ACR 3.7 works better than 4.2 with RAW NEF - Why?

Question

I've got CS3 with ACR 4.2 on my Mac. When I open RAW camera files in ACR 4.2 they end up desaturated. The reds in particular have mostly disappeared, but all the colors are annoyingly pale and wan. I then have to punch up the saturation, and often go into Camera Calibration to reinstate colors that have gone.
If I take the same images to my PC and open in CS2 via ACR3.7, the images have proper color saturation. I've checked the preference settings and they don't seem to be any different. And no, I'm not using the NEF plug-in on CS2 (which isn't available for CS3).
So why do my images end up so much better via 3.7 than via 4.2? Anyone got a theory? Is it because the default camera calibration in 4.2 is narrower than 3.7? I'm shooting with a Nikon D80 and a D200.

Answer 1

Tony, Tony, Tony
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<br /> Got your four images.
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<br /> First, there's the issue of the one you
<b>erroneously</b> claim to have converted in ACR 3.7 on your PC, especially since the metadata reveals it to be a NIKON SOFTWARE conversion and it has a NIKON profile embedded (Nikon sRGB 4.0.0.3001) as does the one specifically named Nikon View NX.JPG, yet the ones converted in ACR have sRGB IEC61966-2.1. embedded.
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<br /> The truth is that that image was NOT converted in ACR 3.7 at all.
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<br /> There can only be two reasons for that egregious error:
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<br /> 1. you are being disingenuous, which I do not want to believe; or
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<b>2. you had the Nikon plug-in installed on your PC, which overrides ACR, and you were using the Nikon plug-in all the time without realizing it. Even though you thought you were using ACR, you were using the Nikon software all the time in Photoshop CS2.
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<br /> That has happened to many, many Nikon users. The Nikon plug-in sort of looks like ACR with a "simplified" interface, as users have described it.</b> Nikon software installs that plug-in behind your back.
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<br /> In any event, without the RAW image as I've been suggesting from the beginning, all I can tell you is that your images look a lot more natural to me in the ACR conversion, and the oversaturated two developed in Nikon View NX (again no Raw Converter metadata) are within the parameters I would expect.
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<a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1JtzFpfaH0PbDPPUd3skXfpZuxP2Rg1" /></a>
<img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1JtzFpfaH0PbDPPUd3skXfpZuxP2Rg1_thumb.jpg" border="0" />
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<a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1WIr6Milnyj71JfyFEz2SB3ilq072" /></a>
<img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1WIr6Milnyj71JfyFEz2SB3ilq072_thumb.jpg" border="0" />
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<br /> In short, Tony, you are NOT seeing a difference between two different versions of ACR (as the title of this thread suggests) but ONLY between "the over-saturated, over-contrasty and over-sharpened images that appeal to most amateurs generated by the camera manufacturer's software", as I've been saying all along, and ACR's more natural rendition. Noise is also hidden by compressing the shadows so you don't see much of the noise inherent in the image.
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<br /> Adobe Camera Raw, ACR, on the other hand, comes with default settings designed to give you the most detail possible (even if this sometimes means revealing some of the noise hidden by the camera manufacturers in their RAW conversion software), as well as the most natural images.
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<br /> That being said, you can calibrate your camera to ACR and come up with your own settings to produce exactly what you want, including the JPEG-look of the camera manufacturer, and save that as your profile.
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<br /> The key is to learn how to use ACR properly and to calibrate your camera to ACR.
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<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Camera-Raw-/dp/0321334094/sr=8-1/qid=1156891468/re f=pd_bbs_1/104-7285664-9941543?ie=UTF8" style="padding: 4px; background-color: #00caff; color: #eeeeee; font: bold 10px Verdana, san serif;" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a> for some essential reading. [Get the rervised version for CS3 by Jeff Schewe coming out soon.]
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<br /> The ACR defaults are nothing more than a suggested starting point.
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<br /> The color temperature won't necessarily match either.