One of the original pages on this website a few years back, was on the subject of my choice of Nikon’s custom curves.
Since I changed over to a raw-only workflow about 5 years ago, I haven’t had any need for custom curves. The reason for this is that there are an infinite number of scenarios under which we take photographs, and hence there won’t be any single custom curve which would suit all situations. Lighting scenarios change. The contrast will change, and brightness and other settings will also change. A raw workflow is the most flexible way to adapt to this.
The quest for the perfect custom curve is a dead-end street, and the best advice I can give to anyone who is curious about custom curves – for whatever reason that may be - is to forget about custom curves, and go to a raw workflow. You’ll avoid many headaches this way.
However, I still get emails asking for info and my opinion on custom curves. So for those who are curious about the original page on custom curves, I am re-posting the article here as it originally appeared.
(For anyone else, this page will be trivial and of marginal interest.)
