Lightroom/Camera Raw: Nikon Z6 RAW processing and Adobe WB

(Re double correction: my problem is actually not related to over-compensation - which one would expect with "double correction" - but a substantial and very (!) visible under-compensation (or no compensation at all at least on my Z 24-70 f/4 at both ends of the zoom, ie toward 24mm and 70mm, and with F-stops below 6.3))

Hi Rikk, you can imagine how disappointed i was when i opened version 10 and realised that there is still no support for the now 2 year old Nikon z lenses...

(apart from a continued absence of support for HEIC export)

@Steffen

Lens profiles are embedded on the Nikon Z-6 and are enabled by default. There is no need to apply one as it is already applied.

As of the August update you also have the option to disable the Lens profile. 

Given that I can't understand your disappointment because they have been there for some time. 

Dear Rikk,

Thanks and oops. Our point has always been (since more than a year and backed up by several comments and example files) that the Nikon built-in profiles are low quality and that they need to be replaced by Adobe calibrated lens profiles... and yourself confirmed this (see above): "The team is working on new profiles for an upcoming release. I do not have an ETA." (7 months ago)...

Best wishes, Steffen

We also still cannot turn off the lens profile for the Z7 even when correction was turned off in camera even in the latest update. For built in profiles such as the ones the mirrorless Nikons embed in the raw files, we really need the capability to use the amount sliders like we can do for Adobe developed profiles. For example, the vignetting correction Lightroom applies using the built-in profiles is not enough. Lightroom also applies less correction than Nikon applies using the same profile when using their own raw converter at default settings.

@jao: agreed, it's still a significant quality issue for Nikon Z camera images in Lightroom (since late 2018....).

@Rikk: can you please clarify what is going on (if anything happened since i first labeled this issue almost 2(!!!) years ago? You had requested example images, which i provided (also almost 2 years ago). There was your acknowledgment (finally) early this year that the Lightroom team is working on this. But your most recent reply seems to indicate that you're still not understanding what this issue is (although i wouldn't know any other more basic issue than proper control of vignetting). This is NOW URGENT. Mind you i'm paying € 10 every month but do not see any improvement for now 24 months... is this going to be a test of my patience (or stupidity as a paying customer for nothing)?

The Camera Raw team is continuing their work on this issue. I have no ETA I can provide at this time. 

Dear Rikk, thanks for confirming but please relay to your colleagues that two years is a really long time (including in our lives). I have just edited a batch of 2,000 Z6 images and each single one needed readjustments of the vignetting compensation (this includes images taken with the 24-70 mm f/4 S and the 50 mm f/1.8 S). It's cumbersome to do, takes hours and really, was handled wonderfully since 2011 (?) by those great lens profiles for previous Nikon glass in Lightroom. We're spoiled customers!

Dear Rikk, please is there perhaps a beta profile that i could test? I have again 4000+ images awaiting my edits and to be honest, it's a dreadful job since every single image needs manual adjustments of vignetting...

Dear Rikk, LR classic 10.1 is out, still without any sign of any progress on this Nikon z lens issue. Sorry, but can you explain this in simple terms why i am paying every month? To be punished by an utterly lazy Adobe team?

Dear Rikk, just to clarify: i hope it's not too much of an expectation to see some tiny progress on a major image quality issue for Nikon z lenses when i as your customer have been paying € 300 over the last 2 years. This may be nothing for Adobe but it's a lot for a small family budget. We are kicking off the phase 3 trial of a third COVID-19 vaccine - if we were to work at the same speed as Adobe, well we may well be out of the job by next year! It is really FRUSTRATING to see absolutely nothing being done for my hard earned money! Sorry to say this so clearly.

You know there is a Lens Profile Creator tool so you could make your own lens profile instead of having to wait until it makes its way up Adobe's priority list? 

Thanks Victoria. I know it runs only on old Macs (i kept one just in case) but the thing is that the current implementation in LR Classic would not allow anyone to load another profile. So quite a few users (thousands i would guess who by now own a Nikon Z camera) are stuck with the subpar implementation of the automatically applied lens corrections (contained in the Nikon NEF/RAW file). Any further corrections (available in the Manual Lens Correction panel) are applied ON TOP of the automatically implemented (but largely insufficient) corrections - which results in an optical mess....

Dear Victoria, earlier today Rikk decided to kid me. TWO YEARS ago he had requested me to produce and share an example of the totally insufficient implementation of the Z lens correction profiles (HEAVY vignetting, which cannot be corrected manually nor by a self-produced lens correction profile - but anyway why should i when i'm paying Adobe € 300 to do this work? - because LR Classic would only allow corrections ON TOP of the optically jarring automatic correction). 8 MONTHS ago he had confirmed (in fact, several times since then!) that the team is working on it. And now he suggests that i should BEG Adobe again? What is going on - is everyone at Adobe on vacation (this is the impression from a customer perspective)?

@Steffen70 I'm not going to comment on the rights or wrongs of Adobe's prioritisation decisions, but I can't help but wonder why you're not mad at Nikon for producing such a poor built-in profile in the first place. You paid them a lot more money for the camera than you pay Adobe, and it seems like something they should be able to fix with a firmware update.

Oops. Simply NO. The built-in profile from Nikon is PERFECT (both the JPEGs produced by Nikon as well as its own - but otherwise insufficient - RAW converter does not produce heavy vignetting).

Why should i be interested in Adobe's decision making process. I am paying cold cash and therefore, only my interest can ever count for me. Or do i get paid by Adobe?

Oh that's interesting to know it works as expected on the JPEGS. It initially sounded like the built-in profile was poor quality, but that makes it sound more like a bug in the way the profile is being read by Lightroom. 

Just to clarify there is a contract between Adobe and me as customer, which stipulates that Adobe will keep its software up to date (meaning adapt to new cameras and lenses). This part of the contract has been broken (i have produced the proof and shared this with Rikk almost 2 years ago) and customers are being left in the dust (or required to invest hundreds of hours to repair images, which should be the job of Lightroom - well it used to be the job of Lightroom since version 1 when i joined this enterprise for all Nikon cameras and lenses). What is wrong with the z lenses that Adobe decided to (i) produce such an underwhelming implementation of what's essentially a perfect built-in profile and (ii) leave the paying customer with no option to apply other (including own) correction profiles... this is an totally unnecessary source of major frustrations.

Victoria, i do work professionally with microscopes including ones costing beyond 100,000 €. Please trust me when i report that things are not the way they should be. All of this was reported and files were shared with Rikk since early 2020. I hope you can agree that this is a long time (corresponding to those mentioned hundreds of additional hours needed to deal with those heavy vignetting). Of course, this is a classical first world problem but many of us are committed (professionally) to produce highest quality and useful/meaningful progress and it this commitment and engagement that keeps us going.

Victoria, and of course, you do have a point: if all images coming out of expensive cameras would be perfect - this would also be my ideal situation. In fact, it's not that i desire sitting down many hours to edit images. However: wouldn't that situation also render Lightroom (partially) irrelevant? ;-)

Victoria, to add to Steffen's comments, in my experience if you take the exact same file into Nikon's Capture NX software, it fully corrects the vignette. The vignette description in the file is just fine and Nikon did a good job measuring it, Adobe just undercorrects for it. I had a long discussion on the support forums where it became very clear that Adobe just doesn't use the vignette information the same way as Nikon does leading to uncorrected vignette in Lightroom/ACR. Also in Nikon's software, you can easily turn on and off the geometry and vignette corrections, or regulate the amount of correction applied. You can't do that in Lightroom. Also if you turn off the corrections in camera, Lightroom ignores this setting and still applies the corrections but capture NX doesn't. The built-in profiles should simply be treated in the same way as Adobe profiles. You should be able to turn them off and use the sliders to regulate how much correction is applied.

Thanks Jao. I fully agree.

Hi Jao, can you please also post your comment here (https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/camera-raw-and-dng/camera-rawlightroom-lens-profile-requests-and-information/5f5f45a84b561a3d4258a112?commentId=5fd128f7b5962575127fc699&replyId=5fd247457288d52d004c2fa6). That thread is active but obviously mostly with clueless people (or Adobe fanboys)...

When you guys click on the info I in the lens correction panel, what does it say the profile is applying? Just CA and distortion or vignetting too?

It always says vignetting too for the lenses I use and you can clearly see it corrects about 75% of the vignette present which you can check by turning off the correction in Capture NX-D. It corrects most but not all of the present vignette.

Dear Victoria, i can confirm Jao's description. I don't know whether it's 75% (my guesstimate is more in the 60-70% range) but LR somehow miscalculates the embedded infos in the Nikon files and then applies incomplete correction.

Dear Victoria, we're still waiting for a solution please. It had been promised since April/May by Rikk. Meanwhile i have been paying € 13 every single month. (well, i have been paying € 312 since Dec 2018 when i bought my first Z lenses from Nikon). It's really not fair to let your longtime loyal customers down like this.

@Steffen70  while I would love to be able to fix this for you, I don't work for Adobe. Rikk is clearly aware and makes sure important threads get in front of the right engineers, but the product managers make the decisions at the end of the day.

Hopefully-

Happy new year!