The sky color that PL5 shows for the NEF is what I remember, but the output JPG sky appears much more turquoise. Looking at the images in a an image viewer, I see RGB values of 48,95,181 for a spot at the top of the NEF image, but 12,112,171 for the same spot in the JPG. I used the Standard PL preset and didn’t change the RAW white balance (set for As Shot); color rendering is set for Generic renderings and Camera default rendering. Is this difference due to something I’m doing or is there a PL color rendering issue?
Can I ask why you used a colour temperature of 4973°K in the master copy and 4527°K in VC1?
The kind of light you were shooting in was more than likely very close 5600°K and it looks like your leaving the WB on the camera on auto, didn’t get it right, thus everything took on this sickly bluish tint, which you seem to have made worse in the VC but lowering the colour temperature even more.
Here is a JPEG export of your image as I would have worked it, with a temperature of 5600°K…
Some time back I did some research on what blue is a true blue sky and made the attached file as a reference. Feel free to use and share. Please note this is a guide only as atmospheric conditions can change the colour!
Thank you for your input (and also KeithRJ). Actually, I didn’t like VC1 and didn’t even create a JPG from it; I forgot it was recorded in the .DOP. As to why the master copy had a color temperature of 4973°K, I don’t know. I did have WB on my Z6 set to Auto1 (‘Keep overall atmosphere’). In most circumstances, the auto setting gets pretty reasonable results, but the light in northern Arizona where I took this shot is very harsh and it seems to have thrown off the camera.
You’re right that a higher Kelvin temperature would be closer to shooting conditions, I created the attached set of JPGs at the default 4973°K, the Daylight setting in PL5 (5200°K), 5600°K and then 6000°K (to see what emerged).
I’ll go back and reevaluate the other photos I took about the same time.
KeithRJ - As I noted, this is the northern Arizona desert around an hour before noon; air temperature was around 15 C and the dew point was likely lower than -5 C. The air quality was fairly good, as we seem past the major impacts of wildfires.
I checked the RGB readings near the top of the 5600°K image and at the lower right horizon. For the first point I measured around 77,132,176; for the second it was around 185,208,216. As you say, atmospheric conditions do change the color. In some ways, sky color in Arizona might not be too different from areas inland of Perth.
Do you mean that when you export the NEF image to JPEG, the exported JPEG has different colors? If so, what are your export settings, including ICC Profile? And how are you looking at the JPEG? With what OS/application?
