Colors

[charles_watson]

Hey all,

 

Do the color controls matter on the D80 if you're shooting in RAW mode?

 

I set my camera to "Vivid Plus" and was EXTREMELY satisfied with the colors. I

took lots of colorful photos with my 50mm f/1.4, and after loading them onto the

computer, the color was gone. It's as if someone had made a new 18% gray layer

and applied them over my pictures. If I set the "Vibrance" slider in ACR to a

higher amount, the colors would blow out yet they'd never match the nature of

what I saw on the LCD on my camera.

 

Is this a problem of calibration or is it a problem with RAW?

 

Also, the same thing applies to my Coolscan -- crappy looking reds, without any

punch.

 

What to do?

 

Charles

[Two23]

I've been hearing pretty consistent reports that ACR isn't as good a NEF converter as Nikon NX is, especially for red family colors.

 

 

Kent in SD

[eddes]

Raw is RAW. The only settings that are affected are shutter speed, lens opening and iso setting. Some other info is also put in the file such as white balance recommendation.

 

In your camera, the color settings and all the other settings determine how your camera cooks the raw to make a jpg.

 

The beauty of raw is that you can choose how to cook your pictures later in the process and some adjustment choices are better done during cooking. For example color balance is best achieved during cooking not after the cooking is done.

You need to make the settings such as "vivid" in your raw converter software using it's tools.

 

Have fun Edmond

[charles_watson]

What I'm saying is this :

 

The Vivid Plus mode embeds a JPEG file preview into the NEF. Why can't I find a way to match the full-size, losslessly compressed NEF with the highly compressed yet brilliant-looking preview? It's obvious that I have the data, since as you said, RAW is only shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings, with embedded data for "recommended" white balance.

 

I can't find a way to get "Vivid Plus" colors from a NEF file. I've only used Photoshop and Lightroom though...

[eddes]

I better understand your question.

 

In theory Lightroom should be able to do it, or at least get close.

If I look are the General-Punch preset it boosts Clarity and Vibrance, you could also add Saturation. Then play with the HSL setting. You have lots of control there. Way beyond me ability to use.

 

Another possibility is to try Nikon NX. One of the advantages tooted for the new D300 is that it uses the processing algorythms from Capture NX. There are not the same as the D80's processing but they should be trying to get the same "Nikon look". So it may resemble more the D80 results. If you can get a demo copy. it would be worth the try. Nikon would tell you NX will give the best result.

 

Finally you could save both a jpg and a Nef. Then use the former as a target from the latter.

 

Good Luck

Edmond

[alan_olander1664878205]

You need Nikon NX to render your NEF files with the in-camera settings applied. Lightroom/ACR only read the WB, the rest are their own interpretations.

[gdw]

If you use Nikon's Capture NX it will read your camera settings. The Vivid setting does not only apply to .JPGs if you have the right software.