Changes Between Nikon Software and Adobe

[htid]

Hi,

I've noticed this for a long time now and thought I would ask if anybody knows the cause. Basically, if I view a raw file in Nikon's own View NX-i, the colours look more vibrant and the whole image looks slightly different than if I open with ACR and then into Photoshop. It looks as though there's more detail in the shadows from ACR/Photoshop and more vibrancy/general detail in the Nikon one. I'm not sure if I'm missing something to do with colour profiles etc. but as far as I can see both are sRGB. I generally tend to like the images in the Nikon software more, but I prefer to use ACR/Photoshop as I have a lot more control. Any ideas?

ACR/Photoshop LEFT / Nikon View NX-i RIGHT

Tufted Duck Comparison by Chris Cotton, on Flickr

*edit* obviously this is a compressed jpeg so you can't see as much of a difference on the fine feather details here, but you can definitely still tell they are different. Also, I created this by opening the image in ACR, then without doing anything to it, opening in Photoshop. I then opened the same image in View NX-i and went to 100% on both. I took a screenshot of View NX-i and pasted it onto the Photoshop canvas. If it was to do with colour profile, I would have thought by pasting the screenshot into the Photoshop image, iut would make the screenshot look the same, but clearly it hasn't!

 

[boyfalldown]

if all you're doing is opening then the Nikon software will automatically apply the camera JPEG settings to the RAW. The adobe software won't relying on a standard profile instead. So the Nikon will look 'better' without further tweaking

 

[htid]

Really? The Nikon software applies camera jpeg settings??? I thought it was just displaying the unaltered raw file. Isn't that the whole point of raw, that it's the unedited information directly from the sensor? Pretty stupid that Nikon would do that imo if that's the case!

 

[Kodiak Qc]

I generally tend to like the images in the Nikon software more, but I prefer to use ACR/Photoshop as I have a lot more control. Any ideas?

•
Why would you want more control if it is to get lesser quality?
Aren't your tests conclusion enough?

 

[gramps]

I often open the files in Nikon NX-D, which allows me to apply/adjust camera settings such as WB, Exposure and apply the jpeg settings such as 'Vivid' etc, then open from NX-D to Photoshop (as a tiff file) for further adjustment ... of course you can further open in ACR from Photoshop

 

[htid]

Thanks for the reply. I have always used view nx2 and done exactly the same as you've just described. When I got my d7200 and found out nx2 had been replaced with nx-I, I got that. I've been using it for a few days and didn't even realise all the adjustments are still there! By default they were hidden so I thought Nikon had removed them to encourage people to use capture nx-d instead. Now that I know nx-i has the adjustments I will do as you do and I did previously.

My only thought is, do tiffs contain the same amount of information as the NEF files? What if I have the tif in ps, clone something out then realise I want to make another change? Is the sophisticated information of the nef still there?

 

[gramps]

My only thought is, do tiffs contain the same amount of information as the NEF files? What if I have the tif in ps, clone something out then realise I want to make another change? Is the sophisticated information of the nef still there?

If you save your work as a .psd (Photoshop file) then all your changes will be saved in that file, not so if you save as a .jpeg, .tiff etc ... so if you save 1st as a .psd you will have your changes, then save as a .jpeg etc to display/print

 

[htid]

But what I mean is, by exporting the raw file as a tif from nx-i, am I retaining 100% of the information in the nef? Tried googling but still unsure. I've spent a lot of time reading, it's fairly in depth stuff!

 

[gramps]

Ah, no the .nef is always going to have the maximum amount of data but a .tiff file is, I believe, the next best option for retaining maximum available data.
In practice I always load from my camera into a RAW sub-directory and work from them, saving the .jpegs to another sub-directory ... so my .nef files are always retained as well as the processed files.