I’ve been using NLP now for a couple of month, converting 35mm Kodak Gold negatives to digital positives using a Nikon ES-2 copy rig on a Panasonic Lumix GX85 with the Lumix 30mm macro lens (and, yes, this really works very well.)
I’ve also been playing with using your Negative Lab v2.0 profile as a starting point for processing my normal (not copy) RAW Lumix files in Lightroom Classic, rather than using any of the Adobe-provided profiles. This too has proved quite interesting.
My question is what, exactly, is your Negative Lab v2.0 profile actually doing (or, hopefully, not doing) as it demosaics the RAW image data? It looks to me that it might be faithfully rendering the RAW data with little or no adjustments beyond the demosaicing. I hope so. Is this the case?
Yep, that’s what it is doing. It is linear (no embedded tone curve), with no “hue twists” (so hues remain consistent at different luminosities), and no black subtraction (so black point and deep shadows remain true to capture and aren’t automatically adjusted by lightroom).
My question to Nate and his answer were about using his “Negative Lab Pro v2.0” PROFILE, alone and experimentally, OUTSIDE OF their intended Negative Lab Pro workflow for processing digital copies of negatives or slides. As I understand the NORMAL use of Negative Lab Pro, Nate’s software controls existing tools within LR and ACR to demosaic and tone copy images appropriately.
Bottom line: Nothing here to worry about when using NLPro for its intended purpose.
I’ll let Nate chime in with any corrections or clarification he feels are needed.
Correct. LR handles the demosaicing (taking the Bayer or Xtrans sensor array patterns and turning them into pixels). The raw camera profiles (DCP files) are not effecting demosaicing (I wish they could!).