Adobe DNG Profile Editor
February 20, 2009
If you are using Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW to convert you RAW files Adobe have developed a free (but not supported) tool to help you get better colour. Both Lightroom and ACR use prebuilt camera profiles created by Adobe. These generally give good results, often you have to do some tweaking of the RAW conversion to get what you want.
If you find that you are always doing the same tweaks to every shot then it could be a sign that the built in profile isn’t working very well for you. What DNG Profile Editor allows you to do is to tweak the built-in profiles to suit your own camera and preferences. It also allows you to build a new profile from a shot of a Macbeth Color Checker (converted to Adobe’s DNG format).
The new profile is then saved and is accessible in ACR or Lightroom. In my own quick test I shot the Macbeth under daylight on my D70, built a profile and then applied to a shot of my daughter I took a few months ago. The result was a definite improvement in colour saturation and accuracy versus the standard ACR 4.4 profile.
Downloading DNG Profile Editor and using a Macbeth Colorchecker could make a significant increase in the accuracy of your shots and also decrease the time it takes to process your RAW files.
To download the free (unsupported) application, go here:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles:Editor
For information or to buy a ColorChecker chart, go here:
http://www.nativedigital.co.uk/shop/product.php/44/macbeth-colour-checker-chart-v1
