_jim_ wrote:
Thanks! Yup. Used the "highlight soft" preset in NLP. Still not completely happy with the colors I get from NLP. Maybe someday I'll figure it out.
I also loved the results you posted. But generally I agree: NLP is bad news when it comes to colors. Nate shared his approach in great detail on dpreview in "science" forum. Long story short: it is a wrong approach. It is based on guessing and sometimes it produces nice results, but it will never work **consistently**. Which means that if you shoot Portra and use NLP, you're not getting Portra colors. You're getting NLP colors, also known as "bubble gum colors". There's nothing to figure out.
old-gregg wrote:
I also loved the results you posted. But generally I agree: NLP is bad news when it comes to colors. Nate shared his approach in great detail on dpreview in "science" forum. Long story short: it is a wrong approach. It is based on guessing and sometimes it produces nice results, but it will never work **consistently**. Which means that if you shoot Portra and use NLP, you're not getting Portra colors. You're getting NLP colors, also known as "bubble gum colors". There's nothing to figure out.
To be fair I have seen great results from folks using NLP, including great "Portra colors".
Can't say though whether these people are getting those great colors consistently, or how exactly they are using NLP, maybe with custom profiles..
I never dived deep into it (just using it for a short while).. I got the hunch it could be really good if you manage to dial it in, but for me the whole workflow was just a pain. I mean I guess scanning color film is a pain no matter how you do it 💁♂️
..and @_jim_ - I agree those colors you got there look just great, I suppose if they were my images I'd probably just up the contrast a tiny bit (or do manual burning, bit of vignette or such), as I think overall they look a bit "airy" / "un-grounded", but apart from that fantastic light, and really beautiful colors, lovely! ✨
Tina Kino wrote:
To be fair I have seen great results from folks using NLP, including great "Portra colors".
Can't say though whether these people are getting those great colors consistently, or how exactly they are using NLP, maybe with custom profiles..
I never dived deep into it (just using it for a short while).. I got the hunch it could be really good if you manage to dial it in, but for me the whole workflow was just a pain. I mean I guess scanning color film is a pain no matter how you do it 💁♂️
I think the main issue with NLP (for color) is consistency. Sometimes it does absolutely great. But then the next frame of the same scene is shockingly different.
Sometimes it 'benefits' the user by over-riding the stock (making 800T look daylight balanced, for example). Obviously, the flip side is that it imposes its mercurial character on the stock making everything look more like NLP than the film itself. I don't have the skill to fiddle with it and make it do my bidding.
I absolutely respect and applaud Nate for creating the program, but I wonder what Adobe could make with their army of engineers (I feel bad writing that, realizing that Adobe has become the evil empire...though, the monthly subscription is probably my penance for never paying for a copy in my youth).
_jim_ wrote:
I think the main issue with NLP (for color) is consistency. Sometimes it does absolutely great. But then the next frame of the same scene is shockingly different.
Sometimes it 'benefits' the user by over-riding the stock (making 800T look daylight balanced, for example). Obviously, the flip side is that it imposes its mercurial character on the stock making everything look more like NLP than the film itself. I don't have the skill to fiddle with it and make it do my bidding.
I absolutely respect and applaud Nate for creating the program, but I wonder what Adobe could make with their army of engineers (I feel bad writing that, realizing that Adobe has become the evil empire...though, the monthly subscription is probably my penance for never paying for a copy in my youth)....Show more →
Yeah, I have found with bright sunny beach scenes the first conversion may look great, the second one looks like it was taken on Mars - neon yellow sand, deep purple skies. Any scene with a lot of green or blue in it, NLP will really warm it up.
Overall though I have been very happy because what I had done and tried before was miserable.
@Desmolicious I've seen the same thing. These are two frames from the same roll, same exposure, same conversion in NLP, same scanning session. I assumed that I messed up white balance in-camera while scanning (sony a7iii on a copy stand with a cinestill cs-lite).
I'm new to NLP/Lightroom just in the past month. Until then, I had only used Darktable, but found that my color inversions in negadoctor/darktable were inconsistent. NLP has massively sped up my time-to-usable-image, but then the clunkiness of the Adobe suite side has slowed me right back down.
The vast majority of the time I am happy with NLP. But when it messes up it seems that the algorithm is caught in a loop that cannot be fixed unless you logout/reboot.
This is how I get consistency with NLP, and I believe it is the fastest method
I think the key to NLP is buffer, and only pick one representative frame or frames of like lighting and group them.. I don't crop at all. I open only one representative image in NLP. I put buffer at 5-8% to have NLP sample only the main central image (you won't lose any of the image - it is just for sampling). I also do not have it create a positive image - just untick that box. When you have what you want - go back to the first tab in NLP and hit enter. A positive thumbnail will be in Lr with an adjustment flag in the lower right corner. Right click that flag and pick "Develop Settings" > "Copy Settings". A big dialog will appear - choose "Check All" > "Copy". Now select all the similar thumbnails from those that you grouped (including the one you adjusted) - right click that flagged image again on it's flag and choose "Develop Settings" > "Paste Settings". At this point you haven't actually opened a single image file, but do wait (it takes a bit) for the thumbnails to all update to positive versions before continuing. (I usually scroll back and forth across the bottom to make sure it has finished) Now, if you want, you can further adjust using the Camera Raw module in Lr, or just export positive copies in any image format you want. The export module has lots of options - I particularly like the renaming option. Photoshop sometimes complains, but I sometimes just open the adjusted DNG image in Photoshop. If it balks - do it again. (right click > Edit In > Edit in Photoshop 20xx)
