New Custom Curve +0.7 EV

[Apolinario]

It's just too bad Nikon made the default curves underexposed just to hold highlights down. They didn't have to do that if they had made their default curves have more of a tail at the highlight end.

Anyways, if anyone has any feedback on their use of my curve, or something they see that is wrong with it, let me know. I haven't tested the curve in every situation yet. So far, however, it works just like the normal curve with +0.7 EV but with better highlight retention.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

With the custom curve you developed, I can once again shoot JPEG
which save me a lot of time bibbling hundreds of NEF. Thank you
very much.

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Lee H]

Thanks Apolinario, for all that effort, not had any daylight yet to experiment.

Excuse my ignorance, having only owned my D100 a few days but, Do Nikon make custom curves available for download?.

Regards
Lee.

 

[Robert Catania]

Thanks Apolinario

I am installing the curves and have a question. When I unzip the file there are 3 files listed 2 are names the same in winzip. Which one do I load? and do we set the ev back to default .0 after loading?
Thanks again
Rob C

Sorry for all the tweaking I've been doing, but I've finally made
my final adjustments and I will not be able to change them anymore
because my NC3 trial is over as of midnight last night! But, after
tweaking some of the points up and some down by no more than 2, and
by adding a final point at the end, I squeezed out every ounce of
optimization I can out of my curve.

If you downloaded my curves earlier than this morning, you may want
to download the new one. I found that in one of my earlier curves,
sky areas that were about to be clipped turned a little reddish due
to lack of contrast. I eliminated this in my final curve. I also
eliminated some of the yellow cast in extreme highlight areas just
about to be clipped.

Anyways, the curves are now done. If someone else could upload
these files to their server and erase all older ones in case my
Geocities website is unaccessible (which I guess is typical due to
its free nature), I would appreciate it.

Good luck! I'm glad my curves have helped people.

http://www.geocities.com/kisskissbangbang_97

http://www.pbase.com/atmabini

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Zorpie]

Apolinario,

Thanks for the latest set of D100 custom curves. I had been experimenting with your last ones - and you have saved me a bit of work there by producing the latest versions !! Well done - I have used them already with great success and now have an out-of-camera image that is exactly what I want. I agree totally with you as regards the default (linear) settings used by Nikon. But I now believe that this was done deliberately by Nikon to allow users to set their own curve to suit their needs. Initially I thought that I could have a custom curve for Bank A and another custom curve for Bank B !! I soon discovered that you could only have ONE custom curve !!

Many thanks again Apolinario. Great job and I can tell you did a lot of work and put a lot of thought into your curves - which you have kindly shared with us all. Not many people about who are prepared to share anything with anyone these days !!

Anyways, if anyone has any feedback on their use of my curve, or
something they see that is wrong with it, let me know. I haven't
tested the curve in every situation yet. So far, however, it works
just like the normal curve with +0.7 EV but with better highlight
retention.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

With the custom curve you developed, I can once again shoot JPEG
which save me a lot of time bibbling hundreds of NEF. Thank you
very much.

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[bdougr]

Just used the +.7 curve - it worked great

Now I need to reteach myself to NOT intentionally over expose using the builtin meter! LOL

 

[Apolinario]

This is the file I use. Also, when using it, you can set your ev back to 0 because the curve corrects the underexposure. Now your camera is as it should be!

Sorry for all the tweaking I've been doing, but I've finally made
my final adjustments and I will not be able to change them anymore
because my NC3 trial is over as of midnight last night! But, after
tweaking some of the points up and some down by no more than 2, and
by adding a final point at the end, I squeezed out every ounce of
optimization I can out of my curve.

If you downloaded my curves earlier than this morning, you may want
to download the new one. I found that in one of my earlier curves,
sky areas that were about to be clipped turned a little reddish due
to lack of contrast. I eliminated this in my final curve. I also
eliminated some of the yellow cast in extreme highlight areas just
about to be clipped.

Anyways, the curves are now done. If someone else could upload
these files to their server and erase all older ones in case my
Geocities website is unaccessible (which I guess is typical due to
its free nature), I would appreciate it.

Good luck! I'm glad my curves have helped people.

http://www.geocities.com/kisskissbangbang_97

http://www.pbase.com/atmabini

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Apolinario]

Check this out! You won't believe it!



Again, in an attempt to satisfy my insatiable curiosity, I took this photo in my living room using my ev_7_custom_d100_less curve. I darkened the photo as a whole so it would be easier to see the highlight retention.

Just used the +.7 curve - it worked great

Now I need to reteach myself to NOT intentionally over expose using
the builtin meter! LOL

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Apolinario]

In fact, I've heard from several posters how puzzled they were at the lack of any information on how to construct custom tone curves for the professioinal D1 series cameras. People talk about how well their curves have worked for them but do not share their curves.

Thanks Apolinario, for all that effort, not had any daylight yet to
experiment.

Excuse my ignorance, having only owned my D100 a few days but, Do
Nikon make custom curves available for download?.

Regards
Lee.

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Robert Catania]

Thanks a lot!
I will load it and try it out today.
Rob C

Sorry for all the tweaking I've been doing, but I've finally made
my final adjustments and I will not be able to change them anymore
because my NC3 trial is over as of midnight last night! But, after
tweaking some of the points up and some down by no more than 2, and
by adding a final point at the end, I squeezed out every ounce of
optimization I can out of my curve.

If you downloaded my curves earlier than this morning, you may want
to download the new one. I found that in one of my earlier curves,
sky areas that were about to be clipped turned a little reddish due
to lack of contrast. I eliminated this in my final curve. I also
eliminated some of the yellow cast in extreme highlight areas just
about to be clipped.

Anyways, the curves are now done. If someone else could upload
these files to their server and erase all older ones in case my
Geocities website is unaccessible (which I guess is typical due to
its free nature), I would appreciate it.

Good luck! I'm glad my curves have helped people.

http://www.geocities.com/kisskissbangbang_97

http://www.pbase.com/atmabini

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Peter LO]

Hi Apolinario,

I've forgot to mention that I use your curve on my D1x instead of D100. As I said earlier, the exposure is now perfect, the only remaining problem is the overly saturated yellow/green (red becomes orange) but certainly the color problem is less serious as the exposure issue that puzzled me for a long time. The baseline is: now I get usable out-of-camera files.
Thanks again for your efforts.

Peter

 

[Tom Husband]

Apolinario,

Just wanted to say thanks for developing these curves. I loaded them yesterday and went out and shot all day. I love the results. My post processing has decreased dramatically. Excellent work!

Tom Husband

Again, in an attempt to satisfy my insatiable curiosity, I took
this photo in my living room using my ev_7_custom_d100_less curve.
I darkened the photo as a whole so it would be easier to see the
highlight retention.

Just used the +.7 curve - it worked great

Now I need to reteach myself to NOT intentionally over expose using
the builtin meter! LOL

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[R. Bond]

Thanks Apolinario

Loaded your curve w/contrast and shot all day sunday. I shot landscapes and arcitecture in a variety of lighting conditions and they turned out great when I did my part and needed very little post processing. After reading this thread I am going to try the curve w/less and see what happens. Custom curves make better sense to me than the +.7 EV setting.

Best regards

RB

 

[David SL]

Check this out! You won't believe it!

Actually not suprised at all, I've always thought this was one of the most (if not the most) powerful feature of the D100. (Too bad I don't have one of my own to play around with!

What is amazingly clear with your curve are lower contrast and brighter shadow and midtone regions and retention in bright regions exactly as desired, however I do notice a distinct warm (reddish) caste in your custom tone shot that isn't in the other three. Perhaps you can make a new version that rebalances the red channel to get the tones to match the other modes.(Not even sure if single channel adjustments are possible in NC3 as they are in Photoshop) Of course in camera you can use the D100's "hue" adjustment to dial in some red to compensate when shooting the custom curve , problem solved in camera...thank Nikon for versatility!

I am willing to bet that you can get even better results if you match the custom curve to particularly difficult to expose scenes (as I mentioned in a previous post in this thread) but your curve seems to be quite general purpose in it's ability to pull up shadow/midtones and simultaneously keep down highlights. Maybe you should consider an investment in the full version of NC3 (since your trial has run out) and make a business out of providing some "custom" custom curves for extreme exposure situations!

Great work!
--

 

[David SL]

I am willing to bet that you can get even better results if you
match the custom curve to particularly difficult to expose scenes
(as I mentioned in a previous post in this thread)

That was actually another thread you started concerning custom curves, sorry about the confusion!

--

 

[Mike Sommers]

Wow, with all the press Apoliario is getting in this forum over his contribution, I thought that by now someone would have done a thorough analysis of it in a variety of conditions. I wonder if they would conclude that the hailed "0.7 less" custom curve is only good in certain instances, but not a good "all around fix" to the lack of shadow detail that many new d100 owners complain about. (After all, there are a limitless number of possibile conditions under which shots are taken with d100's.)

I'm anxious to install the curve and take it through the paces this weekend. It is getting extremely positive feedback in this forum. Now that I've got a few thousand shots under my belt with my d100, I feel I'll be able to get an accurate read on what Apoliario's custom curve does for me. Lots of fall foliage down here in Northern Virginia!!!

Now, I have a very very silly question...

Would one achieve the same results if they applied Apolinario's prescribed curves fix AFTER the image was taken (in Fine JPG mode)?

In other words, if I take the shot in manual mode (or full auto mode) with the in-camera meter saying I was properly exposed... then open the JPG file in Photoshop, fix the curves according to Apolinario's prescription, and save it as a high quality JPG (12).

I understand it might save me a little time, but how would these results be different than loading the custom curve into my camera with the same settings?

I've uplaoded a simple web page to illustrate the results I get when making the changes Apolinario prescribes using Photoshop, compared with a few other tries at getting better detail in the shadows...

http://www.sinfin.com/curvestest.htm

My results in this test are not very promising for Apolinario's custom "0.7 less" custom curve. I consistenly get better results by simply fixing the histogram using Photoshop's LEVELS tool.

Am I missing something? Apolinario's curve doesn't seem to help me much here. The overall image contrast has taken a big hit, and the colors don't seem real.

Is this not the proper way to determine how a custom curve is going to operate once it's loaded into my camera? Does the on board Nikon firmware apply curves differently than Photoshop 6.0 does on my computer? If so, I applaud you Apolinario for the amount of time you must have spent with trial and error, until you finally arrived at the custom curve that has pleased so many people.

Thanks alot, I'm just learning and still a little confused by all this technical speak (I just wanted to take better pictures!)

Mike

Thanks Apolinario

Loaded your curve w/contrast and shot all day sunday. I shot
landscapes and arcitecture in a variety of lighting conditions and
they turned out great when I did my part and needed very little
post processing. After reading this thread I am going to try the
curve w/less and see what happens. Custom curves make better sense
to me than the +.7 EV setting.

Best regards

RB

 

[Brent Burzycki]

Great question.....

I would think if the camera is utilizing the curve before compessing it into JPEG then the results would be different...

But I am not sure about anything anymore...

Wow, with all the press Apoliario is getting in this forum over his
contribution, I thought that by now someone would have done a
thorough analysis of it in a variety of conditions. I wonder if
they would conclude that the hailed "0.7 less" custom curve is only
good in certain instances, but not a good "all around fix" to the
lack of shadow detail that many new d100 owners complain about.
(After all, there are a limitless number of possibile conditions
under which shots are taken with d100's.)

I'm anxious to install the curve and take it through the paces this
weekend. It is getting extremely positive feedback in this forum.
Now that I've got a few thousand shots under my belt with my d100,
I

 

[Brent Burzycki]

All I can say is that if this does 80+ % solve our issues and since he has put alot of work into these customs curves, and since his copy of NC3 is expired - I will be the first to give to the

"Give a copy fo NC3 to the nice guy fund"

Hell a buck a piece from all the posts this has had and it would be paid for already....seeing i just bought my copy for 99.00...

Just a thought....I know parting with cash is always an issue, but hell it would have taken me a month to do what he did...

IS: Learn it - Do it - Test it - do it again...

 

[Apolinario]

I actually tried to apply my curve in Photoshop to correct someone else's underexposed photos and I got nothing close to what I've been getting from my custom tone curve. The photo lacked contrast and was completely muddied. The out-of-camera photos I've been getting look exactly like the normal tone setting with a +0.7 EV, except for softer highlights. When you try the curve, you'll be surprised just how exact I mean.

I'm anxious to install the curve and take it through the paces this
weekend. It is getting extremely positive feedback in this forum.
Now that I've got a few thousand shots under my belt with my d100,
I feel I'll be able to get an accurate read on what Apoliario's
custom curve does for me. Lots of fall foliage down here in
Northern Virginia!!!

Now, I have a very very silly question...

Would one achieve the same results if they applied Apolinario's
prescribed curves fix AFTER the image was taken (in Fine JPG mode)?

In other words, if I take the shot in manual mode (or full auto
mode) with the in-camera meter saying I was properly exposed...
then open the JPG file in Photoshop, fix the curves according to
Apolinario's prescription, and save it as a high quality JPG (12).

I understand it might save me a little time, but how would these
results be different than loading the custom curve into my camera
with the same settings?

I've uplaoded a simple web page to illustrate the results I get
when making the changes Apolinario prescribes using Photoshop,
compared with a few other tries at getting better detail in the
shadows...

http://www.sinfin.com/curvestest.htm

My results in this test are not very promising for Apolinario's
custom "0.7 less" custom curve. I consistenly get better results by
simply fixing the histogram using Photoshop's LEVELS tool.

Am I missing something? Apolinario's curve doesn't seem to help me
much here. The overall image contrast has taken a big hit, and the
colors don't seem real.

Is this not the proper way to determine how a custom curve is going
to operate once it's loaded into my camera? Does the on board Nikon
firmware apply curves differently than Photoshop 6.0 does on my
computer? If so, I applaud you Apolinario for the amount of time
you must have spent with trial and error, until you finally arrived
at the custom curve that has pleased so many people.

Thanks alot, I'm just learning and still a little confused by all
this technical speak (I just wanted to take better pictures!)

Mike

Thanks Apolinario

Loaded your curve w/contrast and shot all day sunday. I shot
landscapes and arcitecture in a variety of lighting conditions and
they turned out great when I did my part and needed very little
post processing. After reading this thread I am going to try the
curve w/less and see what happens. Custom curves make better sense
to me than the +.7 EV setting.

Best regards

RB

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Apolinario]

Hey, maybe Nikon may even include this tone curve as an update in their next firmware upgrade, who knows! Or, maybe Nikon will hire me and I will make sure their D-SLR's have proper tone curves in the first place.

I appreciate your comments on my curve. Let me know if there's any area where it could be improved. I think the thing that remains to be done is to push the shadow detail to it's limits now as DavidSL has suggested, and make an "extreme shadow lift" curve to maximize the theoretical 7 stops of exposure dynamic range the D100 has. Actually, what I really want to do is take some pictures.

All I can say is that if this does 80+ % solve our issues and since
he has put alot of work into these customs curves, and since his
copy of NC3 is expired - I will be the first to give to the

"Give a copy fo NC3 to the nice guy fund"

Hell a buck a piece from all the posts this has had and it would be
paid for already....seeing i just bought my copy for 99.00...

Just a thought....I know parting with cash is always an issue, but
hell it would have taken me a month to do what he did...

IS: Learn it - Do it - Test it - do it again...

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

 

[Jeffrey Broder]

I have 3 zip files that I have down loaded. Which do I use?

1. Apolinario-(+0.7 curve)
2. d100-custom-tone
3. d100-custom-tones-settings

When the right one is installed how do you access it.
sorry for being slow. Jeff

I appreciate your comments on my curve. Let me know if there's any
area where it could be improved. I think the thing that remains to
be done is to push the shadow detail to it's limits now as DavidSL
has suggested, and make an "extreme shadow lift" curve to maximize
the theoretical 7 stops of exposure dynamic range the D100 has.
Actually, what I really want to do is take some pictures.

All I can say is that if this does 80+ % solve our issues and since
he has put alot of work into these customs curves, and since his
copy of NC3 is expired - I will be the first to give to the

"Give a copy fo NC3 to the nice guy fund"

Hell a buck a piece from all the posts this has had and it would be
paid for already....seeing i just bought my copy for 99.00...

Just a thought....I know parting with cash is always an issue, but
hell it would have taken me a month to do what he did...

IS: Learn it - Do it - Test it - do it again...

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind

--
Jeff B