I am just starting to get into NLP, still in the trial phase. The guide says to shoot in RAW and mentions that there are issues using TIFF or JPEG… see excerpt below. I have tried to use HEIC using my iPhone 15pro. The prelim results look decent and am wondering if I am missing something. Any input to help me decide on the format before I start in ernest would be appreciated! Thanks.
1. Shoot RAW - You don’t want to capture as a TIFF or JPEG because these will have a lot of settings built in that are intended for regular digital positive capture (and will result in distorted colors and tones when you invert the negative).
Welcome to the forum @Kev
In general, NLP can convert any photo in Lightroom Classic if one can accept the resulting images. It’s a matter of choice (and consequence thereof) rather than of hard lines imo:
Using RAW in camera native formats or as DNG files offer the widest margin for adjustments and are therefore the formats of choice as mentioned in the manual. 16 bits per channel TIFF is probably the next best option, but TIFFs are really large an not quite as plastic as RAWs. Smaller formats like JPEGs take a lot less space, but they are already tightly optimised for filesize and even sacrifice some information to reach that goal that makes them less than ideal for conversions, While HEIC might be better suited than JPEG, the benefit might not be worth the saved drive space and extra effort, if you later decide to rescan your images.
Hi,
You would be better off using the Lightroom app for iOS and shooting as a RAW DNG. Then, Negative Lab Pro should be able to use a custom camera profile made just for the iPhone 15 pro, and this should produce the best results.
When you use a JPEG or HEIC, not only are you losing bit depth (so, for instance, you are more likely to see visible banding in the results), but the file has already irreversibly changed from the original sensor data (to make it look more pleasing as a regular digital photo) and this will impact the accuracy of the conversion.
-Nate
Thanks digitizer and Nat for the fast responses! I am not clear on the workflow with respect to LR iOS app. I thought that NLP only worked with LR classic. Not sure when the iOS app would come in…if LRc is required?
You can use the iOS app to capture as a RAW DNG… that file would then need to be synced with Lightroom Classic on your desktop, where you would then be able to use Negative Lab Pro.
Hope that helps!
-Nate
So using the LR iOS app permits to capture in RAW DNG… got it. Would the Apple ProRAW also work. Here is how apple describes it.
ProRAW is a 10-bit file that uses the Linear DNG format to retain more information and dynamic range in the file, providing additional flexibility when editing exposure and white balance.
Good question. In theory, I believe that should work too, but I haven’t tested it…
The other advantage of using the iOS Lightroom app would be once you have syncing set up properly to Lightroom Classic, it is actually a really nice workflow… there’s no need to manually upload or download, or import files into Lightroom Classic… you just take the RAW DNG photos and they show up on your computer, ready to convert.
Yeah, I can see that being a definite advantage. I must check it out. I wonder if the iOS app is included with light room classic. Thanks for your help. I’ll post back when I am more advanced in my investigations.
Cheers
This is exactly the information I needed! Recently got back into shooting film. I have a dedicated film scanner, but scans take forever. I’ve been searching for a faster solution using my iPhone.
One question, it appears that I’m missing the NPL profile for the iPhone 15 Pro, do I need to download the profile from somewhere?
Thanks!!!
Never mind, I just found the Dropbox folder with all of the profiles! Awesome!