Why does my Canon point and shoot have nicer colours than my Nikon dslr?

I prefer the Canon colours, not huge difference but somehow skin tones are lighter and the overall look is nicer. Nikon is more grungy. Can I get the Canon looks in my Nikon through PS's Camera RAW profiles?

Sure you can… Crank the saturation and contrast up about 3 levels of each, and there you go. You want the Canon results to look like Nikon? Do the opposite, reduce the saturation and contrast about 3 notches.

Camera setups can cause most of this kind if differences in final image results

If you are shooting in RAW, the how YOU process the file has much more to do with the results than the camera used

We shoot a lot of sports and our photographers use both Nikon's and Canon's

What we do is use Xrite's Colorchecker Passports to create a custom white balance. What happens next is our retouchers, using these custom white balance settings can match the colours absolutely no matter which brand or model camera our photographers use.

Using this process, colour management is simplified

The Canon may look "nicer", but which is more accurate and which has the greater true range? The odds are that it's the DSLR. Many of us choose to shoot our images on DSLRs with a flat color profile, and then tweak the levels afterwards as it's a better starting point.