I'm trying to understand the limitations of LR2 when trying to create a certain color look in a RAW file (DSC7383-2) that a simultaneous in-camera JPEG (DSC7383) created. The two attached frames (80% quality files) were shot earlier today with a Nikon D700 / 85 1.4. This was shot RAW + JPEG Fine. I always finish the RAW files, but I do still capture the JPEG fines as an old habit, but every now and then I come across something in the JPEG that I rather like and it spurs an idea on how to take the RAW in a certain direction. This is probably more true with the D700 than other cameras, where I'm surprised with a nice JPEG light rendering from time-to-time. The present issue is the color of the sweater in the two attached frames. You'll note on the in-camera JPEG that the sweater was rendered more of red with the skin tone warm. The RAW, but processed a bit to bring color up in vibrance, some clarity, a little saturation, blacks up for contrast, is a more muted red.
In this case, I like the JPEG rendering of the sweater, which was not over the top and yet captured a little more of the life and joy of Spring. So I tried to get there in the RAW version. I used the pin-point color tool in saturation, but found that while it brought up the red channel, that it quickly bled over into the face where the effects of a cold New England Sunday were making themselves evident. Playing with related colors, like magenta did not get me there either. Also, note the lighting in the in-camera produed JPEG on the sweater. It's as if there is a reflector pushing some light back at the little girl and the light / dark contrast in just the sweater is very pronounced. I've played with the exposure, brightness, contrast, along with variations of vibrance, saturation of the color channels and I haven't been able to recreate the JPEG color rendering.
So with that background, my question is, is the in-camera JPEGs making adjustments that are outside of of what LR2 can do to a RAW version of the same file? In this case, get that red sweater rendering, light reflection and skin tones to come together in that combination?