I calibrated the Nikon D700 with 28-200mm lens. Because I always tend to forget some step, I made these instructions that I would like to share:
First phase: prepare, setup and shoot:
1) Get a Macbeth colorchecking card (which can be purchased here).
2) Wait for a sunny day.
3) Place the card about perpendicalur to the rays of the sun (or make sure the rays from the sun make the same angle with the card as the rays from the card to the camera). I use a music standard to position the card.
4) Make sure the camera is in RAW mode.
5) Set the camera to spot metering mode.
6) Set the aperture to a common one, f8 or f10 or make multiple pictures with different apertures (permutations will boom, though !).
7) Meter on spot 22, column 4, row 4, lock it with exposure lock (if you don’t do this right, it will influence the saturation when you use the color profile later on, I found out 
).
8 ) Make sure that any exposure correction is off !
9) Frame the card, focus and take picture with the sun on your back.
10) Repeat from step 6 with different apertures if you want to compare the results later on.
The raw file can be downloaded here.
Second phase: convert to dng.
1) Open the file(s) in Lightroom
2) Set mode to Library
3) Convert with menu: Library->Convert Photo to DNG…
These are the settings I used:
The resulting .dng file can be downloaded here.
Third phase: create profile(s)
1) Install Adobe’s DNG Profile Editor, which can be downloaded here.
2) Open DNG Profile Editor.exe in folder C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Profile Editor
3) Open one of the .dng files created in phase 2 with menu: File->Open DNG Image (Ctrl+O)
4) In the right panel, select the tab named ‘Color Tables’.
5) On that tab, select Base Profile: Camera Neutral(Nikon D700), you can use any profile, but this one gives me the most flexibility. It’s indeed neutral, with low contrast an low saturation. You can always increase those in Lightroom.
6) In the right panel, select the tab named ‘Chart’
7) Place the markers in the center of the corner spots.
8 ) In the right panel, click the button named ‘Create Color Table…’ and press that annoying ‘OK’ button.
9) Save the just created profile with menu: File->Export Nikon D700 profile…, press Save and press that annoying ‘OK’ button.
10) Repeat from step 3 if you want to create multiple profiles.
11) When closing the DNG Profile Editor Program, Don’t Save the Unsaved Profile Recipe.
The resulting profile can be downloaded here.
Note if you want to use the downloadable profile, you’ll have to place it in C:\Documents and Settings\Tom\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles (substitute my name with yours !)
Fourth phase: using profile(s)
1) Open Lightroom
2) Goto Develop mode
3) Select a photo
4) In the right panel, scroll down to the ‘Camera Calibration’ section.
5) Select one of the profiles just created.
6) Make sure all the sliders are set to 0, if you used them for an older calibration method !
7) You can compare it with the base profile, by selecting the profile ‘Camera Neutral’ here, there should only be some color differences !
Here is a remarkable improvement using the calibration profile.
I shot this picture when it was very misty, with hardly no color.
When the standard ‘Camera Neutral’ profile is used, there is an ugly color cast (green and red):
Now, with the calibrated profile, the color cast is gone:
And here is a comparison of the photo of the colorcheckercard used for calibration:
For the above one the standard ‘Camera Neutral’ profile is used in Lightroom.
Below is the same photo, but now the created profile has been used in Lightroom.
If you look carefully, you can see some difference in the dark blue and red patch.
Enjoy !
February 24th, 2009 at 18:39
Hi Tom,
had just a look at yout topic. Exellent!
Was googling up n down, because I had found this uply color rendition on my D700 as well.
Now, as I like the colors of ‘old Europe’, eg. D2x-Mode, and not the plastic-fantastic I had to ask you fpr advise.
Unfortunatly I didn’t use Lightroom, but only CS2 and NX 1,x.
Any ideas to come to natural color with this two tools?
Would be very grateful, THX
Greetings from Berlin
Wulf
March 2nd, 2009 at 16:47
Hi Wulf,
You might try the previous method that I used for the D200.
It uses a script that runs in Photoshop that tries to match the
patches of the Macbeth colorchecker card with the ’should-be’ (soll-wert) values by varying the hue and saturation for each color.
This method is described here.
I used to be satisfied with this method, until Lightroom supported color profiles
Greetings from Amsterdam,
Tom
March 13th, 2009 at 3:40
Great information. What would need to be done differently to accomplish the same thing in CS4/ACR 5.3?
March 14th, 2009 at 11:13
Hi Robert,
Thanks !
As far as I know the method still works with ACR 5.3.
I’m currently using Lightroom version 2.3, which uses ACR 5.3.
Cheers,
Tom
March 16th, 2009 at 6:22
Tried it out, and it does fix the green/magenta color artifacting I see a lot in shadow areas. However using this technique results in a profile different from Adobe’s camera neutral/standard profiles (which I actually like for the most part in terms of color). I don’t suppose there’s any way to get something that’s like those profiles, minus the artifacting (without asking Adobe)?
March 16th, 2009 at 10:02
Hi Alvin,
I share your appreciation for Adobe’s neutral profile.
So that’s the profile I used as the base profile for this calibration.
If you switch between the original neutral profile and the calibrated neutral profile, the only noticeable differences should occur in color casts (not in saturation or tone).
That is why I love the Profile Editor !
You can take any Adobe profile and use it as a base profile for your own calibration.
You could also follow the same steps for calibrating Adobe’s standard profile yourself.
Cheers,
Tom
March 16th, 2009 at 19:36
I wonder there is some bug in Lightroom then, as I am noticing tonal shifts as well between Camera Neutral and your custom profile (when I switch between them in Lightroom). Also strange, is that when using custom profiles, the image exported to Photoshop looks a lot different (brighter) than the preview in Lightroom (i.e. Lightroom doesn’t accurately “preview” an image using a custom profile). I am using the 64-bit version. Same results when I tried making my own profiles.
Thanks for all the hard work and for sharing this information by the way, it is really useful.
March 16th, 2009 at 21:37
In Lightroom I switched between the 2 profiles with some images and sometimes there is a slight tonal shift. I’m not sure if that is what you mean.
I also tried to export an image to Photoshop to look for the 2nd problem you’re describing. When I export an image from Lightroom with menu Photo->Edit In… it looks different that when I open the .NEF file (with the accompanying .xmp file) in Photoshop directly (you get the the Camera Raw import dialog then).
The latter looks more like the one in Lightroom (View 1:1) and I guess it’s the one method that uses the profile correctly (I checked if it’s selected in the Camera Raw Raw import dialog).
March 16th, 2009 at 22:51
Actually for me, Camera raw and Lightroom both render the file the same (but the preview doesn’t look the same as the exported file; it’s darker and more desaturated - but this is probably a separate issue). While some images look pretty similar between the Adobe Camera profiles and the custom ones, others look quite a bit different (in both tone and color), but I guess this is expected if you use a custom profile. Maybe I’ll post some samples sometime.
March 28th, 2009 at 20:57
Dear Tom,
Thanks a lot for writing all of this up — very helpful.
Now I think the answer to my question is somewhat evident from your exchange with Alvin, but I’m wondering whether I should simply download and install/use your calibrated profile for my D700 images, or whether it would be best to go through the steps outline above (and thereby create my own calibrated profile).
Thanks,
Joey
March 31st, 2009 at 15:00
Dear Joey,
You’ll end up with exactly the same profile. However, if you want to use a different base profile (landscape, portrait, standard or vivid), you can use the .dng file of step 2. Or if Adobe improves the Profile Editor in a way that it delivers better profiles, you can repeat the steps yourself. But I’ll probably create a new post by then
Cheers,
Tom
April 13th, 2009 at 21:48
Yeah, my conclusion is that this method yields an OK profile that does solve the original problem (magenta/green splotches in gray areas), but it definitely yields a very different color profile from the original Adobe presets (which match what you would get in Capture NX very closely), even if you use the Adobe profiles as a “base”. Well some photos look almost the same, others are quite different. The only real solution would be to contact Adobe to have them fix their Nikon D700/D3 profiles.
What I’ll do now is switch to Capture NX for photos that do exhibit this problem. Or just try the calibrated profile if the colors look good enough.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:33
Dear Alvin,
I’m quite curious about the differences you encountered. I think we share the same goal: color accuracy.
Would you consider emailing me a picture that exhibits this problem ?
Best Regards,
Tom
May 16th, 2009 at 2:44
Hi Tom,
thanks for posting this! it’s been very helpful. The purple spots were driving me nuts…
Cheers,
Hannes
May 18th, 2009 at 8:28
Hi Tom, I can send you a sample NEF or two, what is your e-mail?
Another problem I’ve found with the Adobe Camera profiles is that shadow areas (dark regions) tend to get really poorly rendered.. basically I see of lot of posterization instead of smooth gradations (compared to Capture NX or the standard Adobe profiles). Anyone else see this?
What are the chances we could get Adobe to fix their Nikon profiles? They clearly need some tweaking. I tried filing a bug report, but they don’t respond to those.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:40
Hi Alvin,
Yes, please.
My email is mail08@(this domain)
Cheers,
Tom
September 4th, 2009 at 2:18
Just wanted to say ‘thank you’ for the downloadable profile, as it has been a great relief in achieving good natural colours.
If only we could emulate the D700 ‘camera portrait’ tone curve now?
December 15th, 2009 at 22:39
Tom, I just saw this post of yours, tried it, the profile, on some problem images and like magic, they are fixed…thanks for this…I was wondering if my camera might be defective and it’s only the profile via lightroom…whew!…
M
January 14th, 2010 at 4:46
Realise that I’m pretty late on this, but hoping that I can get some extra info. Having first said, of course, that I’m already very grateful for what you’ve posted. I’m in full agreement with Alvin when he says that Adobe obviously need to get their profiles sorted, but failing that, this is extremely helpful.
I’ve tried recreating the profile myself from your DNG file, but the result is quite different. Still better than the profiles built into Lightroom, but different enough to make me wonder what’s going on. Is it possible that yours was created with reference to the Camera Standard or Adobe Standard profiles? Or that you changed the Tone Curve?
On a related point, what should I expect if I use the Camera Standard (Nikon D700) profile to create a profile for the D700’s Vivid setting? Would that work?
Finally, if you’ll forgive the impertinence, wouldn’t it have been better to shoot the colour chart at 2850K and 6500K? Obviously 2850K corresponds to tungsten, but how would you obtain 6500K with any degree of accuracy?