October 25, 2008

• WOOT!! Adobe, I love you!!!

  Adobe has finally, finally, FINALLY begun to address one of the MONSTER issues surrounding RAW image capture and Adobe workflow applications.

  Basically, each camera maker has always used their own in-camera settings, their own RAW processing parameters, and the only way you can get back the in-camera settings that you set is to use their proprietary software. This is a huge reason that JPG shooters shoot JPG, period, but also a huge reason that Nikon RAW shooters use Nikon Capture for their RAW processing. Even though the RAW process with Nikon, Canon, and other camera maker's software is sluggish and clunky AT BEST, especially compared to the blazing workflow available in Bridge. (And Lightroom)

  It really was true- If you shot a RAW image and then processed it in Adobe Photoshop, Bridge, Lightroom, etc, ....you really had to struggle just to get the image to look just as good as it did on the camera LCD, let alone better and ready for presentation. It took me years and tens of thousands of RAW images to get good at whipping through a RAW workflow in Adobe Bridge CS2 and CS3. I did eventually get to the point where I could quickly get great results that beat any other processing application, but a ton of hard work went into that.

  Well, Adobe has just taken a step in the right direction; releasing camera color and tone presets that match the in-camera presets found in the latest Nikon and Canon DSLR's. I can now apply my beloved D2XMODE3 colors and tones to RAW images!

  http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/video-camera-profiles-for-lightroom/

  As always, to my annoyance, there is almost NO mention that Lightroom's RAW processing engine is absolutely identical to Bridge, and that these presets work perfectly in Bridge as well, other than one or two screenshots that hint so. But trust me, I downloaded and installed the camera profiles and am thoroughly enjoying them. I bet a LOT of people will give Bridge / Lightroom a second chance now! Yeah, you don't get your specific custom fine-tunings back, like +2 contrast and +1 saturation etc. etc. but at least you get the root processing profile, which significantly and positively affects the color and tone of images!!!

  Take care,

  =Matt=

  • 4:25 pm
  • 3 Comments