Camera Raw Profiles in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Reader Question:
Dear Lightroomlab,
I recently shot some pictures with a Nikon D300 in raw. When I downloaded these raw files into Lightroom 2.5 the brilliant colors that I saw on the camera changed to dull within Lightroom. It actually happened as I watched, one after another, the pics on lightroom changed from brilliant to dull after the download was complete. This does not happen when I shoot jpeg fine and download.
Any Clues?
Arrrgggghhhh!
Skip
Thanks for the great question Skip! The answer to this question has everything to do with the difference between an unprocessed raw file and a processed jpeg. With a jpeg file the saturation level has been set in camera, but with the raw file enhancements like contrast and saturation have not yet been established. For more on the difference between a raw and a jpeg file click here.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Camera Raw Profile Example
For all of you out there with this problem here is an easy solution. In Lightroom take a raw file into the Develop module. Now scroll all the way down to the bottom of the right hand panel. Starting with Lightroom v2.4 the Adobe engineers snuck in an unheralded fantastic new feature called “profile.”
Within this box choose something like the landscape or the portrait profile. Try landscape if you are looking to add more a lot more punch and saturation into your image. I call this profile button the “starting point” for my raw files.
For more information and a helpful tip check out this video tutorial.
Camera Raw Profiles in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom from David Marx on Vimeo.
(If you would like to help in the efforts to move this awesome new button up to a more prominent position within the develop module interface please click here and tell Adobe what you think.)
Check out this great article from Ian Lyons on Camera Raw Profiles and on Customizing your Camera Raw Defaults for more useful tricks.
Filed Under: Enhancing (Basic) • FAQ • Featured • Tutorials
About the Author: David Marx has an extensive knowledge of digital photography and is an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop and in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. David is a talented instructor and his entertaining teaching style works for students of all skill levels. He has been teaching digital photography and image enhancement with Adobe Photoshop since 2002. In addition, David’s sports and landscape images are often featured on the web and in outdoor sports publications.
In 2009, David Marx led digital photography programs for the 
It’s important to note that these Landscape, Faithful, etc, profiles are developed for specific camera brands/models. E.g. those profiles show up if you import Canon and Nikon Raw files, but they do NOT show up for Sony Alpha raw files.
There are however various profiles created by third parties that you can download from the web.
Zach-
Thanks for your comments. I didn’t know that the profiles for the Sony Alpha were missing so I did a little bit of research. I did indeed find 3rd party profiles for that camera here.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1037&message=29151124
But I also found a post that makes me think that Adobe’s profiles are available for that camera if you convert your files to DNG. For more on this, and lots more detail on the camera profiles feature in general, try this link.
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/08/the_dng_profile_editor.html
I hope this helps, but since I don’t have that camera please let me know if this is lousy advise.
–David
Hi friends,
I also just found out about an interesting tool that lets you make your own custom profiles. It’s called the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport. I can’t say I have tried one yet but the promo video makes it look pretty powerful and I am big fan of X-Rite’s other products. Here’s a link to it from Amazon.
Here’s a video on how this gizmo works.
Again, I have not tried one but I am intrigued.
–David
Poor advice
Also, the red channel is totally out of wack in Lightroom’s interpretation of Sony Raw Files. It makes LR near useless.
You can do the same thing with Adobe’s DNG Profile Editor and a standard 24 colour chart. I put together instructions here:
http://blog.rusticolus.co.uk/2009/08/create-custom-colour-profile-for-your.html
Looking at the video above, it does look like the colorchecker passport is more practical in the field though and the export plug-in seems a little easier than the profile editor!
Thanks for the link, Mark. Good stuff!
-Scott
[...] easy (and fun!) to learn in. The tutorials on the following website have helped me a ton: Camera Raw Profiles in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom | TheLightroomLab.com | Written by David Marx Also, Scott Kelby has a great book out on Lightroom 2. At least, I think it's a great book . [...]
Hi!! i have a problem and i think you could help me.
I’ve been shooting in raw with my Nikon D60 and I’ve been importing them into my mac, some times into iphoto and just this week i started importing them into lightroom 2, but i just notice that the files have been change automatically to jpegs files and i don’t know why? I’ve look up the raw files in my HD and i still have them but when I have tried to open the file in photoshop just to check if the problem is just in lightroom, well it didn’t let me open the file in photoshop it said that it wasn’t compatible or something like that!.
please if you could help me, because i don’t have does files any where else and i need to know if i can go back to the raw files, is very important for the project i have to do this summer.
many thanks
gaby torres
Not a single one of those profiles matches the original profile used in the software of the camera manufacturer. Adobe should work with camera manufacturers to correct this.
If you don’t believe me, take any image with red or orange tones (sunset for example), try all the presets in ACR, then open the image using your camera manufacturer’s software.
Dear Igor,
You are right that Adobe’s camera raw profiles are not an exact match but the fault lies with the camera companies. It is the camera manufacturers, like Canon and Nikon, who have chosen to keep their raw processing code a protected trade secret. Adobe is doing customers like us a favor when they attempt to reverse engineer something that the camera companies should probably make public.
–
David