Nikon RAW - Adobe plugin or Nikons?

Aaron Bernard

I always use PS CS2 with the Adobe plugin to convert my RAW files. I was reading Ken Rockwells site the other day and he had mentioned something along the lines of Nikon has not released some of the information on the color space in the NEF files and that files open using the Nikon RAW converter will look different that the Adobe converter.

Has anyone heard this? Ive tried it and it seems to be true. I opened the same file in PS CS2 with the Adobe and Nikon RAW converters cropped a section of the photo and then save to jpg. The results are below.

Or am I just doing something wrong? :dunno These NEF's are coming from a D200

Nikon Plug in:



Adobe Plug in:

zigzag

Wow. I'll try this out, when I get time. I have CS2 and Capture.

Harryb

I have always gotten better results using Capture for my RAW conversions.

flyingpylon

Harryb wrote:

I have always gotten better results using Capture for my RAW conversions.

I also do RAW conversions in Capture because I have seen the same problems with colors in CS2. That said, I'm no expert so it may very well be something I'm doing or not doing that is causing the problem. I sometimes wonder why I don't see more people talking about this.

DoctorIt

I haven't read up on the subject, but I'd suggest you might not be exploiting CS2 to it's potential. The RAW converter will give much better results if it is calibrated for each camera. The default settings are not always the best for all camera files.

Where's nrchris... he knows about this, AND he has a D200...

Aaron Bernard

Ive heard about having to calibrate the converter for your camera. Anyone have a pointer to a book / web / help file? Id much rather tweak CS2 then work with the Nikon software!

Ive been looking in the photoshop help files but Ive not found the info Im looking for there.

nrChris

I created a profile for the RAW converter in CS2. I found Capture to make much nicer conversions, but too wonky to really work with. It chews up a ton of ram. So--open a test file in Capture, send it to Photoshop. Open the same file in Photoshop CS2 through ACR. Get the file in the raw converter to look like your imported Capture file. Record the settings that got you there. Repeat with another file or two, tweaking settings as needed, to get what I call a "baseline" group of settings.

The baseline settings is my starting point. This has been helpful to me to get the files looking the way that I like--similar to Captures output--but while significantly streamlining my workflow.

Hope that helps. Don't listen to DoctorIt though, I'm not an expert, just a nerd.

-nrChris

DoctorIt

Thanks chris. Do you get into the advanced settings in youre ACR "profile", or do you pretty much stick to the standard ones? I'm not sure what CS2 has, but in CS, there's that whole advanced tab where you can tune the color (being a dope, I never mess with that).

nrChris

I still do not have my D200 profile down to the science that I had my D1H and D70 profiles. But the more advanced settings will often change more based on the lens and scene than the camera. If I get some time today I will post my settings. (There are even more tabs in PSCS2's ACR, Erik.)

-CF

jfriend

Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2

FastScan wrote:

Ive heard about having to calibrate the converter for your camera. Anyone have a pointer to a book / web / help file? Id much rather tweak CS2 then work with the Nikon software!

Ive been looking in the photoshop help files but Ive not found the info Im looking for there.

THE book to get on Photoshop's ACR is "Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2" by Bruce Fraser. It will cover all the relevant topics from how to best use the controls to manipulate to your image to how to calibrate ACR colors specifically for your camera to workflow in ACR.

You can see it here at PeachPit http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321334094&rl=1 and can probably get a 35% discount and free shipping using the coupon in this thread: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=29374.

Aaron Bernard

thanks Friend, I'm going to look into those books! I took nrChris's advise and messed around the the nikon version and the CS2 version until I had a close match in the camera raw converter. I did notice one thing though, Ive currently got my image optimization in the D200 set to:

Custom
+1 sharpening
+ Enhanced Saturation

In order to get a close match I had to crank up the saturation in camera raw.

I notied with the Nikon raw converter my image was definatly sharper than the adobe image also.

It looks to me like in CS2 the raw file is being read without these settings and in the Nikon software or Nikon raw converter these settings are being applied to the raw file. Just a guess but that is what it looks like when messing around with this.

Anyway, Ive got CS2 looking very close to the Nikon conversions now.

thanks for the info and help!

jfriend

Adobe converter doesn't look at in-camera settings, except white balance

FastScan wrote:

I did notice one thing though, Ive currently got my image optimization in the D200 set to:

Custom
+1 sharpening
+ Enhanced Saturation

In order to get a close match I had to crank up the saturation in camera raw.

I notied with the Nikon raw converter my image was definatly sharper than the adobe image also.

It looks to me like in CS2 the raw file is being read without these settings and in the Nikon software or Nikon raw converter these settings are being applied to the raw file. Just a guess but that is what it looks like when messing around with this.

Anyway, Ive got CS2 looking very close to the Nikon conversions now.

thanks for the info and help!

That makes sense to me. The Nikon converter understands and applies your in-camera settings when you view your RAW image. The Adobe converter only understands and applies the white balance setting. So, if you have enhanced saturation and +1 sharpening set in camera, the Nikon converter will apply those settings, the Adobe converter will not. To also apply those settings in ACR, you can just change it's defaults to also apply sharpening and saturation.