D300 and RAW color in Aperture 2

Color space is only applied to JPEG images in your camera, not to RAW. I don't know why you're seeing different colors in the different applications. In your post, you said you saw the difference when viewing JPEGs, which would contain a color profile.

I don't have a Nikon, and all the images from my Canon DSLRs are RAW, but I did have a few images from my wife's SD1000 from the other day in Aperture. I exported the master file to my desktop, and opened the image in Photoshop. Side by side, the two images look identical on my display. There is no difference between the image in Aperture and Photoshop on my screen. I have my color settings in Photoshop set to "ColorSync Workflow" and I leave the embedded profile when I open the image.

OK. I take the RAW point thanks for that. Just to make sure I am not going bananas (and it is always possible) I have opened my Getty test image in both Photoshop (I am still on CS 1) and in Aperture 2.

I have checked the image on bot my Macbook screen and on my Lacie. There is a better match on the Macbook, but the images on the Lacie are vastly different.

In PS, the image is open with now colour management and in Aperture the proofing is off. The images are different.

I cannot figure this out. Thoughts?

Andy

OK. 2 things.

I just submitted feed back on CA to Apple/Aperture as suggested.

The second point is that in a "what the ****" move I slid the "primary viewer' screen on my secondary viewer and presto the image in Aperture matches my Photoshop image.

Could be something to do with my graphics card - or lack of it in the Macbook? Somehow, Aperture is using the Primary screen (my Macbook) profile to display the image on the secondary screen (my Lacie).

Any thoughts on that?

Ah, that's part of the puzzle. Yes, Aperture uses the display profile from your primary display as the default profile. You can open up the colorsync utility and change this, but the easiest way is to simply make the display you do your color work on your primary display. When you unhook the MBP from the LaCie display, your primary display will automatically revert to the MBP and Aperture will update accordingly.

Andrew Johnstone wrote:
... Any thoughts on that?

See the link

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6930131#6930131

Well known issue with MBP/MB and second monitors.

Yes! This is exactly my problem and with various fiddles I can work around. I will now send feedback to Apple on this issue and reference this discussion link I guess.

Thanks to all and let's hope Apple fix the bug. I have to say i did not notice this problem in Ap 1.5, so it must be a Ap2.1 bug.

Cheers chaps.

A

Okay, getting back on Topic, has anyone heard any more regarding Aperture Raw Conversion of D300 nefs?

Just done the first photoshoot with a new D300 and hit the issue above. I could actually see the washing happening as the images were loaded.

Extracted them back out the library and put them into NX and the colour is back???

I'm getting a little fed up of Apple releasing software with this type of glitch, when you are basically depending upon it!

Look forward to see if anyone has heard anything, I will be sending feedback to Aperture as well.

There are a lot of details you've glossed over, but which are discussed here in this thread.

Some things to note:

1) If you shoot RAW (NEF), then it doesn't matter what color space you select on the camera (sRGB or Adobe RGB). RAW files don't have a color space, and Aperture will thus use its defaults.

2) Aperture will NOT come up with a default conversion that's the same as Nikon Capture. So if you have your defaults on camera set to Vivid or whatever, then yes it will look more saturated and punchy in Capture than in Aperture. No way around that -- the info and tweaks that Nikon uses to generate the JPEG files is not available to Aperture. Aperture does a default conversion, and you can tweak the saturation, contrast, etc., after the fact.

Just do a lift and stamp on some images with the defaults cranked up if you want. You WILL see a change in the image appearance as Aperture generates its thumbnails/previews, as the default ones in the RAW file are based on Nikon proprietary info that Apple has no access to. You can thank Nikon for this (though Canon does the same thing).

I totally understand about the colourspace / nef relation, I've got no issue with that.

Reference the conversion, I don't actually use the vivid presets when I'm shooting in a studio. All processing is done post. Personally I'm not into in-camera processing, especially for paid work.

What I would like to know is why when the conversion is done are the colours washed. If you load the files in and watch them being created you can actually see a colourful version to begin and then as the conversion hits it does look like its being washed over! You can even throw a nef on the desktop and preview it with more colour than aperture gives, so theres something adrift in the conversion process.

FYI - The images are both 12 and 14 bit, and are all uncompressed nefs. I've not actually tried it in Lightroom yet. I've always shot Raw and whilst I may be mistaken the D200 nefs are also affected. I will run some test shots to see.

I'll also boot a 2nd drive with aperture 1.5 and compare the D200 files tomorrow, to see if theres a difference.

Well, typically the JPEGs which the camera generates (there are JPEG previews in all RAW files) are fairly punchy, even if you don't have the vivid preset. It's almost always the case that RAW files come out a bit flatter. If you're shooting RAW, there's most likely going to be some post-processing necessary, as they do come out of the camera flat and low contrast.

So what you're seeing with the "washed over" look is the difference between Nikon's generated JPEG, and between Aperture's default RAW conversion. Again, Aperture has to take a "first cut" at how the image looks based on the RAW data it gets from the camera. It doesn't have the knowledge of Nikon's "secret sauce" that the camera is using to generate the JPEG preview that you first see. So it will differ, guaranteed, but what I cannot say is how much of a difference there is for Nikon cameras, given I only have my experience with Canon RAW files (from 4 different Canon cameras).

You could define some presets on an image (say +10 definition, +4 contrast, etc.) and then lift and stamp those to images as a "shot in the dark" first cut. Often, though, it makes more sense to do some simple "baseline" tweaking on one of your files from the shoot (white balance, contrast, levels, etc.,) and then lift and stamp it to all other shots that you made in the same lighting conditions. For studio use, these would likely be pretty consistent across shoots as well. I do primarily landscape, so light's changing every 45 seconds 😉

Lightroom actually has the advantage that you can define presets and apply them at import. Pretty much everything you can tweak, you can save as a global "import preset" so if the default conversion is too flat for you, you can just always apply your preset at import. In this way, it can definitely save you some time on the front end. However, frankly, I was quite unhappy with the default renderings that Lightroom (and ACR) do on the red/orange/yellow area of the spectrum with my Canon cameras. Both yellow and red tended to shift toward orange, and the saturation was WAY overbaked to my eye, such that detail was lost. I shot a bunch of shots of blooming poppies, and the look LR was giving me was enough to push me to Aperture for good 😉

Trigger07,
I use a Nikon 300 and shoot in RAW. I've not experienced color washout with Aperture's processing of my RAW files. I recommend tweaking a file to your liking using the adjustments available in the RAW processing brick, then saving the settings as your camera default. Subsequently, Aperture will process all your RAW files according to your default until you change it.
Lou Outlaw

Andrew Johnstone wrote:

How come this is not about colour management?

Because it's about RAW conversion. Both William Lloyd and kbeat have explained this quite well.

DLS