To reproduce, download the Nikon D50 sample from www.rawsamples.ch, and import it into Lightroom 3.6 and Lightroom 4.2.
In LR 3.6, set white balance to...
"as shot": results in Temp 5100, Tint -11
"automatic": results in Temp 5400, Tint 0
In LR 4.2, do the same:
"as shot": results in Temp 5400, Tint 0 (!)
"automatic": results in Temp 5400, Tint 0
In contrast to LR 3.6, LR 4.2 seems to ignore the WB information of the camera and uses its own automatic WB instead. This seems to be independent of process version and camera profile - the difference in WB behaviour is always the same. Also, LR 4.2 with PV 2010 on WB "as shot" produces exactly the same results on export as LR 3.6 with WB "automatic", which leads to the conclusion that the WB values and scale mean the same in both versions, only LR 4.2 does not set them correctly for the combination Nikon D50 + "as shot".
The effect can be seen for other D50 NEFs, too. Other (older) cameras do not seem to be affected - I checked with Raws of Nikon D60, D90 D300 and Canon 40D, 400D and 1000D: For all these cameras, LR 4.2 was able to read the camera's white balance and set it accordingly when using "as shot" - with exactly the same resulting WB values and export results as LR 3.6.
In LR 4.x / ACR 7.x, something seems to be broken concerning reading the WB from the D50 NEF metadata. Perhaps because the camera-WB cannot be read and is unknown, it defaults to "automatic".
P.S. PS CS6 with ACR 7.2 and LR 4.3 RC seem to have the identical bug. Note: I now see that the same was already mentioned as a side note here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/48223...
EDIT: I forgot: System ist Win 7 64 Bit, both LRs and PS are 64 Bit versions, too.
In LR 3.6, set white balance to...
"as shot": results in Temp 5100, Tint -11
"automatic": results in Temp 5400, Tint 0
In LR 4.2, do the same:
"as shot": results in Temp 5400, Tint 0 (!)
"automatic": results in Temp 5400, Tint 0
In contrast to LR 3.6, LR 4.2 seems to ignore the WB information of the camera and uses its own automatic WB instead. This seems to be independent of process version and camera profile - the difference in WB behaviour is always the same. Also, LR 4.2 with PV 2010 on WB "as shot" produces exactly the same results on export as LR 3.6 with WB "automatic", which leads to the conclusion that the WB values and scale mean the same in both versions, only LR 4.2 does not set them correctly for the combination Nikon D50 + "as shot".
The effect can be seen for other D50 NEFs, too. Other (older) cameras do not seem to be affected - I checked with Raws of Nikon D60, D90 D300 and Canon 40D, 400D and 1000D: For all these cameras, LR 4.2 was able to read the camera's white balance and set it accordingly when using "as shot" - with exactly the same resulting WB values and export results as LR 3.6.
In LR 4.x / ACR 7.x, something seems to be broken concerning reading the WB from the D50 NEF metadata. Perhaps because the camera-WB cannot be read and is unknown, it defaults to "automatic".
P.S. PS CS6 with ACR 7.2 and LR 4.3 RC seem to have the identical bug. Note: I now see that the same was already mentioned as a side note here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/48223...
EDIT: I forgot: System ist Win 7 64 Bit, both LRs and PS are 64 Bit versions, too.