another camera profiles question

[ingi]

Hi all, I have read most of the posts that came up in the search for camera profiles, but still have a few questions. I shoot with a pentax k2'd in dng format. I was having a look at the camera profiles installed with lr2.3 but all I have are embeded, acr4.4, adobe standard, camera standard, beta 1. Now I am assuming these relate to my pentax? I have read that there are the scene modes (portrait, landscape etc) for some cameras but not for pentax? Do I not have any profiles because I shoot and capture in DNG format already? I went over to the adobe lab page for FAQ on camer profiles and it said that they were installed in a particular folder in the application data folder/adobe/camera raw/camera profiles, but I dont have an adobe folder located in my application data folder. I was under the assumption that the profiles would be installed automatically with 2.3. Having a look at the download page on adobe the only profiles available are beta 2, is this correct? Help please totally confused.......

 

[Kiwigeoff]

Ingrid, first you may want to explore (that is the PC term i think) for a Camera Raw folder and see what is in there.
As for the profiles you are seeing, ACR 4.4 is normal, the others are probably all that are available for your camera although the beta 1 profile I am not sure how that got there. Did you d/l the betas earlier?
The profiles you see are for the camera that made the file, so if you import say a Nikon file, the Nikon ones for that camera will show.
The portrait, landscape I understand may be only for Canon and Nikon which have others as well, they are the big two brands, sorry!!
Anyhow the profiles will have been installed automatically with 2.3 so see if you can find that folder an let us know what is inside it.

 

[ingi]

Thanks for you quick response Geoff. Yes I did download the beta, I was using LR v2 beta for a while. After doing a little search on my folders I found the adobe folder under my user name rather than all users as stated on the adobe site. The only file inside camera profiles is an Index dat file. Any ideas in what the embedded file represents, as that seems to have the most pleasing colours on screen.

Okay something totally weird just happened. I downloaded the beta 2 profiles from adobe and then went into lightroom sure enough the new beta 2 profiles were there. I then read Geoffs post and had a look at what files were inside the adobe folder, only the index dat file as stated above, which is wrong, right, there should be the beta files in there as well. So I thought I had another search around and found that when I the downloaded beta2 profiles an adobe folder was then constructed in my all users application data folder and inside that there was a cameraraw/camera profiles and when I opened that one there was lots of folders and files with canon nikon etc. I am assuming that is what is supposed to be in there, right. So now how do I know that my camera calibration tab in lightroom is accessing the correct folder - all users/application.../adobe... rather than ingrid/application.../adobe..?

 

[Brad Snyder]

Ingrid, the actual Camera Profile file should have a file type of dcp.
On my WinXPSP3, as you're also running, I find this single profile for your camera here:
K:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles\Camera\Pentax K2'D\Pentax K2'D Camera Standard.dcp

The index.dat file is not a profile, but simply an index/inventory of the profiles available to LR. Try this: make a backup copy of the index.dat file, something like index.bak. Then open it with a text editor, like word pad. Use ctrl-F find to search the file for 'Pentax K2'D'. When you find it, there should be a pointer to where exactly it's installed on your computer.

As you note, I believe the custom camera matching profiles only extend to Canon and Nikon models currently.


Since you found the index.dat file, I'll assume you have viewing 'hidden' files enabled in Windows Folder Options, but when disabled (the default setting) that's frequently the reason many people can't find these system type files.

I don't know your level of expertise, if the answers are too simple , too complicated ? Let us know.


If the profiles show up in the calibration panel, they're correct. Period. They can be installed in either place, this is to provide backwards compatability with a previous method. The beta 2 profiles are identical to the final production release as well.

 

[ingi]

Thanks Brad. I have the dcp file located. Apparently the profiles for pentax are limited. I was expecting something , not sure what, but something. Scrolling through the profiles there isnt a lot of change to the image the "embedded" (what is that) is the best with skin tones and all over appearance, it kinda warms and saturates the image. The others are kinda cold and dull. While looking at the histogram at the same time the "embedded" profile increases the rgb mountains and the other profiles flatten them out slightly.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Not very familiar with Pentax, but 'embedded' usually means that the profile has been fixed by rendering the raw. If you're getting DNGs straight from the camera, I assume that means that your camera has calculated a color profile, and that's the one you see when you you select embedded. Which makes sense, that Pentax would create their own best profile.

A couple of our members have much more sophisticated experience with this than I, perhaps they'll notice the thread and drop in.