With Lightroom’s latest 7.3 update, it introduced a new way to handle profiles. This combined the typical camera calibration tools that we were used to, along with a feature compares similarly to LUTs (lookup tables).

How Do I Get My Old Camera Profiles Back?

If you shoot in RAW, you might be used to using your camera profiles in Lightroom to restore some of the depth and color that you saw on the back of your camera screen. But in Lightroom 7.3, the camera profiles area has been moved, to the top of the Basic panel in the Develop module.

When you click the drop-down next to Profile, you’ll see all the typical Adobe profiles that come with Lightroom. But what happened to the camera-specific ones?

To get back to using those, click the icon next to the drop-down. Clicking this will bring you to the Profile Browser. You’ll be presented with a ton of options here, starting with your Favorites (which, by default, are the Adobe profiles).

But keep scrolling down and you’ll see an option to expand Camera Matching profiles. If you click this, you’ll see the profiles specific to your camera — in my case Muted, Natural, Portrait, Vivid and Monotone. These correlate with the color spaces available on your camera, so you might see different profiles available depending on what you shoot.

If you scroll over these you’ll see stars appear in the upper right corner of the thumbnails. Clicking these will add them to your Favorites, which will then appear in the main drop-down in the Basic panel.

What Else is Included With the New System?

You might have noticed some other options in the Profile Browser — Artistic, B&W, Modern and Vintage. These are completely new profiles for you to work from. While you might think these are similar to presets, they’re actually a lot more customizable.

Ability to Change the Strength of Profiles

With the profiles system, you can change the strength of each profile. This can really help when you want to achieve a certain look, but need to tone it back some.

Note that the Amount slider will only appear with the Artistic, B&W, Modern and Vintage profile sets.

Custom Profiles

This brings about a whole new method of toning and applying effects to your photos. In addition to the profiles that Adobe bundles in Lightroom Classic CC 7.3, you can also add your own custom profiles.

There are a ton of custom profiles already on the web, including some by Nicolesy, Matt Kloskowski, Contrastly and more. Simply download these, put them in the following directories and then restart Lightroom.

Mac: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings
Windows: C:/ProgramData/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings

If you want to create your own profile, you can do so through Adobe Camera Raw (see this video for more information), or by using the software development kit (SDK) that Adobe has produced.

Combine with Presets

The great thing about profiles is that you can use them in tandem with your Lightroom presets. This can mean you can combine looks for something completely custom, or add preset effects like grain, sharpening or vignettes to photographs without getting rid of the profile you’ve applied.

New Default Profile — Adobe Color

Adobe Standard has been the default profile for Lightroom since the very beginning. But version 7.3 brings about a new profile — Adobe Color — and I immediately noticed better results.

Adobe Color seems to add more realistic saturation and contrast. In my experience thus far, the photos I apply the profile to appear to be more lifelike, and skin tones seem to be more realistic.

Lightroom CC, Too!

The new profiling system isn’t just for Lightroom Classic users — Lightroom CC users can take advantage of it too! You’ll find profiles at the top of the Edit panel while developing your photographs.

Conclusion

Adobe’s really hit the mark here with its latest upgrade. The new profiling system is easy to use and works really well — and it opens up the possibilities of being even more creative without leaving Lightroom.