For Nikon Users; A Custom Picture Style That Allows You To See Blown Highlights In Real Time

This is what you see when looking through your EVF or at your LCD when highlights are clipped.
This image is from a JPEG.  The clipped highlight warning gets baked into any JPEG file so you
can't use this custom profile unless you are only shooting raw.

This is from a raw file.  As you can see, the black clipped highlight shown above does not get baked into these files.  If you see the black clipped highlights in your image editor, just change
the color profile to something you normally use.  In this case, Lightroom automatically changed mine to the Nikon Neutral profile which I normally use.

Recently, while watching a YouTube video about the Nikon Zf, the presenter talked about a commenter on his channel who wrote there was a way for a custom profile to be created that would allow Nikon mirrorless camera users to see a live, real time representation in the EVF and on the LCD of when highlights are blown (clipped).  That is typically not possible with Nikon cameras.  With Nikon cameras, one must make the exposure then view the image on the LCD to see ‘blinkies.’   Blinkies are the common term used for the blinking highlight and shadow areas that have lost all detail from too much overexposure or underexposed, respectively.

I have no idea why Nikon doesn’t include this “blinkies” feature in their cameras as several other manufacturers already include it or something very similar.  Engineering-wise it is possible to do so.  In fact, when I use a camera that visibly shows clipped highlights or crushed shadows in the EVF, I then forgo using the histogram altogether.  In fact, I remove the histogram from being displayed in my EVF in order to reduce viewfinder clutter.  I find it much more expedient to use the "blinkies" to guide my exposure settings.  OM/Olympus takes it a step farther in showing blown highlights in orange (some call it red but it’s clearly orange on my camera) and lost shadow detail in blue.  It is very easy to immediately see so the exposure can be easily and quickly adjusted so that they disappear.

The Nikon custom profile that has been created turns any clipped highlights black in real time in your EVF.  There is one caveat.  If you shoot JPEGs, or raw + JPEGs, the black is recorded in the JPEG image itself as shown in the illustrative photo at the top of this blog. But if you are a raw shooter, the raw files are unaffected.  After importing your image files into your image editor, there might be one change to the raw file you might have to do.  If you import your raw image files and they still show the black clipped highlights, you will need to manually change the camera’s picture profile to one you normally use.  In my case with the above images, Lightroom Classic changed my camera’s profile to Nikon Neutral.  

The other aspect of which you should be aware is that this custom “clipped highlights” profile was constructed from Nikon’s Flat profile, which is very low contrast.  The reason is that the Flat profile gives you the most accurate representation of how your raw file will record an image.  In other words, the Flat profile gives you the most accurate representation of the full dynamic range of the raw file instead of all sorts of parameters applied as they would in a Landscape, Portrait, Vivid or other profile which will show artificially clipped highlights, crushed shadows, increased color, contrast and saturation, etc.  So you will have to do some editing on your raw file to show how you best like its rendering.  I guess it's a trade-off.  A bit more editing required for the safety of never having blown highlights.  Your decision.

Back to the YouTube video.  After the presenter talked about the custom profile that someone out there in the wide world of photography had created to show blown highlights in Nikon’s cameras, I started searching for it.  I spent about 2 hours searching using as many terms and looking in as many places I could think of on the internet.  I finally found the individual who created it in a DPReview forum post.  He included a link to a Google Drive page where he said anyone who was interested could download it.  But the link was broken.  Another dead end.

Further searching finally brought me to a subsequent post where he indicated he had acknowledged he had accidentally broken that link but was now reposting a valid link to the custom profile.  Yeah!  Finally!

I want to give full credit to Mr. Todd Johnson (tajohnson on DPReview forums) who created the profile and restored the link about 6 months ago (DPReview forum doesn’t give an exact date he posted it).

Mr. Johnson has named the file “FlatClip5.NP3.”  Here is the link to Mr. Johnson’s Nikon Custom Picture profile that shows live clipped highlights:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_3agtPdZAaHA3TOvF-Qs4Yq3KFga5f5g?usp=sharing

After downloading the profile, I found I could not install it directly into my Nikon camera after loading onto the memory card.  I found if I first imported into Nikon’s Studio NX, then exported it onto my memory card it changed something about the file naming structure.  From there, I loaded it into the camera and changed the name of the profile so the name had more meaning to me.  Nikon cameras allow several user generated custom picture profiles to be loaded and then utilized.

I have not used it as of yet, but I will report back if I discover any issues when using it.  Let’s hope Nikon gets on the ball and adds this little but very helpful feature to their cameras so ‘workarounds’ don’t have to be created.

DISCLAIMER:  I thought this might be of interest to other Nikon users.  I’m not advising anyone to use this profile.  I’m just notifying you that it exists.  If you do try it, you’re on your own.  I can’t vouch that it will work on your camera.  It might ‘brick it.’  Who knows?  However, It works flawlessly on mine.

UPDATE 02/20/2024:  I’ve now used this profile out in the real world.  I found it is helpful and useful.  My use was to photograph backlit Amtrak trains coming directly toward me at about 70mph (113kph).  No clouds in the bright sky and there was some dark shade produced by pine trees.  I wanted to maximize exposure to keep the shadow detail without blowing out the blue sky.  I was able to easily see in real time if the sky would be blown out, where it would be blown out and by how much which allowed me to precisely refine my exposure.  As I said, I found it helpful in that situation.

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Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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