OK.. I'll try to post a truthful representation of an image in my living room.
All files are NEF's straight up, no other processing other than conversion by ViewNX. Lighting is exactly the same in each and the only difference is the Picture Control settings in camera.
Should have saved myself the trouble and shot in NEF + Jpg (basic, to save some space on the card, and hence the price of a bread roll or two )
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
#1 and #2 are so far removed form reality that it;s not funny, and yet there has been no post processing been done.
mono image(once again, via PC control in the D300 is the worst representation of reality)
But the issue here for me is to accurately reproduce the scene exactly as it was.. ATM it's nigh on impossible due to the ambient lighting conditions, even though I took a grey card reference for WB and used that as the predefined value in camera.
The red is not accurate in most of the images, and closest in #2, yet the brown is so far off, it's too hard to reproduce due to the PC controls in the original NEF.. and #1 reproduces it more accurately.. all the other(save for the mono) are both here and there, but not exactly right.
Only controlled lighting could accurately reproduce the colours for it to be described as a PJ image. Controlled lighting is not always possible though.
My contention is thatis open to interpretation."must be a truthful representation"
How would those judges see my RAW file? I have no idea coz I don't have ACR(that does default conversion) but I suspect that they'd see a different version again, and therefore #2 would be instantly disqualified as an entry.
ps. I'm highly suspicious of default conversions by third party software too!
I can email any of the NEF's to anyone with ACR, just for the purpose of seeing how it's represented by a different RAW converter.