Do Lightroom presets work on a new camera? What changes when you change body

What changes when you change camera

A new body brings a new sensor, and with it new red, green and blue filters and new processing. The same scene produces different RAW numbers than it did in your old camera. This is true between brands, and it is true between two generations of one model line.

Your presets do not change at all. A preset is a small file of slider positions, and it knows nothing about the camera. What changes is the thing it sits on. Before any slider acts, Lightroom has turned the RAW numbers into color with a camera profile, and the profile belongs to the camera model. A preset that moves Orange by five points moves it from wherever the new profile put skin.

So Lightroom presets do work on a new camera, with a shift. Most photographers notice it within the first session: skin a touch pinker or yellower than they are used to, greens that sit differently, a little more or less contrast at the same settings.

Color is the larger part of the shift, and tone moves as well. Each model’s profile has its own starting contrast, so the same preset can come out a little flatter or a little punchier on the new body. The white balance the camera chose travels with the file as the As Shot value, and two bodies read the same light differently, so their As Shot values will not agree either.

Three things a new body needs before your presets fit

The order matters. People who buy a body in its first weeks on sale sometimes blame their presets for a problem that sits in the first or second row.

Lightroom has to support the camera first

Every new camera model writes RAW files that software has to learn to read. Adobe adds new models in updates to Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw, and publishes a list of supported cameras with the version each one needs. A body released last month can require a version newer than the one you have installed.

If Lightroom refuses the files, update it. If you stay on an older version for some reason, Adobe’s free DNG Converter can turn the new RAW files into DNG files that older versions open. Along with the ability to read the files, an update brings Adobe’s own profiles for the model: Adobe Color, Adobe Standard and the camera matching profiles.

Only after this step does the question of presets arise.

What a preset does when its profile is not there

Presets come in three kinds, and they meet a new camera differently.

• A preset that sets no profile sits on whatever the photo has, normally Adobe Color for the new model. It applies fully, on a base that differs from the old body’s.
• A preset that uses a creative profile, the kind with an Amount slider, brings a color table that works on any camera. The table is the same, and the camera’s own profile under it is new.
• A preset built on its maker’s own camera profile needs that maker’s profile for your model. If none exists yet, the sliders still apply, and the profile part cannot.

The third case is the one to understand before buying. A look tuned on the maker’s profile and applied over a default profile is the right recipe on the wrong base, and it usually shows as heavier contrast or skin that has moved. The more cameras your maker covers, and the sooner it adds a missing one, the less often you meet this.

You can see which case you are in. After applying the look to a file from the new body, read the Profile line at the top of the Basic panel. If it shows the maker’s profile, the base is in place. If it still shows Adobe Color or another default, the profile for this model is missing. With a NIPIK look on a covered camera the line reads NIPIK Base.

NIPIK looks are of the third kind. NIPIK Base has a profile for each of 741 camera models, and a body that is missing is added on request. The layers are explained in camera profiles, presets and LUTs.

How to test your presets on a new body

Give the new camera an hour before its first paid job. You need the old body, the new one, a person, and two kinds of light.

1. Photograph the same person with both cameras, within a minute, in open shade. Put something white and some foliage in the frame. Shoot RAW on both.
2. Do it again indoors under lamps, without flash.
3. Import all four frames. If the new camera’s files do not import, update Lightroom first.
4. On each frame, click the White Balance Selector on the same white object. The kelvin values will differ between the bodies, which is normal.
5. Match exposure so the faces are equally bright.
6. Apply your usual preset to all four.
7. Compare old and new in Reference View, first the daylight pair, then the lamp pair. Look at skin, then greens, then the white.
8. Shoot one high-ISO frame on each and compare the noise at 100%. A newer sensor is usually cleaner and wants less noise reduction.

If the new body came with a new lens, take the lens out of the comparison. Lightroom corrects each lens with its own lens profile, and a lens that vignettes or renders contrast differently is easily mistaken for a preset problem. Tick Enable Profile Corrections in the Lens Corrections panel on all the frames, or use the same lens on both bodies for the test.

If the pairs agree, carry on as before. If they differ in daylight, the two profiles differ, and a small correction saved as a preset for the new body will hold in that light. If they differ by another amount under lamps, no single correction will hold all day. That is the sign that the fix belongs in the profile, which is what dual-illuminant camera profiles are for.

Old body and new body at the same wedding

Few photographers replace both bodies at once. For a season or two the new camera works beside the old one, and their frames alternate through every gallery. A shift you could live with on a single camera becomes visible when the ceremony cuts between two of them.

The same is true of a second shooter’s camera, which you do not choose. Matching is done from the bottom up: profiles that agree, then white balance and exposure per camera, then one look for both. With NIPIK Base each body gets its own profile, and the profiles are calibrated to match each other, with a typical difference under 1 ΔE between two cameras in daylight. The workflow is in why the same preset looks different on every camera, and the brand-by-brand picture in presets on Sony, Canon, Nikon and Fujifilm.

RAW and JPEG on a new camera

Everything above concerns RAW files, because camera profiles apply to RAW files only. A JPEG leaves the camera with its color already made by the maker’s picture style, and makers revise those styles between generations too. A preset on a JPEG from the new body is working on a finished picture that differs from the old body’s finished picture, with no profile step where the difference could be taken out.

For work that has to match across bodies, shoot RAW. For the frames that only exist as JPEGs, use a preset made for them. Riviera has Riviera - JPEG and Riviera - B&W JPEG for that purpose.

Check your camera before you buy

The check runs in both directions. Before buying presets, check that your cameras are covered. Before buying a camera, check that your presets already cover it. A body in its first month can be ahead of every preset maker.

Three questions to put to any maker whose presets rely on their own camera profiles:

• Which camera models are covered today, by exact model name?
• How do profiles for new cameras reach me, and do I pay for them?
• Are the profiles for different bodies calibrated to match each other, so the new one fits beside the old?

With NIPIK the check is one question to Piko, the helper in the corner of every page of nipik.com: give it the exact model name. More questions of this kind are in how to choose Lightroom presets, and our own answers are on how NIPIK compares.

How NIPIK handles new cameras

NIPIK Base is our own set of camera profiles, one for each of 741 camera models: Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Olympus and OM System, Leica, Pentax, Hasselblad, Phase One and more. Recent bodies among them include the Canon EOS R5 Mark II and R6 Mark III, the Sony A1 II and A7 V, the Nikon Z8, the Fujifilm X100VI and the Leica SL3-S.

New cameras are added on request. If your new body is missing, tell Piko, the helper in the corner of every page of nipik.com, or write to us. We build the profile, and it comes as an update in the free NIPIK Installer: you click Update and it is in Lightroom, at no extra cost. So far NIPIK Base has grown from 437 camera models to 741. A collection is bought once, and updates are included.

Every profile is dual-illuminant, calibrated for daylight and for tungsten, and the profiles are calibrated to match each other, so a new body starts from color close to the old one’s. Measured across all 741 cameras, skin lands about 31% and foliage about 38% closer to the true chart colors than with Adobe Standard.

The presets of Riviera, by Danilo & Sharon, sit on those profiles, so the look you know starts from the same place on the new camera. Those for RAW photos are also ISO-adaptive: Lightroom sets their noise reduction from the ISO of each photo, and they switch on Lightroom’s lens corrections. To check a body before you buy it, give Piko the exact model name.

A checklist for the day the camera arrives

• Update Lightroom Classic and confirm that it imports the new RAW files.
• Open the profile browser on one of them and see which profiles are offered for the model.
• If your presets rely on their maker’s camera profiles, update those too and confirm the profile appears for the new body.
• Run the old-against-new test above, in daylight and under lamps.
• Set both cameras’ clocks to the same time, so mixed galleries sort into one timeline.
• Shoot a personal session with both bodies before a wedding.