• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Organizing
  • Editing
  • Explainers
  • Photo-editing A-Z
  • About

Life after Photoshop

  • Lightroom Classic
  • Capture One
  • Nik Collection
    • Analog Efex
    • Color Efex
    • Silver Efex
    • HDR Efex
    • Viveza
    • Sharpener
    • Dfine
    • Perspective Efex (retired)
  • DxO PureRAW
  • ON1 Photo RAW
  • Exposure X

Don’t just accept Lightroom’s default Adobe Color profile

August 10, 2022 by Rod Lawton

The Adobe Color profile is applied by default in Lightroom. And you can do so much better.

It’s easily done. You view a RAW image in Lightroom, it applies the default Adobe Color profile and you don’t even bother to question it. You can see what you don’t like, you do some editing – sometimes it takes a while – and you fix it.

Profiles are like pre-processing for your RAW files. They are like a base-level interpretation of the colors and tones in the raw data ahead of any editing changes you might make.

And that makes them quite important.

Because you can then spend a long time with a whole series of careful tweaks and adjustments in Lightroom that choosing the right profile in the first place could have avoided.

Lightroom comes with a whole bunch of profiles apart from its default ‘Adobe Color’ rendering, and the set I want to draw attention to here is the ‘Camera Matching’ category.

Lightroom’s ‘Camera Matching’ profiles are far better than the default ‘Adobe Color’ profile (left). In this instance (right), my Lumix G9’s skies are much better and the contrast is much more natural with a profile matched for this camera.

Here, Lightroom attempts to mimic the styles offered by the camera and, in doing so, comes MUCH closer to the colors and tones the camera was designed to capture.

So here’s an example. I shot this on my Panasonic Lumix G9, which is a great camera but, for some reason, Lightroom’s default Adobe Color profile is some way off from what I would call a good rendition. Blue skies take on a distinct cyan hue and there’s a bit too much contrast overall. It must be this particular camera, because Capture One’s profile isn’t the best either.

If you want your RAW files to look how. the camera maker intended, use Lightroom’s ‘Camera Matching’ profiles. DON”T just go with the default Adobe Color profile!

HOWEVER, if I switch to Lightroom’s Camera Matching category, everything changes. If I choose the Cinelike D profile then blues skies no longer need a tint shift and the contrast is no longer excessive. But this isn’t video, so I can choose the Natural profile and get the same (better) color rendering and even softer and more malleable contrast. Or, if I want something more punchy, I can go for the Scenery or Vivid profiles.

My point is that these are all better than the default Adobe Color profile, and they save me spending ages with the editing tools trying to fix things which I might have imagined were the camera’s fault. But they’re not. It’s the fault of the Adobe Color profile, which is probably a little bit wrong for all cameras, but definitely wrong for this one.

Related

Filed Under: Tutorials

Rod Lawton has been a photography journalist for nearly 40 years, starting out in film but then migrating to digital. He has worked as a freelance journalist, technique editor (N-Photo), channel editor (TechRadar) and Group Reviews Editor on Digital Camera World. He is now working as an independent photography journalist. Life after Photoshop is a personal project started in 2013.

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to this site

Enter your email address to subscribe to Life after Photoshop and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Adobe Lightroom: what is it, where do you get it, what does it cost in 2025?

Adobe Lightroom is not one program but three. You could … [Read More...] about Adobe Lightroom: what is it, where do you get it, what does it cost in 2025?

The best photo editing software for organizing, editing, RAW and effects

Choosing the best image editing software used to be easy. … [Read More...] about The best photo editing software for organizing, editing, RAW and effects

Layers explained

Layers explained: what they do and how to use them

Layers are a central part of many photo editing processes, … [Read More...] about Layers explained: what they do and how to use them

BAN adjustments… Basic And Necessary image corrections to do first

Photo editing software does two quite different jobs. It can … [Read More...] about BAN adjustments… Basic And Necessary image corrections to do first

More Posts from this Category

Mission statement

Life after Photoshop is not anti-Photoshop or anti-subscriptions. It exists to showcase the many Photoshop alternatives that do more, go further, or offer more creative inspiration to photographers.

Affiliate links

Life after Photoshop is funded by affiliate links and may be paid a commission for downloads. This does not affect the price you pay, the ratings in reviews or the software selected for review.

Contact

Email lifeafterphotoshop@gmail.com

Copyright © 2025 Life after Photoshop · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OK