Saturday, October 18, 2008

Nikon raw (NEF) and Lightroom

Having a DSLR I have been trying to get the best quality in photos and create a semi-pro workflow. I know it sounds fanzy and complicated but once a workflow is established then all you have to do is take the photos, import and print the ones you like.

My initial, second, third... (well you get the idea) attempts has been that once I import the photos in lightroom they kind of loose a bit of the contrast and saturation compared to how they looked on the LCD.

Of course this is caused by the RAW format conversion and the Nikon Raw (NEF) format is proprietary and not something that is publicly shared. So importing to lightroom or opening in photoshop the file have to be converted and the automatic conversion rarely comes out the way you want it.

Recently (as I was looking for a web plugin for lightroom) I stumbled on a raw conversion plugin from Adobe.

The DNG profiles which have camera profiles for just about any DSLR can be downloaded for FREE from Adobe.
After download just close all programs on your computer. Run the program (install camera profiles) and startup lightroom/photoshop and you are ready to go.
Now you can manually change the module used for converting the raw files or create a preset with the adjustment...

I have done only a few tests and so far it works pretty good. It doesn't seem like any adjustments are needed after import (using a preset setting the camera format to the camera standard).

Anyway, I'm sure more will come later but hey go ahead and try it out :-)

Resources:
Camera profiles + profile editor: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles
Cool lightroom presets: http://cameradojo.com/lightroom-presets/

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