Making D600 colors look like Canon colors.

I'm a wedding photographer and have been increasingly frustrated with especially skin tones with the D600. Ryan Brenizer in his review of the D600 said something similar about his D600--that it was different/and more difficult to deal with than his other cameras (D700 at the time). By the way, I've seen other threads on other forums regarding making Nikon colors look like Canon colors--but I feel D600 is even more difficult than say D700 and D4.

I know shooting in mixed light makes things more difficult, but even after hundreds and hundreds of hours of processing thousands of photos in lightroom, I still feel it takes way too much time to get the colors/skin tones I want. It's hard for me to describe, but this is the best way I can describe it.....I find skin tones to be either too desaturated or too saturated. It's very hard to find a right mix of orange, yellow, red.

Jordan Voth engagements - Jordan Voth | Seattle Wedding & Portrait Photographer is a good example of the processing style that I want (Canon shooter). I feel like it is impossible for me to get this style... I am very familiar with adjusting individual colors, luminance, saturation, hue, etc in LR. I also have all the popular filters such as VSCO 2, 3, 5 and Replichrome.

I happen to know that one of my favorite photographers who is a Nikon shooter switched recently from D700 to D600. www.dennisberti.com His color style definitely changed--it still looks great, but more saturated/vibrant--less neutral. As much as I like his work and Sam Hurd's work (Nikon shooter), I prefer the style that I mentioned.

I tried using the Camera Neutral color profile and that seems to help maybe a little.. One of the things that seems to help at least a little is lowering orange saturation and raising the luminance of orange. I just bought Colorfidelity color profiles specifically made for the D600 ($10) and hopefully this will help even more (I'll receive it in 24 hours).


Anyone have any advice on processing? The D600 is such a great inexpensive camera and I would hate to lose Nikon controls to switch to Canon, as I'm pretty heavily invested in Nikon with lenses. Feel free to check out my website as well, as that will give you an idea of my best work so far: Portland Oregon Wedding Photographer, Justin Lee Photography

HYO_6730 by www.HYOFOTO.com, on Flickr

this is promising to me, but it's super hard to get it like this in all situations in my opinion..

This is a little hard to describe since I use raw files to adjust the skin tone on Adobe CS6. I have my own process but be mindful of the WB temperature since that affects the skin tone. For indoor with incandescent lighting and flash photography, I normally set my WB around 4150. If you are using jpg only, try with Neutral, portrait or standard and adjust the saturation as you experiment with the output color.

You might want to ask Rocketman since he is also a wedding photographer. I'm just a lowly noob when it comes to wedding photography.

Is this something acceptable?

GQTUAZON PHOTOGRAPHY | Ning and John Jackson's Wedding

I shoot in raw only as well. I think in LR, the raw image is affected by the process calibration profile...like Adobe Standard, Camera Neutral, Camera Landscape, etc. I can kinda tell those photos were taken with a D600. The first picture that comes up, for example, the girl on the right seems to have a somewhat strong magenta cast on her face. In general, the colors look pretty saturated and it's not really the look I want to go for for my wedding shots. Thank you for your input.

Just a observation and suggestion for you:

GQTUAZON PHOTOGRAPHY | Ning and John Jackson's Wedding processing does not match GQTUAZON PHOTOGRAPHY | Ning and John Jackson's Wedding for example. I prefer the first one, by the way. Might be just a matter of contrast difference.

Have you tried adjusting the hue in Photoshop? I adjusted it to +2, and the difference is very subtle but with a slightly less orange cast.

Edit: In this particular image, keep in mind the child might pick up a little bit of orange from the reflected light off the guitar case's lining, too.

I don't know how much pp you did n your website, but I'm guessing quite a lot. In any case, I think your images were top notch. I wouldn't complain too much since the skin tones were nearly perfect. I do see some oversaturation in some, but overall, very good images. Nice work!

I appreciate that and yes I do quite a lot of pp. It's just frustrating that I can't get the "de facto" wedding photographer look that so many Canon shooters get. Not that I want my work to look like everyone else's, but this look is really appealing to me and I feel like this is the style I see in all those wedding magazines. I of course want my style to be appealing to as many potential clients as possible.

Like I said though, a couple of my favorite wedding photographers use Nikon (Dennis Berti - D600 now, and Sam Hurd-D4s / D810). If the D800 colors are easier to manage than D600, it would be much easier to switch to that than over to Canon..

Well, shooting in any of the camera's profiles does nothing to RAW files, only jpegs. What about pre-setting (several) custom white balance slots based on where you'll shoot to avoid letting the camera get distracted with the surroundings? I've noticed some color changes depending on the surrounding light/etc when directions, but nothing impossible for raw conversion tool to iron out.

Still a tad confused what "look" you're going for as well... 1st link was natural/boring looking color snaps, and 2nd link was 85% B/W.

Ohh...haha, I guess I am going for that boring color look then -_- I want my weddings to look like those that are in wedding magazines. I feel that without some serious color adjusting, my D600 files come out too saturated and with unnatural hues. I'm sure every D600 user at least here can relate to the magenta and green cast that our cameras have. While I'm sure it's not impossible, I find it extremely time consuming and impossible for myself to get the colors I want in all lighting situations. Again, I feel like a good way I can describe it is--either too saturated or too desaturated. Extremely fine line between.

The 2nd link by the way--he is a D600 user now. The first user....while he may not use presets, I think his color style is pretty easily achieved with Canon file + VSCO film filter.

Here is a link to one of my RAW files if any of you would like to give it a try. I've spent tons of time trying to get this to look the way I want and still not happy with it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/rkcx0hdv4d3kcax/HYO_7636.NEF

Hyo, I dl'd the RAW file and that's a tough example to use. There is so much sun glare coming into the lens you would be hard pressed to get a really good image out of it. All you can do is mess with the contrast and levels to darken up the subjects and try to make the glare less visible.

I agree with Blade... I dl'd it, and the glare makes that a tough example to use...

I don't understand the concept of trying to make an image's color match that of another camera manufacturer's dream....

Why not just buy a color correction software/target package, and create an accurate color profile for your camera/lens when the pre-defined profiles aren't suitable?

I tried to work with the file you've made available. The problem is just the backlight and flare. If you only had used the flash to balance it, I'm almost certain you would have gotten a better result.

I did what I could. Here is a before and after.

I want my weddings to look like those that are in wedding magazines.

Click to expand...

You might need a MF camera for that.

Adobe make a DNG Profile Editor (free download) that can be used to generate your own custom camera profiles. I've not used it, but my brother (a Canon pro) has to generate consistent color profiles across all his Canons - he's got a touch of OCD. LOL I'm sure you can find some tutorials out there on how to use it. There are companies (colorfidelity.com comes to mind) that sell profiles for various camera types that claim to achieve a consistent look across all camera brands and bodies, and if you hunt hard enough you may be able to find one that's been generated for the purpose you are seeking.

Here's my effort...

^LOL haha, Canon looks that bad to you?

...I should not believe that was your serious effort should I? It obviously looks too gritty. No offense!!!


Thanks for all your guys' efforts. I think I'm starting to get somewhere. I have been underexposing my photos and I'm going to try exposing for skin.

Yes, I bought the D600 color profile from colorfidelity. I can't say it's much more neutral than the Nikon Camera Neutral profile, but I've been using it. I think I will try creating my own custom profile. It was funny when I read on a canon forum just today about how someone couldn't get their 5DmII files to look like their 5DmIII files