my recommendations are always the same – all in-camera ‘picture control’ type settings should be turned OFF; and those that can’t be turned off are set to LOW or NEUTRAL as applicable.

That way, when I view the post jpeg on the back of the camera I’m viewing the very best rendition possible of what the sensor has captured.

And it’s pointless having it any other way because when you’re shooting RAW then both Lightroom and Photoshop ACR ignore them anyway!

Accurate Camera Colour within Lightroom

So how do we obtain accurate camera colour within Lightroom?

We can begin to understand how to achieve accurate camera colour within Lightroom if we look at what happens when we import a raw file; and it’s really simple.

Lightroom needs to be “told” how to interpret the data in the raw file in order to render a viewable preview – let’s not forget folks, a raw file is NOT a visible image, just a matrix full of numbers.

In order to do this seemingly simple job Lightroom uses process version and camera calibration settings that ship inside it, telling it how to do the “initial process” of the image – if you like, it’s a default process setting.

And what do you think the default camera calibration setting is?

The ‘contrasty’ result of the Lightroom Nikon D4 Adobe Standard camera profile.

Lightroom defaults to this displayed nomenclature “Adobe Standard” camera profile irrespective of what camera make and model the raw file is recorded by.

Importantly – you need to bare in mind that this ‘standard’ profile is camera-specific in its effect, even though the displayed name is the same when handling say D800E NEF files as it is when handling 1DX CR2 files, the background functionality is totally different and specific to the make and model of camera.

What it says on the tin is NOT what’s inside – so to speak!

So this “Adobe Standard” has as many differing effects on the overall image look as there are cameras that Lightroom supports – is it ever likely that some of them are a bit crap??!!

Some files, such as the Nikon D800 and Canon 5D3 raws seem to suffer very little if any change – in my experience at any rate – but as a D4 shooter this ‘glitch in the system’ drives me nuts.

But the walk-around is so damned easy it’s not worth stressing about:

1. Bring said image into Lightroom (as above).
2. Move the image to the DEVELOP module
3. Go to the bottom settings panel – Camera Calibration.
4. Select “Camera Neutral” from the drop-down menu:
   

   Change camera profile from ‘Adobe Standard’ to ‘Camera Neutral’ – see the difference!

   You can see that I’ve added a -25 contrast adjustment in the basics panel here too – you might not want to do that*

5. Scoot over to the source panel side of the Lightroom GUI and open up the Presets Panel
   

   Open Presets Panel (indicated) and click the + sign to create a new preset.

6. Give the new preset a name, and then check the Process Version and Calibration options (because of the -25 contrast adjustment I’ve added here the Contrast option is ticked).
7. Click CREATE and the new “camera profile preset” will be stored in the USER PRESETS across ALL your Lightroom 5 catalogs.
8. The next time you import RAW files you can ADD this preset as a DEVELOP SETTING in the import dialogue box:
   

   Choose new preset

   

   Begin the import

9. Your images will now look like they did on the back of the camera (if you adopt my approach to camera settings at least!).

You can play around with this procedure as much as you like – I have quite a few presets for this “initial process” depending on a number of variables such as light quality and ISO used to name but two criteria (as you can see in the first image at 8. above).

The big thing I need you to understand is that the camera profile in the Camera Calibration panel of Lightroom acts merely as Lightroom’s own internal guide to the initial process settings it needs to apply to the raw file when generating it’s library module previews.

There’s nothing complicated, mysterious or sinister going on, and no changes are being made to your raw images – there’s nothing to change.

In fact, I don’t even bother switching to Camera Neutral half the time; I just do a rough initial process in the Develop module to negate the contrast in the image, and perhaps noise if I’ve been cranking the ISO a bit – then save that out as a preset.

Then again, there are occasions when I find switching to Camera Neutral is all that’s needed –  shooting low ISO wide angle landscapes when I’m using the full extent of the sensors dynamic range springs to mind.

But at least now you’ve got shots within your Lightroom library that look like they did on the back of the camera, and you haven’t got to start undoing the mess it’s made on import before you get on with the proper task at hand – processing – and keeping that contrast under control.

Some twat on a forum somewhere slagged this post off the other day saying that I was misleading folk into thinking that the shot on the back of the camera was “neutral” – WHAT A PRICK…………

All we are trying to do here is to make the image previews in Lr5 look like they did on the back of the camera – after all, it is this BACK OF CAMERA image that made us happy with the shot in the first place.

And by ‘neutralising’ the in-camera sharpening and colour/contrast picture control ramping the crappy ‘in camera’ jpeg is the best rendition we have of what the sensor saw while the shutter was open.

Yes, we are going to process the image and make it look even better, so our Lr5 preview starting point is somewhat irrelevant in the long run; but a lot of folk freak-out because Lr5 can make some really bad changes to the look of their images before they start.  All we are doing in this article is stopping Lr5 from making those unwanted changes.

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