From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

963 Camera Matching profiles in Camera Raw/Lightroom

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

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963 Camera Matching profiles in Camera Raw/Lightroom

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- Hey gang, this is Dick McClellan. Welcome to Dick's Techniques. This week, we're going to take a look at camera matching profiles, which unlike everything else you've seen this year are not new, not even sort of, however, we're going to take a new fresh look at them. In case you've never heard of them, a camera matching profile takes a raw photograph, such as a CRW or NEF or DNG, and makes it look like it would if you had shot it as a JPEG. So in other words, it tries to match the photo to the way it would look once again, if processed by the camera itself. It's not an exact science, in fact, as we'll see, camera matching profiles are rough guesses at best, but they can be a good jumping off point for your own custom modifications. Oh, and this topic, it applies to raw images only. Once again inside Camera Raw or Lightroom. And for the sake of demonstration, I'll be working with his run of the mill DSLR which happens be a Canon 70D. Here, let me show you exactly how it works. All right, so the first thing you want to do is make sure that Adobe provides a color matching profile for your specific camera model. So here I am looking at this page, camera's supported by Camera Raw, it's the exact same list for Lightroom, by the way. And notice this column right here color matching profile available. For all the Apple devices, the answer is no, but if I scroll down the list to Canon, you'll start seeing some yeses. Now that doesn't mean Adobe provides camera matching profiles for all of Canon's cameras, by no means in fact, however, notice for my 70D the answer is yes, but if I were working with a 90D the answer would be no. In which case I might have some luck looking for a camera matching profile from a third party site. In any event, I'm going to go ahead and switch over to Adobe Bridge, where we're seeing three different variations on the exact same photograph produced inside the camera. And so for starters, I've got this raw DNG file, which I converted from Canon's proprietary CR two format, and next we have a couple of JPEG variations. And so I'll press Control + A or Command + A on the Mac, in order to select all of those images, and then I'll press the space bar in order to switch to the full screen mode. And so here we are looking at the raw 14 bit per channel DNG file, and next we have an eight bit per channel JPEG file. Now, I've gone ahead and labeled the file inside Photoshop but otherwise this file was produced inside the camera with the picture style set to faithful. So different cameras have different pictures styles that you can choose from. Next, I have a JPEG again, produced by the camera itself in which the picture style is set to standard. Now, these two images may look pretty darn similar but notice if I were to switch back to the faithful image, that we have this kind of dull orange beak, compared to this very vivid, saturated orange when the picture style is set to standard. All right, I'll just go ahead and press escape in order to exit the full screen mode, and then I'll select the raw DNG file. And that's because color matching profiles only support raw files. They do not support JPEGs or tiffs. Next I'll go ahead and right click in the file, and choose opening Camera Raw. Even though what I'm about to show you works pretty much exactly the same inside Lightroom. All right, I want you to notice these eyeballs over here on the right hand side of the screen, they tell us that I've made some custom modifications to, for example the optics category, where I went ahead and corrected for lens distortion and chromatic aberration. I also up the sharpening and noise reduction values here inside the detail panel, and if I were to expand the basic panel you can see that I've made some slight adjustments to the exposure, highlights and shadows values. And I mentioned all this because when you assign a profile, you do not override your custom modifications. They remain altogether intact. All right, so, go ahead and twirl close, basic right there, and then notice this profile option, if I click on it, we can see that we have different profiles available to us. By default, I'm looking at Adobe color but I could switch it to Adobe vivid, at which point I increased the contrast as well as the saturation values. If you want to switch to black and white, then you would choose Adobe monochrome. If you want access to more profiles, then just go ahead and click on this icon right here, Browns profiles, and that will show you thumbnails for each and every one. And one of the great things about these thumbnails, is that you can preview them just by hovering your cursor over them. So this is Adobe color, this is Adobe landscape, this is Adobe portrait, and this is Adobe monochrome. Now notice that we have the star icons in the top right corner of each and every thumbnail. If you want to clean up the pop-up menu, then you can turn a star off and it will disappear from the favorites as well as if I click on the back button right there it will disappear from this pop-up menu. And so notice that Adobe standard is no longer here. All right, I'll just go ahead and browse the profiles once again and twirl close favorites, at which point I'll see this camera matching option, I'll go ahead and twirl it open, and we can see the various settings that are available to a Canon 70D. Including, if I go ahead and scroll down the list right here, standard which we just a moment ago, as well as faithful. And so what I'm going to do, is turn on the stars for both faithful and standard, and then I'll click on standard in order to actually apply it. Now, I'll click on that back button and you can see that the profile is now set the camera's standard, and if I bring up the pop-up menu, I have camera faithful and camera standard available inside of this list. You'll also notice, if I twirl open the basic panel, that my exposure highlights and shadows values have been maintained, and this goes for my detail and optics settings as well. At which point I'll just go ahead and click done, in order to apply that change. All right, now let's compare Adobe's version of the standard setting two cannons. And so I'll just go ahead and press the Control key or the Command key on the Mac, and click on that JPEG standard thumbnail in order to select it independently of JPEG faithful and then I'll press the space bar in order to switch to the full screen mode. And so this is the raw image, subject to that standard camera matching profile. And this is the JPEG version of the image as it appears when it's actually cooked inside the camera. And so, as you can see, they're pretty darn different from each other, notice for example, that were the raw images concern that we have a little bit of color up here inside the head whereas the head is quite neutral inside the image produced by the camera. So you really want to consider that camera matching profile as a jumping off point. And of course the advantage of the raw image is that you can edit it non-destructively to your heart's content and you have a much better dynamic range, so my advice is as usual always capture raw. And that is how you apply a color matching profile whether you're working inside Camera Raw or Lightroom. Okay, so again, not new, but next week is, see Adobe provides camera matching profiles for lots and lots of cameras, but Adobe doesn't provide camera matching profiles for lots and lots more. So what do you do if you're left out in the cold? Watch next week and find out. Dick's Techniques, each and every week, keep watching.

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