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Any reason?
Why should we use Custom Curves? and why we shouldn't use Custom Curves?

Anyone? Your input please!

The reason I use CC is to shoot a lighter exposure without loosing detail in my highlights. Thats it.

JordanP wrote:The reason I use CC is to shoot a lighter exposure without loosing detail in my highlights. Thats it.

Can we use NC or PS doing that after?

Not sure but why do it after if we don't have to?

I use one (forget which one, must work it out when I go home) because I like the balance it gives me 'out of the camera' more than the standard camera settings.

I'd have to admit though - I haven't really played with these all that much, so it may be a false impression (ie: I think the result is better purely because I believe it should be!).

Regards

Birdy
I don't use custom curves. I believe they can be applied after shooting/RAW in Nikon Editor. Users of custom curves often say that they work great for some images but not for others. I suppose one day I'll give them a try but for now too busy.

JordanP wrote:Not sure but why do it after if we don't have to?

If you shoot RAW, you'll have to use NC and PS to PP your images to the final stage.

I already do. I use NC for WB adjustments, sometimes EV as well - then into PS for final touch ups and USM.

When I have blown a highlight to get the best exposure for the overall image I have not been able to get good data back into the highlight. Mind you I am no genius with the post processing so I'm not saying its not possible.

Why? Why restrict yourself to a subset of a camera's capabilities?

eg. Why use in-camera sharpening when PS's USM clearly does a better job? Why use the spot meter on the D70 - when Canon's midrange/entry level DSLRs don't even have this meter mode and they still manage to produce good images? Why shoot in the full 6MP available when the majority of the time images end up being displayed at far less at 1MP dimensions?

I use custom curves because I prefer the way some lower contrast ones handle shadow details compared to the incamera presets, with or without exposure compensation. Also, to correct for Nikon's rendition of middle grey being ANSI 12% versus the more traditionally accepted "middle value between white and black" 18% grey.

I don't use any custom curves as i shoot everything in raw. all camera functions such as sharpening etc are turned off.

Onyx wrote:Why? Why restrict yourself to a subset of a camera's capabilities?

eg. Why use in-camera sharpening when PS's USM clearly does a better job? Why use the spot meter on the D70 - when Canon's midrange/entry level DSLRs don't even have this meter mode and they still manage to produce good images? Why shoot in the full 6MP available when the majority of the time images end up being displayed at far less at 1MP dimensions?

I use custom curves because I prefer the way some lower contrast ones handle shadow details compared to the incamera presets, with or without exposure compensation. Also, to correct for Nikon's rendition of middle grey being ANSI 12% versus the more traditionally accepted "middle value between white and black" 18% grey.

Onyx,
And I know you shot JPEG only, You have less chance in doing anything else.

Birddog114 wrote:Onyx,
And I know you shot JPEG only, You have less chance in doing anything else.

For my purposes, NEF doesn't help but hinder my shooting.

But regarding this topic, the use of a custom curve is equally applicable to NEF shooting. The "standard" curve is merely Nikon's custom curve - so you're shooting and fitting everything within the framework of processing luminosities hitting the sensor as Nikon determines. Instead of getting to know the weakness of Nikon's preset framework and attempting to work around it, why not create your own that addresses the weaknesses that you encounter (or use one that someone else has created and extensively tested)?

Implicit in the 'why use custom curve' question is why Nikon provided the capability of reprogramming the way sensor data are remapped as light levels and shades of colours. In the higher end models, IIRC there is the capability of programming more than one tone curve.

Engineers build camera, photographers use them. Engineers don't precisely know what every photographers want - the best thing is to give choices. That's why we bought the D70 instead of a PHD camera isn't it?

Onyx wrote:

For my purposes, NEF doesn't help but hinder my shooting.

Onyx,

What purpose would NEF hinder your shooting?

I shoot RAW all the time and can't work out when It would be better to shoot JPEG (besides storage issues, if that is what your refering to).

W00DY

I shoot in RAW with the camera custom setting set to Colour Mode 11 (Adobe RGB) because I know that for good images I will be editing in photoshop. And editing RAW files is pure joy!
I also shoot with the JPEG set as well - that way I get a quick preview in Iphoto. (The new one will do RAW files - so may not need to do both.
Does that make sense?
David

It would be entirely reasonable to shoot with no custom curve loaded as image data is identical (ex curve tag amongst others), regardless of the curve used when shooting RAW. Jpeg is probably quite a different story - PP is done in camera, therefore the curve is applied to the image in camera. This is the one shooting format where there is a benefit to using a custom curve to minimise PP. I generally regard jpeg as a P&S format.

For general use, I tried a few curves, found something that I liked and loaded it into my camera and left it there. It is not always the right curve, but gives good results most of the time. If it is not right I edit or change the curve in CSP.

Digital is a wonderful thing in comparison to film. We have the benefit of multiple ISO plus the benefit of being able to customise the tone response of our digital film without reloading it. So what is your favourite film?

Cheers

Matt

W00DY wrote:Onyx,

What purpose would NEF hinder your shooting?

Continuous shooting - flick off 4 shots, and you're back to 1FPS with NEF. Jpg high - it's 9 before you run into speed hump. Jpg normal - you go indefinitely until you need to 'change film'.

If you optimally expose a correctly white balanced shot, I don't see the need to utilise the recovery latitude, shooting options or image parameters of NEF. The time require to open the NEF, a straight convert to jpeg and save - even batch processed, is time I'd rather spend doing something else. The camera does it within the blink of an eye - the most powerful desktops today still needs seconds to do.

As to tone curves, Reznick's shadow point selection and corresponding gamma adjustment advocated in his ebook is merely a different way of skinning the same cat.

G'day,
I've only recently started playing with custom curves to try to reduce the PP afterwards. I suppose if the curve is just another "tag" against the image (like WB) when shooting NEF, then it's just another way I can try to get closer to the end result I'm after out of the camera.

Plus it's just plain fun playing with the different configurations of the toy

Cheers,
Mudder

We have nearly 400 members at this stage, how many people use Custom Curves and how many people don't?
We might turn this to a poll.

Happy to say that I shoot raw and also use a custom curve to bring out the midtones of the picture... there are numerous ways of doing this of course and a really good example is to look at the results MattK gets shooting jpeg, no CC and with some well implemented PS work... but as I currently have a poor knowledge of PS I find my approach gets me most of the way there without much more PP.

Michael.

[quote="JordanP"]I already do. I use NC for WB adjustments, sometimes EV as well - then into PS for final touch ups and USM.
quote]

This is an interesting workflow...Why run the pic through 2 programs when you can do it in 1. I didn't realize it was possible until I came across the Nikon plugin for photoshop that basically restricts the ability to do what capture does. Pretty devious isn't it??? Nikon limits photoshop so you cna only use their program? I deleted the nikon plugin and I have full functionality in photoshop same as nikonview, wb, ev, hue, saturation, tons more.....PP time is down to under 60 seconds as a result. As for curves, I no longer use them. I can add in PP, but can not remove in pp what was done in camera right?????

Andy

xerubus wrote:I don't use any custom curves as i shoot everything in raw. all camera functions such as sharpening etc are turned off.

Same here!!!

Cheers
Ray

i dont use curves at all. i use the shadow hightight adjustment to pull out detail in the shadows, and then a contrast adjustment. bobs your uncle or aunty or whatever. also jpeg doesn't bother me at all saves all the stuffing around after the fact. most pics taken generally with a digi have a colour cast and do not have a true grey balance. a lot of guys get far to technical in playing with PS, this is not necessary as being a daily user in the commercial trade you can definately overdo it. keep it simple, and you will find a good result after a few goes. once you have mastered this technique for cast, then play with selective colour to enhance skin tones etc. i quite often change the mode to cmyk as knowing the correct balance for skin tones it is much easily achieved in this mode. i believe that the change back in mode to rgb has no detrimental effect to the image. personal choice is also a huge factor, do what you feel comfortable with. each person has their own perception of colour, every monitor has a different colour temperature. one pic on one screen looks different to another screen. hey if it looks good when you print it, fine. it it looks crap have a play around in PS

jethro wrote:i dont use curves at all. i use the shadow hightight adjustment to pull out detail in the shadows, and then a contrast adjustment. bobs your uncle or aunty or whatever. also jpeg doesn't bother me at all saves all the stuffing around after the fact. most pics taken generally with a digi have a colour cast and do not have a true grey balance. a lot of guys get far to technical in playing with PS, this is not necessary as being a daily user in the commercial trade you can definately overdo it. keep it simple, and you will find a good result after a few goes. once you have mastered this technique for cast, then play with selective colour to enhance skin tones etc. i quite often change the mode to cmyk as knowing the correct balance for skin tones it is much easily achieved in this mode. i believe that the change back in mode to rgb has no detrimental effect to the image. personal choice is also a huge factor, do what you feel comfortable with. each person has their own perception of colour, every monitor has a different colour temperature. one pic on one screen looks different to another screen. hey if it looks good when you print it, fine. it it looks crap have a play around in PS

jethro

Spot on!!!!

jethro wrote:i dont use curves at all. i use the shadow hightight adjustment to pull out detail in the shadows, and then a contrast adjustment.....

Hi jethro,

I completely agree with all you're sayng except one thing - "shadow and highlight" tool brings up much noise in the dark areas very often - we discussed it recently in one of topics in the beginners area. And that's the only reason why I'd like to try custom curves. Any other adjustments like contrast, color correction, sharpening etc. I prefer to be done manually in PS

this tool is dependant on how hard you hit it. if you left it as the default sure you will incur noise. obviously different pics require different amonts of correction . the adjustment can be very effective as long as the grey balance is correct in the first place. hue changes can definately occur in the shadow to 3/4 tone if the grey balance is wrong. digi pics will of course have a certain noise level no matter what, expose and set up will be the cause of most noise. noise is noise , it can add character to a shot it can also be a pain in the butt. even at the highest resolution setting noise will appear if you go looking for it. asthetics and composition i believe are the aim of shooting. noise is just an inherant factor. like it or lump it

atencati wrote:

JordanP wrote:I already do. I use NC for WB adjustments, sometimes EV as well - then into PS for final touch ups and USM.
quote]

This is an interesting workflow...Why run the pic through 2 programs when you can do it in 1. I didn't realize it was possible until I came across the Nikon plugin for photoshop that basically restricts the ability to do what capture does. Pretty devious isn't it??? Nikon limits photoshop so you cna only use their program? I deleted the nikon plugin and I have full functionality in photoshop same as nikonview, wb, ev, hue, saturation, tons more.....PP time is down to under 60 seconds as a result. As for curves, I no longer use them. I can add in PP, but can not remove in pp what was done in camera right?????

Andy

Hi Andy,

You may well be right about the plugin. I have only found that in Photoshop I have limited ability to adjust EV and WB (not the same scope as Nikon Capture). If there is a way to achieve the same flexibility in photoshop I'd be more than happy to streamline the PP process

In terms of adding curves in PP but not removing - I'm not too sure but if logic prevails it should not make much difference - the camera is applying its defult curve so if you can apply another one over that - then I would assume the reverse to be possible.

All hints in streamlineing PP are very welcome.
Cheers,

jethro wrote:this tool is dependant on how hard you hit it. if you left it as the default

Can't tell right now what they are but certainly not default. I changed them, following some reccomendations (don't remember where they came from) and saved as default.

Could you suggest what are you using normally?

Jethro,

jethro wrote:i dont use curves at all. i use the shadow hightight adjustment to pull out detail in the shadows, and then a contrast adjustment. bobs your uncle or aunty or whatever.

I suspect that you' (and, actually, quite a few others) have missed the point of the question, which was not so much directed towards PP techniques, but more towards who amongst us loads a custom tone curve into the camera, and uses that curve (in lieu of the default in-camera curve) when we make our exposure.

I use the Relaia curve, and find that with a tad extra in-camera saturation and sharpening along with -1 or -2 on most wb settings, it gives me very pleasant images straight from the camera.

looks like im dumbo of the day!

jethro wrote:looks like im dumbo of the day!

Not at all; your post has still provided valuable input for others to mull over and discuss, even though it was on a tangent to (what I understand was) the original question.

[quote="JordanP]
You may well be right about the plugin. I have only found that in Photoshop I have limited ability to adjust EV and WB (not the same scope as Nikon Capture). If there is a way to achieve the same flexibility in photoshop I'd be more than happy to streamline the PP process

In terms of adding curves in PP but not removing - I'm not too sure but if logic prevails it should not make much difference - the camera is applying its defult curve so if you can apply another one over that - then I would assume the reverse to be possible.

All hints in streamlineing PP are very welcome.
Cheers,[/quote]

Here is the link to the adobe website for raw plugins. It now has a 2.4 beta with D2X suppport!!!!

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

and here is a good link discussing the nikon plugin

http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForumID36/1222.html

andy