Matt Kloskowski posted a video on adding camera-specific profiles to Adobe Lightroom 2. The problem with videos is that it's hard to show someone where to go on the Web to obtain a resource.

I decided to write an illustrated tip to walk you through the steps and give you the URLs. Matt rushed through his video and left out some important details, too:

• The camera-specific profiles also work with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)
• After installing the camera-specific files, your list of profiles can be littered with beta versions (I'll show you how to remove them).

Adobe has put together some camera-specific profiles. The profiles were offered as a response from photographers who like how the software from camera manufacturers renders the colors and tones in their RAW software but who like the convenience of Adobe Lightroom.

Installing the Camera Profiles

You need to go to the Adobe Labs site to download the camera-specific profiles. In Matt's viddeo, he as able to click on the main page. Well, that no longer works. I won't promise these files will stay put forever, but the most reliable way to find them right now is to follow these steps:

1. Go to http://www.adobelabs.com
2. Click on the link to the Adobe Photoshop Product Center.
3. Select the link for Camera Profiles and DNG Profile Editor.
4. Select the link to download camera profiles.

Once you have downloaded the setup utility, you need to run it. The setup utility will take care of installing the profiles in Lightroom. Make sure you exit Lightroom before you run the setup utility.

Using Camera-Specific Profiles

The new profiles show up on the Camera Calibration panel. The options you see will be specific to the photo that you're viewing in Lightroom Develop. Lightroom will read the metadata for the photo and load only appropriate profiles for you to select from. The examples you'll see here are for Canon DSLRs. Nikon .NEF files would have a different set of profiles, etc.

Camera-specific profiles only work with RAW files and with .DNG files.

You can try the different profiles. They will not change your Develop settings. What they do is change how the RAW file is rendered in Lightroom. In other words, they change your starting point for editing.

Below is an example of the ACR 4.4 profile followed by the Camera Landscape profile. You'll notice that the Camera Landscape profile has more saturated colors.

Removing Old Profiles

Depending on the version of Photoshop you're running and the version of camera profiles you're downloading, your choice of camera-specific profiles can be littered with beta versions. They hurt nothing, but they can get in the way and they certainly look untidy.

It's easy to get rid of them. Just go to proper Camera Profiles folder and delete any subfolder or file with "beta" in its name:

• Mac: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles
  (go to the Library folder for Macintosh HD, not your user account)
• On Windows 2000 / XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
• On Windows Vista: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

What About Adobe Camera Raw?

If you use Adobe Photoshop, you'll find that the camera-specific profiles work with ACR, too. The setup program will handle the installation for both Lightroom and ACR. Just be sure to close Photoshop and Adobe Bridge before you run the setup application.

You'll find the camera-specific profiles on the Camera Calibration tab.

 You can donload a copy of this "tip" as a .PDF from the following URL:

http://www.thelightsright.com/files/tips/LightroomProfiles/UsingCameraProfilesWithLightroom2.pdf

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