Being the ever color vigilant – I noticed something about the updates for the latest greatest ACR (supported versions) on some (not all Nikon NEF files). I am going to show you a camera that is near and dear to my heart and one that now seems to be broken – from my earlier testing and memory – it used to work in ACR 4.5, and 5 – The D200.

Let’s take a look at three quick and dirty conversions, first up is the gold standard NX2 rendering daylight WB (not as shot) and Picture Control Standard.

Next up is ACR 5 using the same profiles, and daylight WB applied -updated with the latest updates – ooops what happened?

Finally Aperture 3 with my patented D200 NEF presets and my ultra secret sauce daylight WB preset.

Hmmm – looks like my way is now the winner. Maybe I should work on the presets some more like with curves vs the brightness/contrast sliders and start charging like ten bucks

RB

As for the Nikon D300 – this is a camera I do not own and I have received very few NEF files so my test images are rather limited. Consider these two picture controls a draft – Standard and Landscape. I really would like some feedback from those of you that try them as they are definitely work in progress. The really funny thing is that Apple seems to get the colors wrong consistently but swings wildly on the amounts wrong as well as huge differences in default contrast with cameras – I guess too many Nikon shooters were complaining the defaults were too flat so Apple went the reverse on the D300 – from the samples I have it looks like the default Apple conversion for the D300 is really juiced up compared to the NX2 picture controls.

Anyway – here they are. The more feedback I get and the more files the better they will be. I have found that a lot of people are using my D200 presets for various Nikon cameras with some degree of “success” – I can tell you for a fact that they are WRONG for just about every other popular Nikon. Not as wrong as Aperture defaults but wrong. Also note that I did not include the yellow correction for the D200 presets because of a nasty Yellow – Green cross over. I will put a modified version or both versions out there soon.

On another note – I have test some other presets for Nikon picture control settings that are being sold on the market – I am unimpressed. I took a look at these and there is nothing in there that is remotely correct (for any NEF files). If any of you know of anything actually decent point us all that way. They do things like boost the saturation on the default blue and default green – that’s it. (Really – you are going to charge money for that? You’re kidding right?)

RB

Ps. I know these are way wrong – I want some examples that are way off so I can correct them. I have like 4 different scenes for the D300 right now.

First of all if you have been reading my posts for more than a week you have probably picked up on my own personal frustration with this situation. Actually frustration is not the word – maybe bewilderment, rage, disdain, hopelessness, anger, despair  on and on. Over the last few months I have been taking a “glass is half full point of view” on it and trying to work through it as I have done in the past. Hence screwing with the NEF presets for Aperture 3.

There are a lot of people that feel that NX2 produces sharper, snappier files – I am not on board with this thought process – my personal opinion is overall contrast, definition, and sharpness are idiotically easy to deal with. This is really not the source of my frustration – my amazement is how the hell Apple can possibly get the color so very very very WRONG. If it were a simple fix for the color I would not complain – really. I am not talking about all of the color being skewed one way nor am I talking about saturation. I am talking about the color hue values being so far wrong in seemingly random ways it is impossible to believe that it is not on purpose.

I used to give Apple a pass on this when every other RAW converter out there had similar issues with NEF files. Seems just about everyone including Adobe has cracked the code on this about 2 years ago. Apple is a very very rich company with a ton of cash in reserve – why the hell can’t they hire two or three decent engineers and on color expert to fix this once and for all. The funny thing is almost all NEF files have the same exact issues. Five year old cameras have similar issues (just worse) than brand new ones. Brand new ones vary from one model to the next in the specific wrong-ness values. They play with the overall tone curve a little here and a little there – randomly but they seem clueless about the color issue.

So my official position on this is…

WTF

RB

With Aperture 3 the best bet is just to make a few presets for the lenses you use – not a big deal since you can search by lens and batch apply the preset. No need to do it manually all the time. Check out the screenshot at the top – on the left is with the correction. On the right w/o. If you do not know what to look for look at the edge of the hull against the sky and the chrome against the sky – it is well hidden because it is the cyan variety but I think it is a night and day difference.

RB

This screencast is about color – not all of the colors just two. They are to give you some ideas not a formula. The secret is starting at the right hue and/or using the range slider to make your preset applicable to all your NEF files – not just one. The real issue comes in on some Nikon camera RAW files that render greens so yellow and yellows so green that they do not separate. The other real issue is depending on the original tone – things that are the same hue in NX2 are different hues in Aperture – for the most part this can be overcome. The culprit in Aperture 3 seems to be the hue boost slider in RAW fine tuning – it makes some things way worse like the blues while making other things better. Some cameras the default is all the way up (not good – this causes the yellow/green merging issue) while other cameras the default is in the middle.

In addition to color there are various brightness and contrast issues that vary wildly from camera to camera. If you are interested in dealing with those as well I will post another screencast. Let me know. By and large if you get the hues corrected the various renderings are a matter of matching the contrast curve and saturation. Last but not least the sharpening in NX2 is more aggressive for each Picture Control except for Portrait and Neutral. You can deal with these via definition and edge sharpening.

One note while you are watching this – Hue is what we are fixing in this video NOT saturation. Hue is the actual color. The saturation differences usually go away when I fix the overall brightness, contrast, and saturation. If there are specific color groups that are relatively more or less saturated I deal with them after the global adjustments. If you are new to looking at color you can sometimes get “tricked” into thinking a color is different just because of more or less saturation or even brightness – technically the “color” is different but the hue is the same – the hue is the biggest issue with NEF’s the other stuff is no big deal.

Enjoy

RB

Here is the download  Aperture 3 Nikon D200 (610). On another note I have been getting a lot or requests for D300 and D300s presets – no problem but someone sent me ONE file – I think I have that file nailed but really need some diversity so get in touch if you would like these and have a couple more files to send me.

RB

The other thing to note is that McNally (and the guy that does the work) loves the Nik suite of tools. Yep so do I. So much so that if Apple would somehow get the RAW processing straitened out and get into bed with Nik incorporating Viviza local adjustments – or the whole suite into Aperture in a more integrated way. Even if it was the “smart object” kind of way (just saving all of the control points file by file and reapplying them when entering the tool again) this would be a game changer in the Aperture v Lightroom competition. I guess what I am saying is take the best out of NX2 and jamb it into Aperture or something thereabouts.

RB