ACR and Lightroom 2 Camera Specific RAW Profiles test

[wgilles]

After reading an article in the new issue of Photoshop User about Adobe's ACR and LR2 camera specific RAW profiles, I decided to give them a try.

First of all, you can download them here:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles

They have a standard name for each profile (A total of 11 including the original ACR profiles) They are: ACR 4.4, ACR 4.3, Adobe Standard Beta 1, Camera D2X Mode 1 beta 1, Camera D2X Mode 2 beta 1, Camera D2X Mode 3 beta 1, Camera landscape beta 1, Camera Neutral beta 1, Camera Portrait beta 1, Camera standard beta 1, and Camera vivid beta 1.

Although they have the D2X name, they are camera specific and will only show profiles for your camera. The D2X is just the name given to it (for which reason I do not know). They are very nice profiles and depending on the camera add warmer and more vivid colors. I tried the profiles on images from 2 different cameras. I tried it on a picture from my old D80 and a newer picture with a lot of colors from my new D300. Each of the profiles has a different effect on every image, some images I tried came out FUGLY when used with certain profiles, but some came out wonderful. I took the 11 test results and put them into Photoshop and made a little collage for you all to look at. Click on the link below the image to see full size.

Overall I feel the new camera profiles work great and I will be trying them on all of my keeper images in the future and maybe applying them to some of my older images. Adobe made them to mimic the way images look in the camera manufacturers program (NX 2) and I feel they did a pretty good job. The profiles themselves can be edited with Adobe's DNG software so that you are able to further fine tune the images.

I give the new profiles a 9/10.

http://wgilles.smugmug.com/photos/386184257_wRX4B-X3.jpg

http://wgilles.smugmug.com/photos/386184298_KWLYd-X3.jpg

 

[Westside guy]

It's funny, in a different thread (Aperture/Lightroom) I was just adding a comment related to this.

I think this is a good idea for some people. But when I tried it for myself (deciding between Lightroom 2, Aperture 2, and Capture NX), I found I preferred Aperture's default RAW conversion when it came to my camera (D700). With the camera-specific profile added in, LR2's base output matched Capture NX's pretty closely for the test shots I took - a good thing if you like Capture NX's conversions, but hate the software.

Like anything photography-related, this is totally subjective - so people should try this out for themself. Certainly if you are a Lightroom user it's a no-brainer.

 

[ChrisA]

I find that you can get any of those results you want with any of the software. What the test shows is only how the various default settings as set. Do people actually use the defaults?

 

[wgilles]

I find that you can get any of those results you want with any of the software. What the test shows is only how the various default settings as set. Do people actually use the defaults?

Well this was to demonstrate LR2 and ACR, not every other program. I used to use the defaults, but now I use the new profiles I downloaded.