D3 Color Calibration settings in ACR

[Greg Seitz]

Hi,

I wanted to share the Color Calibration settings that I use in Adobe Camera Raw. I know Jono and others have had a hard time dealing with the extra Yellow in landscapes that seems to be the default with the Nikon profiles. A while back I calibrated my D3 (I have calibration for the D300 as well if anyone is interested) and colors have improved dramatically from the Adobe defaults. I get much more natural blues, reds and greens now. Since the profiling was done against my specific D3 it may or may not work effectively for others but it's certainly worth trying. If you do try I'd be interested to know if things turned out better or worse for you.

Below I've posted 2 sets of examples, the first is a quick and dirty landscape showing various shades of green and some red from a brick wall. The second set shows an indoor portrait shot showing the difference in skin tones and blues.

Ok, first the default landscape (no calibration):

 

[Greg Seitz]

Ok, now for the calibrated landscape shot:

 

[Greg Seitz]

Now for the portrait. By the way, this is an ISO 10000 shot so it shows a bit of noise. :ROTFL:

First the non calibrated version:

 

[Greg Seitz]

Ok, and finally the calibrated portrait shot. Note the subtle improvements in the skin tone which brings out the reds a bit. Also it's hard to tell here but the blue chair is improved a bit as well.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

I see it more in the bottom right Greg the green grass and the red wall. In the calibrated it is a little less yellow and more natural in the grass for sure . The bush I know it is there just harder to see because so much going on with leaves

 

[Guy Mancuso]

It is hard to tell but i do see more red in the cheeks.

Also the D300 has some yellow issues as well. Your calibration would most likely help D300 shooters as well

 

[Greg Seitz]

Ok, here are the calibration settings I use. You set these under the Camera Calibration tab in ACR.

Shadows: 0

Red Hue: -2
Red Saturation: +13

Green Hue: +18
Green Saturation: +9

Blue Hue: -1
Blue Saturation: -18

Let me know if this works for you.

Thanks,

Greg

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Folks you can also use these in LR and save as a preset too. There exactly the same raw processing engine ACR and LR

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Greg nice work and the forum thanks you for posting this and taking the time to do it.

 

[Greg Seitz]

Greg nice work and the forum thanks you for posting this and taking the time to do it.

No problem Guy, give me a couple of minutes and I'll post another thread with D300 settings...

Greg

 

[jonoslack]

hi Greg
one thing's for sure; the colour on the iPhone isn't that great (I can't tell one from the other!)
I use Aperture, but I'll give it a go tomorrow. Still, I think my problem, which is an overwhelming yellow cast in greens in late evening light, is probably not quite the same thing. I actually like the skin tones (I think the M8 tends to make everyone look slightly inebriated)
Anyway. Many thanks for starting the thread; I'm sure this one will run and run!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Just another note here folks be it D3 or D3o0 settings if you save them as a preset in LR when you import your raws you can set the preset to the images as they come in. So it is already tagged with the corrections. Makes life very easy like this.

 

[Joseph Ramos]

How do I save these settings so that each time I open up a D3 image the settings are applied. Thank You

 

[Terry]

I'm having a hard time telling much of a difference on the shots. I think I will take the presets and try and apply them to one of my shots and have another look.

Disregard...thought I was still on the D300 calibration thread.

 

[Joseph Ramos]

I am wondering if these settings would be lens dependent. I tried them with some images I shot with my D3 and a Zeiss 85. The reds look over saturated but I know the Zeiss tends to be very contrasty. I have to try with an image shot with 28-70.

 

[PeterA]

Interesting post - now all people have to think about is whether their monitor and printer is profiled/calibrated in exactly the same way....as the poster...

 

[jonoslack]

HI There
Back at a proper monitor - thanks again for starting this thread, much better than suffering the slings and arrows of outraged fanboys on dpreview!

First of all, I think that your landscape conversion is okay - but that sort of scene never really created the problem anyway, it's evening sunlight that really screws things. I'm not even certain that you've improved the grass, I think you may simply have made it too blue (this is all rather subjective).

As far as the skin tones are concerned, I think the Nikon skin tones are pretty good, and although the little pink you've introduced might be grand on a 15 year old, it's a catastrophe on an old geezer who's been drinking a bit. This really isn't me sphere of 'expertise' though, and I'll bow to your better judgement

So, although interesting, I don't think this addresses what I see as the real problem with the Nikon RAW files - which is that the yellow cast changes with the light - which means that you really cannot do a preset which sorts it properly. This is not the case with either Leica (pretty good) and Olympus (excellent).

in the next post I'm going to show the kind of picture which really causes me grief - it was taken about an hour before sunset.

Just as a taster, here is the same scene taken a couple of days earlier with the Leica - the sky is different, but the lighting was actually very similar.

To me this shows an obvious warm evening glow, but without any sign of a yellow 'tint'

Next post I'll look at ACR

 

[jonoslack]

Okay
Now then,

First of all here is the shot with the D3, using ACR with the standard presets:

Note here that you can tell it's evening light, but it's nasty and vulgar

Here is the shot using Greg's settings:

It IS an improvement, but I don't think it goes anywhere towards correcting the problem.

Next post is Aperture.

 

[jonoslack]

Right - I use Aperture, which nowadays has very similar colour controls to ACR.

Here is the picture with the basic Aperture settings

Here it is with Greg's modifications

Finally here it as as I felt it should be:

Quite a difference - this was achieved by altering the white balance and the tint plus the green and blue sat and hue.

It's closer to accurate, but it's lost the delicate glow that evening light can give, and which the Olympus and Leica simply give you every time.

one thing I HAVE found with the D3 is that altering the AWB setting to B1-M1 seems to help a bit.

Right whaddyathink?

 

[PeterA]

I can see a difference between the first shot and all the others.I think though that the first shot has the benefit of a darker sky in top right with the clouds and more shadows lower left as the shooting pposition is different to all the others posted - how much difference would this make to perception about colour and kelvin? hmm I dont know..but I see a definit contrast difference between first and all others as well..