Where did the pic on my LCD go?

[Silvernic]

I'm shooting RAW with the D200 and the pictures on the LCD look awesome compared to what pulls up on ACR. I realize that I'm only looking at a 2.5 inch screen, but where do the beautiful colors that I see go?

[huxley]

is your computer screen calibrated? and also a note.... what you see on the screen of your camera is the jpeg picture not the raw file. (at least with canon its like that) that could be two sources to look into.

[Gordon]

Also LCDs are pretty much all over the shop in terms of contrast, brightness and saturation.

So it could well be your capture settings (i.e., what you see on the LCD is the version with everything applied) while the RAW in ACR is often without much of anything applied (you have to do the developing yourself)

But also it just could be the fact that camera LCDs lie.

I've recently heard of people buying cheap DVD players to connect up to their cameras so that they have an 8" 'preview' for about $100

[evil4blue]

Originally Posted by Gordon

Also LCDs are pretty much all over the shop in terms of contrast, brightness and saturation.

So it could well be your capture settings (i.e., what you see on the LCD is the version with everything applied) while the RAW in ACR is often without much of anything applied (you have to do the developing yourself)

But also it just could be the fact that camera LCDs lie.

I've recently heard of people buying cheap DVD players to connect up to their cameras so that they have an 8" 'preview' for about $100

Gordon is correct. All those nice in-camera settings are thrown out when you open your RAW file in ACR. The image on the camera LCD is a jpg rendered with whatever color, contrast, sharpness, color space you have preselected. Shoot in RAW + jpg and you'll see that the jpg looks closer to what you saw on the lcd.

[Silvernic]

Thanks guys. I think I'm going to try the RAW + jpeg option. I think the main problem is that I don't have the skills to process these raw files myself.

[Bill]

I bet the manual tells you not to rely on the LCD for accurate color estimates. I'm sure that you will be able to get great colors on your monitor, however. Are you using PS CS2?

[suzyjazz]

Originally Posted by Silvernic

Thanks guys. I think I'm going to try the RAW + jpeg option. I think the main problem is that I don't have the skills to process these raw files myself.

I don't have the skills, either, and I shoot almost all RAW. Don't let that stop you from playing at least. Sometimes that is the best way to learn. After changing the exposure, if needed, I just increase the saturation and contrast to my liking, and sharpen at the end. Fixing the exposure is as complicated as darkening it slightly to get back any blown highlights (usually very minor) to blending together 2 images.