ilkka_nissila Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 This isn't a question but I wanted to note that Lightroom 2.0 is now available as a finished version. Adobe has also made available camera-specific profiles that emulate the basic picture control modes of Nikon DSLRs. The profiles are beta but I checked them out and they seem to work nicely. They didn't work on LR2 beta so I had to upgrade to 2.0. The final result is not quite identical to conversions made with Capture but they're really close. Sharpening is not exactly the same, but if you adjust it to be roughly equal, the noise level, highlight behaviour, and colors are really close to what Capture produces at the various picture control defaults - with subtle differences. I am extremely pleased with this new development as I've been frustrated with trying to get capture-like skin tones and high ISO image quality (with D3 files) from previous versions of Lightroom without success. Especially the recovery of highlights in high ISO D3 images was a problem. The profiles also work with PS CS3 after you download ACR 4.5. I am very glad about the timing of this release. I have always liked LR because of its speed, user interface and stability. Now it seems the image quality is also up there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph_wisniewski Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Have you seen the profile generator, which can generate a camera and lighting specific color profile for LR2 or ACR 4.5 using a shot of a Macbeth ColorChecker? http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles Don't let the name "DNG Profile Editor" put you off, you can use the profiles on any LR2 or ACR4.5 raw file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterh Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Illka I use the ACR version 4.5 since the early beta state. I agree with you about improvements for D3 NEF conversion. I have some presets (stored settings) for differing light but the differences are very slight and using these I need to change settings very slightly. While I need significantly more fiddling with D200 or older D70 files the D3 files are amazingly consistent. If this is mainly due to the camera or the better profiles is hard to say but my impression is that it is primarily due to the D3 and the new ACR version gives a finishing touch. Unfortunately there seems to be some bug or inconsistency in the automatic application of ISO dependent ACR settings. This worked very well and I had a whole set of stored settings for all ISO speeds (took me an evening) and these are now not automatically applied. At high ISO speeds and strong moire effects NX2 still gives visibly better results but the user interface is hardly bearable and with "difficult" images I often do not see the effects of several settings - so I usually just do simple batch conversions to tiff and then import into ACR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilkka_nissila Posted July 30, 2008 Author Share Posted July 30, 2008 I haven't tried the profile generator yet, thanks for the tip. I do have the chart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elliott Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 "While I need significantly more fiddling with D200 or older D70 files... " Noooooooooo! Damn. So the profiles arent as good for the D70 files? Any insight as to if they are better than in Lightroom 1.4? What exactly seems to need the fiddling? Thanks. I dont think I can manage to swing "The LR profiles arent as hot for the D70 so I need to upgrade to LR 2.0 AND upgrade to a D700." Probably not even worth a try haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oskar_ojala Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Very good news, have to find some room from my budget though... I can live with the instability of Capture, but the lack of speed and the bad event handling (everything grinds to a halt when processing) are seriously ticking me off. I don't remember ever having such problems with LR when I tried it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan_brown4 Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Interesting thread. I am still using PSE3, and I nearly ordered LR2.0 this morning. It's definitley time for a change. I wonder if I could use LR2.0 as my only editing tool, and leavel PS in the past, for now. I usually only do lighting adjustments, slight color adjustment over the entire image, and then the usual cropping, sizing, sharpening, and file format changes. Would LR2.0 do all this for me? Thanks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterh Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 David I think the problem are not necessarily the profiles. I guess one factor is the matrix metering, another the quality of the white balance metering. Perhaps I should have used spot or center weight more often but now with the D3 I am rarely off when in matrix metering mode. Interestingly I was under the impression that metering with the D70 and the D200 was already "pretty good" with an advantage to the D200. Changing to the D3 I was a bit puzzled in the first say 2000 shots by apparently differing (from the D200 matrix metering) responses of the matrix metering to scenes but now I got used to it and "see" scenes and likely misjudges by the matrix metering in advance. The differences were not large but noticeable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamchuttonjr Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Dan, Yes. william Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan_brown4 Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 William: Thank you for the reply. I will go that direction. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elliott Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Walter- Thanks for the follow up. I really appreciate it! Looks like I will be upgrading to LR 2.0 in the near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph_wisniewski Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Oskar - "I can live with the instability of Capture, but the lack of speed and the bad event handling (everything grinds to a halt when processing) are seriously ticking me off." There's been a couple of interesting threads on dpReview and the Nikon Cafe concerning NX speed and stability. Someone found out that NX is linked against some pretty old Microsoft shared libraries. The newer versions of the libraries emulate the older versions in a way that slows things down dramatically. (what, is the Capture NX team developing their software on Windows 2000 machines?) Apparently, though, if you load the older libraries in addition to the newer ones, NX will use the old ones, and software that needs the new ones will use the new ones. Win-win situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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