Nokia Lumia 1020, 1520 Adobe RAW Profiles Make Pictures Even Better

With the Nokia Black software update for the Lumia line of Windows Phone, Nokia is allowing mobile photographers to capture RAW image files in the DNG format on the flagships Lumia 1520 and Lumia 1020 smartphones. Now, the Lumia phone-maker has also released the DNG color profiles to help photographers easily “develop” or process their DNG files to more accurately reflect the scene.

DNG or RAW image capture format has been largely limited to DSLR and prosumer cameras in the past. The presence of RAW image capture first debuted out of the box on the Lumia 1520, the first smartphone to support DNG files, and later the Lumia 1020 offered a similar capability through a software update.

With RAW image capture, any photographer can develop their own color profiles to “develop” their images. RAW files are akin to negatives for film photography, and they are developed through Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom software. Nokia published its own color profiles created by employees for anyone to use to get started.

“A raw DNG image file contains a lot of information about the image such as camera details, exposure settings, date, and so forth,” Nokia wrote on its Conversations blog. “A color profile tells even more information about the image – specifically how Adobe Lightroom should convert the colors of the raw image file.”

The sample converted DNG file published on the blog highlights all the details and better color accuracy that could be pulled from converting the RAW file into JPEG using Adobe Lightroom. We had criticized Nokia’s Windows Phone devices with Xenon flash due to the yellowing of skin tones when the flash is used, but with RAW image conversion it looks like skin tones are more accurate.

It’d be interesting to see what the Nokia mobile photography community comes up with in developing these digital negatives and also in creating their own profiles or modified color profiles based on the ones that Nokia had published.

To use the Nokia RAW color profiles, you can visit the Nokia blog to download the profiles and follow the installation instructions for use with Adobe Lightroom software.