Lightroom Saturation: seems a little hotter than other apps

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May 7, 2007
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Having free time last week, I began seriously looking at my work flow and the different PP applications I use. Most recently I've been gravitating to LR (always updating to the latest version) and shoot RAW only. Saturation in the yellow/orange range have always been a bit of a challenge and very noticeable now that I'm going through a couple hundred fall images.
Even the smallest increase in saturation drives the warmish colors towards yellow and the saturation in that range is out of proportion to cool colors. Without fail I have to decrease the yellow and orange saturation and fine tune the hue in the HSL adjustment tab. It makes no difference which camera profile I'm using (Adobe standard, Camera standard/Neutral).
Then I go back to Capture NX2 and working with saturation results in 99.9% accurate balances.
I gravitated to LR because the highlight and shadow recovery and pretty much everything else pertaining to work flow is so much easier and intuitive. However when it comes to difficult images, Capture seems to require less tweaking and compensating. It still is my preferred editor when I just want to sit down with 1-4 chosen images to see what can be extracted from them.
That must be what people refer to when they say they prefer RAW conversion from app X over app Y.

That said, am I safe in assuming that Photoshop (should I decide to commit for a year), would render NEF files the same way that LR does?


EDIT: Just thought I would throw in a few fall mages. All shot with D600 and Nikon AIS 20mm f/3.5

Full Frame edited in CNX2. I used the saturation slider to help accentuate the translucent light through the leaves. The saturation was well controlled and realistic to what the scene actually was like.
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Shot at near dusk with very little light remaining. Capture saved the shadows pretty well. LR was obliterating the yellows in this shot.
p683707079-5.jpg
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Just for the heck of it and for a challenge, I processed this one entirely in Fast Stone.
p683768054-5.jpg
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Joined
May 7, 2007
Messages
1,818
Location
Canadian Prairies
Yes, Photoshop uses the same ACR engine to convert NEFs as Lightroom.
Did you try using Vibrance instead of Saturation?

I have tried Vibrance on a few different type of exposures. It seems to have the same effect (over the top) and I still need to tone down the warm colors in the HSL tab. I'm digging back into files from my D90, 60, 40. They are less extreme than files from my D600, but the difference between the two applications is noticeable.
Unscientifically I have to say that the D600/LR combination is the worse of all combinations.
 

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