Can I get even close to my cameras JPG?

[hhvaal]

I sat down today and did some closeup comparisons between JPG's from my Nikon d5100 and the ones that I was able to produce in ASP, and was a bit suprised when I saw how different they were. I am very much aware of how nikons own proprietary NEF RAW processing algorithms will always be ahead here, but I am willing to sacrifice that to be able to use ASP exclusively.

The one thing that is bothering me the most is a slight green offset in detailed areas, that I have not been able to fix. I have tried Chromatic Aberration and adjusting the green channel, without much success. I am wondering if anyone with more experience can spot how I should approach this?

green.png

To the left is the RAW and to the right the JPG from the camera. The artifacts especially stand out when looking at the eyelids.
Is there anything I can do to fix this? If anyone would even be willing to have a go at the full RAW, I will upload the image.

Thanks!

[SteveCase]

How are you doing color management? What are you using to view the photos?

[hhvaal]

I have calibrated the screen by using a usb color calibrator with argyll/dispcalgui.
The screenshot above is directly from ASP showing the JPG and RAW side by side (selected and pressed M).

[FalCT60]

Hello,

I had some kind of the same discussion with a friend of mine that uses JPG on his D700 while I use RAW on mine. He found that the JPGs were more accurate than the RAWs but he finally admitted that the camera's software (and the settings he used) somehow kind of "improved" the rendering of JPGs.
A printout of a magnified area of both RAW and JPG made him admit this.
There is a thing that puzzles me in the photo on the left : it seems to be altered, kind of softened, as if there were a problem with color depth or so (cf. Steve's question about color management).
Or, maybe, it is the right one that is "enhanced" by the camera's software according to the settings you use...

Regards,

J.-L.

[hhvaal]

Yes, the right side one is coming from the cameras software (ie, directly from the JPG the camera wrote to the memory card). I think the case is that that one is sharpened and color corrected partly because they know exactly how the camera internals and lens will distort the image, but also partly because it looks better "out of the box" with the contrast cranked up by default. I am totally fine with having to do this contrast adjustment etc by myself, but it is the first part that bothers me: if I cannot find any way to correct those camera-induced artifacts, then I wonder if I will ever be comfortable with leaving the JPG rendering completely in ASP's hands...

[grubernd]

nikon has a very very well working CA-correction in their cameras. and that autocorrection does not need to know anything about the lens, it works with every lens and all the time. most of it you can replicate with the CA tool in ASP, some things like slight depth-CA (there is a name for it, i dont remember) you cant.

PS: just like anything else, the out-of-camera JPGs are just another interpretation of the image. there is no "right". although we all know we can create a lot of "wrong" ones.

[ferdinand-paris]

It used to be the case in B5 that there was no sharpening applied at all as a default - am I right in remembering this? I think it's the case that ASP is the same, although I can't recall exactly what the default settings are. So no sharpening in ASP will really mean no sharpening (unlike LR), and images straight from a Bayer sensor will be quite soft. This was a design decision to give the user full control IIRC. I bet the camera is configured to apply some to JPGs. So It may not be a fair comparison until you tweak the sharpening in ASP. And I think ASP needs a little more than B5 did.

I am not a great fan of skin tones in ASP, at least from Nikons. Also Sony.

F_P