January 14th, 2010 Lightroom Tip – Setting your Camera Calibration and changing your Default Settings

Lightroom’s Default Develop Settings:

If you are anything like me, then you have spent all too long wondering a couple of things about lightroom (I use version 2.2) regarding importing RAW files and the default settings that Lightroom applies to them before you begin working on editing them.

Firstly, I wondered how to CHANGE those default settings that Lightroom applies – for example, it always applies certain values to the Basic settings as follows:

Note that the white balance is always defaulted to “As Shot” meaning it takes the setting from the RAW file each time.

I have taken issue with this in the past because a lot of my shots were starting off with the shadows clipped due to the combination of settings that were automatically applied. I could not find anywhere in the menu options that this could be changed and have previously  read on many forums that it is not possible to do so.

Camera Calibration:

Now the second thing that I have been wondering is about camera calibration. Since changing from my Sony A200 to a Canon 5D MkII I have noticed that a whole new bunch of options have appeared in the profile dropdown menu in the Develop module. This gives you the opportunity to start off your editing with a particular colour/camera profile that is designed to look somewhat like what your camera would produce if you were using a picture style, such as Landscape or Portrait. My Sony never had anything in this dropdown but there are a few to choose from with the Canon.

Lightroom automatically knows which camera your RAW file was generated in and will give you the available options based on that. I believe you can download profiles from the Adobe web site, but for now I have stuck with the ones Lightroom already has.

The menu looks a little like this:

By selecting a camera profile for your image you are assigning it a new starting point from which you can perform any post production you wish. Note that this is not changing any of the Develop settings like Brightness, Contrast, Exposure etc. In fact I don’t really understand exactly what it is doing, but I do know that it produces a much more attractive image straight from the get-go.

Now the problem is that if you want to apply a camera profile to your images as you import them, you may have to think about creating a preset that can be applied on import… Something which is not exactly seamless…

So…

How to change your default develop settings and apply a camera profile automatically

Starting with a freshly imported RAW file, choose a camera calibration profile of your liking. I went with a standard one as I take a lot of different styles of photographs and do not want to be applying incompatible types, such as a portrait style to a landscape shot. Next, make any adjustments to the develop module settings which you want to become the new default settings to be applied to all newly imported RAW files (and the settings to which the “Reset” option will revert back to).

Once you are happy with your settings, (here comes the lightbulb “aaaaahhhh” moment!!), press the ALT key (or Option on a mac) and the reset button will turn into a “Set Default” button.

On clicking “Set Default” you will be presented with a popup like this:

Next you should click “Update to Current Settings”, then confirm your selection – and Voila!! Every RAW file you import from now on will have these new defaults. Magic!

The thing is, I have seen this last popup before but never really understood what it was doing. You can find it in the menus but just by opening it in the way I have described it’s context somehow just makes more sense.

While you may or may not already be aware of this tip, I have spent ages not knowing how to change these defaults or how to get a good-looking RAW file on import, so after figuring this all out I thought I would share it in case you do find it useful. You know, just in case!