RAW Editing Contest, special edition D850

[David H. Hartman]

Thank you, Charlie! Clearly Adobe Camera RAW is to be considered over Nikon Capture NX-D.

[I reinstalled CNX-D and now it opens D850 NEF(s) ]

My version of CNX-D won't open or display these D850 NEF(s). I'm using CNX-D v1.4.6. I check and it's the latest I find at Nikon's download center.

Is there something I've missed or does Nikon not yet offer a version of CNX-D that handles D850 NEF(s)?

Dave

[Frank Fremerey]

Armando: what do you think about chrominance noise?

Obviously I have to learn a lot about editing the D850 files

[Arne Hvaring]

Thanks for making these files available, most useful!  Capture 1 now supports the D-850, so here is a quick attempt. Highlights -100, this tames the hair but not the blue tissue, so some reduction of saturation. A touch of clarity and structure then export to PS for final adjustments.

[armando_m]

Armando: what do you think about chrominance noise?

Obviously I have to learn a lot about editing the D850 files

Frank,
Here are a couple of 100% crops , both processed in CNXD, +4ev, flat profile

1. without NR
2. with 50% color noise reduction

Dave, here is a screen capture of my cnxd about info, same version as yours, perhaps, uninstall and download, install again ?

Edit: Interesting, I see little difference between both images processed in CNXD, but if I do the same in ACR the difference is more obvious, but not huge, the bigger difference is in the colors even when selecting flat profile on both cnxd and acr.

[David H. Hartman]

Oops! All done is sRGB buy accident. Nikon Capture NX-D 1.4.6 (had to reinstall CNX-D to open NEF, don't know why). I'll have to try again when I have time using Adobe Wide in CNX-D. Sized and sharpened in Photoshop CS2 with no local editing...

The first is sRGB all the way. The second is Nikon Adobe Wide 4.0 in CNX-D and converted at the end to sRGB in PS before saving the JPG. The sharpening is probably a little different.

[David H. Hartman]

Here is my shot at the horse and trainer. Again it Nikon Capture NX-D then opened with Photoshop. CNX-D was set to open the NEF in Nikon Adobe Wide 4.0. No local editing. Sharpened and downsized in Photoshop...

[Frank Fremerey]

The more edits you show, the more I like the horse picture. Thank you so much!!!

[David H. Hartman]

The first is sRGB all the way. The second is Nikon Adobe Wide 4.0 in CNX-D and converted at the end to sRGB in PS before saving the JPG.

I think Capture NX-D deals with bright highlights fine. It's just different than others. I used the Flat Picture Control on both the band and the horse and trainer. I used Active D-Lighting on the band. I used LCH on both. For the band from the side I used 1.33 stops of positive exposure compensation. The low end is pretty damned deep. If the band were going to a web press (do they still use those? I haven't shot PR for years) I think the photo would print fine. I don't know if charities send out news letters today or not. It's been almost three decades.

Dave

[David H. Hartman]

The band from the front. Capture NX-D to Photoshop. I did some perspective control in CNX-D and I used a contrast reducing mask in PS. The sky is a bit green for my taste but I'm out of time to do more post process...

[Arne Hvaring]

FWIW here is my take on the band shot. Capture 1, minor adjustment in PS.  Amazing what one can pull up from such a badly underexsposed file. Bodes well for the D850.

[Frank Fremerey]

FWIW here is my take on the band shot. Capture 1, minor adjustment in PS.  Amazing what one can pull up from such a badly underexsposed file. Bodes well for the D850.

As mentioned above the idea behind the whole exercise was to test the shadow-pull-potential of the new camera.

My verdict so far is that life is continuuos learning and that developing D500 files is something else than developing D850 files.

[Arne Hvaring]

Yes. I have the D500, splendid camera btw., but not yet the D850. In what way do you feel there is a difference between the files of these two cameras. Disregarding the obvious Mpx difference of course. Some have claimed that the sensor in the D850 is essentially a scaled up version of the D500 sensor, but you obviously disagree.

[pluton]

I wanted to try to get the flesh tones lighter plus an overall cheerful, sunny day feeling without an artifact-y look.  I wasn't completely successful on the artifact-y part. 
Since my LR/ACR has no D850 capability yet, I had to use NX-D to decode the raw into a very flat 16bit tiff, then finish in LR/ACR. After massage in LR I outputted to a 1600 width JPEG with 3 pixel radius sharpening(unusual).  It seems that the D850 continues and improves the wide capture range progress of the D800.  I won't know if it's any good on the web 'till I post it, so....

[David H. Hartman]

The light in both of the band photos is too harsh and there isn't enough information in the shadows to lift the skin tones of the near trumpet player to a "normal" level. There is a point where there is nothing in the shadows, clipped and bringing up what is almost there doesn't look right. A silly photon here and there in an otherwise empty well is in my opinion better left black.

The photo showing the band from the front seems to need a different WB for the sky in the right corner. I don't want the face of the church cold so I've got a sky that's too yellow-green. There is probably some channel clipping in the sky. I'm certain there is in the clouds. All in all it's quite amazing what can be done but there are limits. The photo might be developed twice and the sky dropped in. Air pollution is probably a problem in the lowest part of the sky making it worse than the rest of the sky. 

Dave

[David H. Hartman]

Better I think. Still not quite there. At least it's not Velvia.