One of the most-asked post processing questions is “why don’t my RAW images look like what I see on the camera LCD?” When you’re editing your photos with an application such as Lightroom, you need to correctly calibrate the software in order to get the best image quality. This article will cover calibrating and tweaking Lightroom for the Canon EOS 5D.

Since camera vendors don’t release the exact specifications for their sensors, the only software that can natively get a camera’s raw image data absolutely correct is the vendor’s software. Although some of this software is very good, many photographers prefer Adobe’s products. Third party image editing software such as Lightroom is unable to get this image data exact due to the lack of a widely adopted open RAW spec, so it does the best job it can. In order to replicate the colors and contrast we see in-camera, we need to calibrate and tweak Lightroom’s settings on a per-camera basis.

Lightroom Camera Profiles

With the stock Adobe settings, RAW images look a bit flat. Specifically for the 5D, I find that the reds look very poor. By using a color profile calibrated for your specific camera, you can improve the image quality. Adobe includes DNG Camera Profiles that do a very good job of improving the color. These are included by default with the latest Lightroom distributions. Users with older versions will have to install them manually.

If you make frequent use of the recovery slider, you will notice that doing so tends to wreck havoc on skin tones. Jacksonville Florida Wedding Photographer Thomas Lester released some Untwisted Camera Profiles that correct this problem. I installed them and they worked well, but I thought the Untwisted Profiles gave my images a green color cast. Thomas’ Invariate Camera Profiles solve this problem — I find them to be a great middle ground of corrected recovery slider performance without the green color cast. These are the profiles I’m using on all my 5D RAW files, specifically the Invariate Camera Standard profile.

Tweaking Lightroom for the Canon 5D

The RAW images look a lot better with a proper profile, but we’re still not done. The reds and oranges look really intense, especially in tungsten light. In order to get them under control, go to the HSL panel and pull the red and orange saturation sliders down to -10, then push the red and orange luminance sliders to +10. I got this tip from Lansing and Grand Rapids Michigan Wedding Photographer Brett Maxwell. Some people also like to push the blues up a little, but that doesn’t look necessary to me.

I’ve used these same settings to process RAW .CR2 files from both the original EOS 5D and the 5D Mark II. I was happy with the results for both cameras without any additional adjustments.

Sample Images

Take a look at these sample photos. Both have the exact same development settings, including white balance and a slight s-curve. The only difference is that the one on the left has its saturation and luminance HSL sliders set to 0 and uses the stock Camera Standard calibration profile, while the image on the right uses the HSL settings and invariate untwisted profile described in this article. When you look closely you’ll notice that the image on the right has much nicer colors, especially in the tulip petals and the yellow cab.