What Are Camera Profiles and Why Should You Use Them?

Don’t be like me — I ignored them for too long.

Photo by author.

Being a photographer is closely tied to our gear, and that often comes with a particular curve. At first, you’re totally amazed by what your new camera can do. Then the excitement flattens out, and eventually, it becomes an old box, waiting for an upgrade. (Sometimes you come back to it, rediscovering the magic of a vintage camera, lens, or that special charm it had.) But at least in that middle phase, you want to squeeze the most out of it.

The second curve is one of constant growth and refining your taste. You browse through magazines, books, and galleries. You compare your work to that of featured photographers. Often, you fall short — not just creatively, but technically. How do they get those colors out of that camera?

Well, maybe they use camera profiles.

What Profiles Do

In simple terms, think of a profile as the translator between your camera sensor’s “language” (the RAW data) and Lightroom’s editing environment.

RAW files aren’t yet pictures — they’re more like spreadsheets of voltage values for each pixel. There are many ways to turn those numbers into an image, and profiles are essentially different equations for translating…