Does Apple's Nikon D600 RAW converter exaggerate reds in skin tones?

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Level 1

6 points

Does Apple's Nikon D600 RAW converter exaggerate reds in skin tones?

I shot a company party with a new D600 last week and upon opening the raw files, I noticed that anyone who had any kind of redness in the face (such as you get when you come inside from a cold outdoors) would turn into a lobster at the slightest increase in overall saturation (as in 5% increase for example). I have not noticed that with my other cameras. Just to be clear, we're talking about unprocessed raw files brought in A3 directly here. No jpgs involved. It was most evident on men's faces because most women had at least a little bit of makeup on and this "flare up" did not show at all. Asian men or men who were more tanned did not show that either since there was more yellow on their faces.

Since I couldn't figure what the problem was, I opened the same raw files in Nikon ViewNX. Although I discovered that that software in completely unusable because it is so stupendously slow, at least the files I was able to see there did not exhibit that problem at all.

I could still be some operator error but I think I have eliminated most of the variables so I wonder if anyone else noticed that.

Thank you

Bo

Safari-OTHER, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Dec 16, 2012 11:26 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 16, 2012 2:24 PM in response to Bmachine

Bo -- I just started seeing lobstering on some of my Images, again. I hadn't seen this in a couple of years. Please post anything you find out. I have not had the time to investigate yet.

In my case it happens _only_ on my NEC wide-gamut PA271W monitor. Can you rule out a monitor profile issue (which may be Aperture-specific)?

--Kirby.

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Answer 2

Bmachine Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 16, 2012 2:38 PM in response to Kirby Krieger

Hello Kirby. Thank you for chiming in.

In my case, the monitor issue is reversed. In other words, on my iMac monitor everything looks great. But other monitors seem to exagerate the issue. To be sure, I recalibrated my monitor with a SpyderExress and it seems that everything is hunky dory there. Just minor tweaks.

What camera are you seeing this with?

Bo

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Answer 3

Dec 16, 2012 3:09 PM in response to Bmachine

For me it has always happened only with JPGs. Camera is immaterial. I went through extensive trouble-shooting with an NEC technician; ended up replacing computer-to-monitor cable and changing a system-wide color setting. I'll be looking at this soon.

I _don't_ see this with Sony RAW files (a77, a900, a850). I _don't_ see this on my MBP's Retina screen. I see it on my NEC wide-gamut monitor. I have another NEC monitor, but haven't had a chance to test that yet.

For me it recurred when I started using a not-mainstream editing program. My _guess_ (no more, and why I'm not naming the program) is that this is relying on / activating an out-of-date-but-still-present part of the OS's color system.

You symptoms are (seemingly) identical. Keep in mind that the causes could be completely different. Scan the forum for posts about issues with the D600.

--Kirby

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Answer 4

Bmachine Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 16, 2012 9:01 PM in response to Kirby Krieger

Yes. I am still really puzzled by this one. Again, I do not rule out operator error at some level but, since we are strictly dealing with unmolested raw data, it seems to point to something else.

Interesting concept of the "this is relying on / activating an out-of-date-but-still-present part of the OS's color system." That is worth followin up on.

But again, in my case at least, it seems that these "lobster colors" are fairly tame and unremarkable on the untouched raw image but as soon as I slide the saturation control to 1.1 or 1.2, some specific areas of redish purple goes exponentially high.

At this point I've had to go and manually "Brush Enhance away" for the saturation all those Irish looking faces. A real pain but, at least in Aperture (unlike in LR, IIRC) you can do that.

Bo

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Answer 5

Dec 17, 2012 11:42 AM in response to Bmachine

Bo -- I still haven't had a chance to delve into this, but it is not something I can put off long.

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Answer 6

Bmachine Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 17, 2012 12:09 PM in response to Kirby Krieger

I hear you Kirby. I had to manually fix all my photos because this job was due today. Yikes.

But I really need to dig deeper into it as well. I can't afford to have this happen again. Problem is I have no idea of where it is happening. In the camera (it's a new model so I have no previous experience with that model to compare with)? in the RAW converter? in Aperture? in the OS? Some operator error somewhere?

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