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Lightroom B&W film presets?

Chris Kresser

New member
I just read Sean's excellent article on color & b&w photography (thanks Sean!) In the article he mentions the JFI b&w profiles for C1. I'm very interested in them, but I'm pretty much married to Lightroom at this point and don't want to switch over to C1.

Does anyone know of similar "b&w film" presets for Lightroom?
 

Sean Reid

Moderator
Hi Chris,

I don't know myself but its a great question and I'm curious to know the answer. You probably saw that I discussed that technique for toggling BW/Color in LR.

Cheers,

Sean
 

StuartRae

New member
In the article he mentions the JFI b&w profiles for C1. I'm very interested in them, .................... Does anyone know of similar "b&w film" presets for Lightroom?

Hi Chris,

I very much doubt it. LR uses the ACR raw engine, which doesn't allow the use of 3rd party camera profiles.

Regards,

Stuart
 

Chris Kresser

New member
I guess there's a difference between "presets" and "profiles"? Because there are many, many presets available from 3rd parties for Lightroom that manipulate the ACR calibration settings along with WB, contrast, blacks, fill light, toning, etc. etc.

I was digging around on my computer and was able to find some B&W film presets for LR I downloaded a while back, but never tried. Unfortunately I can't remember the link, and couldn't find it searching with Google.

However, you can download them at http://cdkarts.com/lightroombw.zip

Sean (and anyone else), I'd love to hear your opinion about their quality in general and compared to the JFI profiles.
 

Chris Kresser

New member
Oops. I forgot to ask a question. When I shoot RAW+JPEG with the GX100 and import the files into Lightroom, I can only see the RAW file. Where is the JPEG? The reason I ask is that sometimes it's nice to use the GX100 B&W conversion as a comparison or starting point.
 

StuartRae

New member
I guess there's a difference between "presets" and "profiles"?

Hi Chris,

Yes. Sorry, I got confused. I guess what you're talking about is something like the 'Appearances' that Raw Shooter used to use.

Regards,

Stuart
 

StuartRae

New member
..........what does a "profile" do that is different than a preset.........?

Chris,

There are many people here who are far more qualified than I am to answer this question, but as far as my simple understanding goes:

A (camera) profile is used in the raw conversion process to apply a tone curve to the linear de-mosaiced data. The result is an image which, hopefully, displays 'correct' colours. Some profiles will be more 'correct' than others. The ETC profiles provided by Magne Nilsen for C1 and RS are generally held to provide more accurate colours and smoother colour gradations than the default internal profiles.

A pre-set, appearance, or whatever, uses the controls available in the application to adjust the resulting image.

Does this make sense?

Stuart
 

Diane Fields

New member
There are others (Andrew Rodney for instance) who could answer this better than I can, but here goes. A preset in LR is really just setting the sliders in various sections to a result that is pleasing or arrives at the look you want.

A camera profile, for instance, in C1 or the old RSP was specifically created for each camera model. It has nothing to do with sliders and LR (nor PS) can not use camera profiles.

Magne Nilson at ETC. made a great many profiles for both of these RAW converters in the past---I have profiles for my old bodies--- D30, D60, 10D, 20D and 5D from him. They are much better than the generic profiles that were included in those apps.

However, I use presets often in LR, both mine and others that are shared at a number of sites. You can find quite a few here http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/archives/presets/
and here http://lightroompresets.com/ and here http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=33

Hope this helps--and perhaps someone can give a better definition of a camera profile for a RAW converter (as opposed to paper profiles for color management in printing--and a preset in LR).

Whoops, didn't see Stuart's new post on this--got mine in a bit late.

Diane
 

Chris Kresser

New member
Chris,

There are many people here who are far more qualified than I am to answer this question, but as far as my simple understanding goes:

A (camera) profile is used in the raw conversion process to apply a tone curve to the linear de-mosaiced data. The result is an image which, hopefully, displays 'correct' colours. Some profiles will be more 'correct' than others. The ETC profiles provided by Magne Nilsen for C1 and RS are generally held to provide more accurate colours and smoother colour gradations than the default internal profiles.

A pre-set, appearance, or whatever, uses the controls available in the application to adjust the resulting image.

Does this make sense?

Stuart

Stuart,

Yes, it makes perfect sense.

I know that "profiles" are possible in Lightroom, because I've actually downloaded some for my 5D that apply custom tone curves (built outside of LR) as part of their "preset". It was made by Huelight but their website is no longer working.

So, in theory, I believe that similar custom B&W profiles utilizing tone curves are possible in LR.
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Oops. I forgot to ask a question. When I shoot RAW+JPEG with the GX100 and import the files into Lightroom, I can only see the RAW file. Where is the JPEG? The reason I ask is that sometimes it's nice to use the GX100 B&W conversion as a comparison or starting point.

Somewhere in 'preferences' youcan tell LR to treat JPEG and DNG with common file names as separate files, which does wha you want. I managed it by playing around so it can't be too hard. I think though that it will only work for imports after the chane is made, so you might want to go back and rerun earlier imports.

Mike

OK, just checked...

Edit/preferences/import check the box by 'treat jpegs next to raw files as separate photos'
 

StuartRae

New member
I've actually downloaded some for my 5D that apply custom tone curves (built outside of LR) as part of their "preset".

Chris,

Sorry to muddy the waters again, but I think you mean the Curves and Levels tool in LR which may well be part of a pre-set.

What I'm talking about is the gamma curve that transforms the very dark linear conversion into something that we can see and recognise. Sensors are linear, eyes aren't.

It may, or may not, help to read this article by Norman Koren.

But what it boils down to is that due the fact that Adobe does its own thing and doesn't use ICC profiles, you won't be able to use 3rd party camera profiles in LR.

Regards,

A slightly confused Stuart
 

Chris Kresser

New member
Stuart,

Don't worry about it. It's good for me to learn this stuff.

The curve adjustment I'm talking about for the 5D preset isn't applied with the sliders in LR. It's a custom point curve, to be more exact. LR offers low, medium and strong as options; however, in this preset the author has built a custom point curve (in Photoshop, I believe) and then somehow applied it to the LR preset.

2495070217_8b7329d422_o.jpg


This still may not be what you are talking about. I'll read the article to find out.

Best,
Chris
 

Diane Fields

New member
I think we are talking about the same thing---a point curve is an option you can choose in LR--so they just made their own--you can adjust your own yourself and save it as a preset (he may have also included changes in the calibration panel also, but you didn't mention that). It really doesn't have anything to do with colors/tones which is what a profile will also address. What the 'curve' is is a preset with their adjustments in the tone curve panel--which you can adjust further if you wish or not. Consequently, it isn't a 'camera profile' as most of us are used to referring to as Magne Nilsen's are for C1 (and the old RSP as I mentioned). The only profiles LR can recognize are the paper/printer profiles for color management.

However, you can choose to calibrate your camera which will address that to some degree--see here
http://lightroom-news.com/2007/03/28/camera-calibration-panel-tips/

Diane
 

Chris Kresser

New member
Thanks, Diane. I have calibrated my 5D using a Gretag MacBeth color checker and Tindeman's script for ACR calibration.

I understand now that the profiles for C1 are different than anything LR can do right now.
 

Robert Campbell

New member
Oops. I forgot to ask a question. When I shoot RAW+JPEG with the GX100 and import the files into Lightroom, I can only see the RAW file. Where is the JPEG? The reason I ask is that sometimes it's nice to use the GX100 B&W conversion as a comparison or starting point.

Check your import preferences to see if LR should treat jpgs next to raw files as separate photos.

Bertie
 
Not a set of presets but a good video tutorial on grayscale and desaturation for converting to B&W in Lightroom. http://photoshopnews.com/stories/downloads/LRNgrayscale_STD2.mov
Using Desaturation as conversion method leaves a lot of tweaking options to be mastered; that's not to say that grayscale seems any more of a shortcut to truly satisfactory results, but possibly the contrary, with benefits of real time preview of all tweaks (no toggle necessary) and better possibility to supress noise. All well explained in the tutorial.

Twenty minutes and 3 preset saves after watching the tutorial, I felt I was getting something half decent with the desaturation method; certainly a lot better than I had gotten before watching it. As expected not rivalling some of my ASE2 favourites (I don't have C1/JFI), but encouragng enough that I think it should be worthwhile to spend more time on it.

Thomas
 

Chris Kresser

New member
My fantasy is that with the new plug-in SDK for Lightroom we might eventually see an Alien Skin Exposure 2 plug-in for LR. That would be fantastic.

I've used the desaturate method for B&W conversions in LR since discovering the video you link to several months ago. However, I still have not been able to equal the results I get with ASE2 in Photoshop.

Chris
 
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