What is a Linear Profile?

When you open a RAW file in Lightroom, it already looks finished. The colors are rich, the contrast is balanced, and the midtones are bright. It's easy to assume that's what your camera captured.

It isn't. What you're seeing is Adobe's interpretation of your RAW data, and a big part of that interpretation is a tone curve built into every Adobe profile. You can't see it in the Tone Curve panel, and you can't turn it off with a slider.

A linear profile removes that curve. (We make calibrated linear profiles here at Color Precision, but it is also possible to create your own basic linear profile for free.)

Train station photo with the Adobe Color profileThe same photo with the CP Linear profile

Default Profile Tone Curve

A camera sensor plots light in a straight line. Twice as much light gives a value twice as high. Our eyes don't see brightness that way, so a RAW file shown exactly as recorded looks dark and flat.

To fix that, every RAW processor applies a tone curve. In Lightroom, that curve lives inside the profile. The Adobe RAW and Camera Matching profiles all include one. The curve brightens the midtones, adds contrast, and compresses the highlights so the image looks good the moment it opens.

Illustration of the tone curve built into an Adobe profile compared with a linear curve

Every adjustment you make in Lightroom is stacked on top of a curve that's already been applied. No information is clipped or lost from this built in curve, but the contrast you start from is Adobe's, not the RAW file's own tonal response.

The processing pipeline looks like this:

RAW Data → Profile (color + built-in tone curve) → Lightroom Adjustments

With a linear profile, it becomes:

RAW Data → Linear Profile (color only, straight tone curve) → Lightroom Adjustments

Profiles that look flat aren't the same thing. Adobe Neutral and Camera Neutral are lower contrast, but they still apply a curve. Only a profile with a linear tone curve gives you the RAW data's real tonal response.

What about Capture One?

Capture One already lets you do this. Under Base Characteristics, set Curve to Linear Response and the built-in curve is gone. Lightroom has no setting like that, which is why linear profiles exist.

Why a Linear Profile Looks Worse at First

The first time you apply a linear profile, your photo will look darker, flatter, and less saturated. That's expected. You're seeing your image without Adobe's look on top of it.

Most photographers start by raising Exposure, then add back as much contrast as the photo needs. The Auto button is also a quick way to get a starting point, and it often does a better job on a linear profile than on a curved one.

Why Use a Linear Profile

Train station photo with the Adobe Color profile
The same photo with the CP Linear profile
The same photo with the CP Linear profile after exposure and contrast edits
  • Highlights start out uncompressed. A built-in curve squeezes the brightest tones together, so skies, snow, or skin highlights can look flat until you pull them back. A linear profile starts with them spread out, so highlight texture is visible from the first click.
  • Sliders that behave predictably. Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, and Contrast work on the real tonal response instead of fighting a curve that's already there.
  • Your look, from the start. Every contrast decision is one you made, which makes a consistent editing style easier to build.

How to Make a Linear Profile for Free

You don't need to buy a linear profile to try one. Adobe's free DNG Profile Editor can make one for any camera that Lightroom supports, in a few minutes. It's an older app that Adobe no longer updates, but it still does this job.

  1. Download Adobe DNG Profile Editor from Adobe's website. It's free.
  2. Save a RAW file from your camera as a DNG. In Lightroom Classic, select a photo, choose File → Export and set Image Format to DNG. The free Adobe DNG Converter also works.
  3. Open the DNG in DNG Profile Editor with File → Open DNG Image.
  4. Pick a base profile. At the top of the window, choose Adobe Standard (or a Camera Matching profile) as the color starting point.
  5. Go to the Tone Curve tab and set Base Tone Curve to Linear. The curve becomes a straight line.
  6. Export the profile with File → Export Profile, and give it a name you'll recognize, like "Sony A7 IV Linear."
  7. Install it. Put the .dcp file in Adobe's CameraProfiles folder:
    Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles
    Windows: C:\Users\[you]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
  8. Restart Lightroom and open the Profile Browser on a photo from that camera. Your linear profile shows up under Profiles.

A profile only works with the camera model it was made for, so repeat these steps for each camera you shoot with.

Color Calibrated Linear Profiles

A linear profile made in DNG Profile Editor changes the tone curve and nothing else. The color still comes from Adobe Standard, which decides how your camera's reds, greens, blues, and skin tones should look. Those decisions are made for each camera model, and they're designed to look pleasing, which isn't always the same as looking accurate.

The usual way to correct color is to photograph a color checker and build a profile from it. The problem is that most color checker software puts a standard contrast curve back into the profile, so you lose the linear response you were after.

A calibrated linear profile gives you both: color measured from a real camera and a straight tone curve.

How Color Precision Linear Profiles are Made

ColorChecker under tungsten light
ColorChecker under D65 daylight

Each Color Precision Linear profile starts with a camera body photographing a color checker under two light sources: warm tungsten light and D65 daylight. Color calibration software measures how that sensor sees each color patch under each light and builds a custom DCP profile from those measurements, with a linear tone curve.

Because the profile is dual-illuminant, Lightroom blends between the tungsten and daylight calibrations based on your white balance. Color stays accurate whether you shoot under warm indoor light, daylight, or anything in between.

Photo with a free Adobe linear profile (Adobe Standard color)The same photo with the calibrated CP Linear profile

Why a calibrated linear profile can be better

  • Measured color. Colors come from measurements of the camera's sensor instead of Adobe's look.
  • Accurate across white balances. Dual-illuminant calibration keeps color consistent from tungsten to daylight.
  • Camera matching Bodies calibrated to the same color checker start from the same color, which makes matching cameras in the edit easier.

The tradeoff is time. Every camera body has to be physically tested and profiled, and you need a color checker, controlled lighting, and calibration software. If you already own a color checker and don't mind a command line, free open-source tools like dcamprof can build dual-illuminant profiles too. If you'd rather skip all of that, Color Precision Linear profiles for Lightroom are built for individual camera bodies and ready to install. They also include the camera RAW files, so you cold create your own color accurate non-linear profiles if you'd like.

When You Might Not Want a Linear Profile

A linear profile is a just a starting point. If you like how Adobe Color looks out of the box and want to get through an edit session quickly, a linear profile adds a step to every photo.

Presets built for Adobe Color will also look different on top of a linear profile, because they were designed to sit on top of Adobe's curve.

A linear profile is also the wrong place to start if what you want is a film look. A film emulation should shape the tones itself, and it needs a base built for that. Our Color Precision film emulation profiles are matched to real film scans, so stocks like Kodak and Fujifilm look right the moment you apply them. They're also available for Capture One and DxO PhotoLab, and you can try the free demo first.

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