Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: jrp on September 27, 2015, 11:35:58 am
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The default Adobe Standard profile for the A7r II seems a bit muddy, for my taste. I built alternative profiles with the Xrite Colourchecker Passport using their software and Adobe's. The colours are more pleasing, although the blues can only be described as electric.
Has anyone tried any other profiles? (I have not yet tried the Dcamprof utility.)
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you may want to try using the Adobe DNG Profile Editor instead of the XRite generator. Also, in PS & LR, you can tweak the camera profile to attempt to tame the blues.
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Thanks. As I say, I also have the adobe-generated profile which also ramps up the blues. I do rather wonder whether the Colourchecker is worth anything more than getting a neutral colour balance, since it seems to produce such overemphasis
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3 minute profile in the blind from the CC24 this shot: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/sony-a7r-ii/A7R2hVFAI000050.ARW.HTM
Using this workflow: http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/camera-profiling.html#the_easy_way
You can find binaries in the large DCamProf thread in this forum. It's indeed command line, but it's not that hard to make a decent profile.
Darker blues, less yellow skin tones than Adobe's profile, among other differences.
If you use other white balance than "as shot" you may get white balance shift due to an Adobe quirk. This can be fixed if you desire, discussed here:
http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/camera-profiling.html#white_balance_shift
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And here's a fake dual dcp (same contents as above) just to avoid Adobe's white balance shift.
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Thanks, Anders. I'll give it a whirl.
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There are still some issues with super high saturation colors and around clipping, these are DCamProf issues which I'm working on fixing. But for normal images/colors it should work fine.
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Thanks for your profiles. I have also rolled my own. (Interestingly the profiles are about 1Mb in size, compared with 3kb from Xrite and 54kb from Adobe DNG Profile Editor.)
I used a Colourchecker Passport shot, created the TIFF in DCRAW and straightened / cropped it in Photoshop.
When using scanin with ColorCheckerPassort.cht, the chart was not detected correctly and I had to use ColorChecket.cht.
I did not do any linearization.
The resulting neutral and subtle profiles are virtually identical and very unsaturated in Lightroom. The profiles that you provided are better: the difference from Adobe Standard is mainly in the blues. My own profiles seem to have a different colour balance and are duller.
Where the Adobe Standard wins, is that it handles some blown specular highlights better. They are bright blue in the profiles created by dcamprof.
Further experimentation required ...
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There are some issues around clipping, which I'm working on fixing but it will take some time. It's probably that you see in the specular highlight issue.
It seems strange that your own profile differs so much from mine, it shouldn't unless you have shot in say tungsten light or something. Could be some workflow issue?
The large size of DCamProf's profiles are due to the tone reproduction operator which needs high resolution to compensate for what the Adobe curve does. X-Rite adopts Adobe's curve straight off so they need no big LUT, I think Adobe DNG editor does the same, but it's impossible to get really good color that way if you ask me. A longer discussion on this is found at:
http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/dcamprof.html#tone_curves
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I'd be happy to send you a DropBox folder if you want to take a peek, or PM me if you have another way of getting the files to you.
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I've sent PM.
Meanwhile here's a new profile which may have fixed the highlight issue. (At least one highlight issue is fixed, was a bug in previous version of the software)
I've added a normal neutral version of profile as before, and one with gamut compression, for normal images you shouldn't see much of a difference, but for ultra-high saturation colors there is.
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Problem in extreme blue range confirmed (I've got test files). I now know the reason. Will work on a fix.
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Now the clipping bugs are fixed, profiles attached.
It will still not render those artificial blue lights great, Adobe does it better. However there's always a tradeoff. The reason Adobe can make it better is because they twisted blues a bit away from their actual hue plus desaturated the whole profile. This way you don't end up in an extreme gamut position for that artificial light.
If you want great color in the normal range it's however very hard to make a good transition into that range of artificial lights. My recommendation is therefore to use Adobe's more desaturated profile on those nightscapes where you come across that type of lights.
At some point I may try to make a good compromise and see how far I can come on that but it's a lot of manual work.
By the way, do you remember what color those blue lights were to your eye? Was it deep blue, or was it light cyan? Or was it some other color?
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Here's updated profiles. The changes are minor, related to DCamProf software changes. Blues will be rendered bit lighter still, and some artifact fixes of neutral plus. There's also some lightness corrections back in, been really careful to not mess up gradients, doesn't make any big change in look though.
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Hello to everyone. I'm looking for a good profile for sony a7rII for C1, because the one C1 is using for this camera is really bad. As far as I know C1 only accepts icm\icc profiles, so dcp can not be used. I would appreciate if somebody here can create icc\icm profile that can be used in C1 from the same data as dcm files mentioned earlier.
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Hello to everyone. I'm looking for a good profile for sony a7rII for C1, because the one C1 is using for this camera is really bad. As far as I know C1 only accepts icm\icc profiles, so dcp can not be used. I would appreciate if somebody here can create icc\icm profile that can be used in C1 from the same data as dcm files mentioned earlier.
I could do it, the problem however is that I've stopped using C1 and therefore my latest version is 7.2.2 so I can't open A7rII files and thus cannot make a profile for it.
If someone could provide a for-profiling-converted TIFF I could do the first stage, but an additional problem with C1 is that to make a general-purpose profile is a two-step process where you need to design a curve by eye inside C1, and that I can't help with without having a C1 version that can open A7rII files.
If you have some confidence you can create a profile yourself using this workflow:
http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/camera-profiling.html#the_easy_way_c1
Compiled versions of DCamProf can be found in the DCamProf thread in this forum.
A good colorchecke shot can be found here http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/sony-a7r-ii/A7R2hVFAI000050.ARW.HTM
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How does one use these profiles with Lightroom (on Windows)? Where/how do they get installed?
Here's updated profiles. The changes are minor, related to DCamProf software changes. Blues will be rendered bit lighter still, and some artifact fixes of neutral plus. There's also some lightness corrections back in, been really careful to not mess up gradients, doesn't make any big change in look though.
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How does one use these profiles with Lightroom (on Windows)? Where/how do they get installed?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=where+should+I+install+dng+profiles+on+windows
;)
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http://lmgtfy.com/?q=where+should+I+install+dng+profiles+on+windows
Since I didn't know they are dng profiles, I wouldn't have been able to do that search. Here is a shorter answer:
Custom-created .DCP profile files go into the following location under your Windows Users folder:
C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
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Here's Jim Kasson on the standard Adobe profile Jim's Blog (http://http://blog.kasson.com/?p=12553)
He finds it a good starting point. I have never really loved the Sony's colours.
A comment on the post point to a way of untwisting the profile, to what benefit one can only speculate.
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I made my own Capture One (v9) A7RII profile with DCamprof. The profile was made out of a shot with a CC24 in high noon sunlight (5000k).
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Some people were interested in charts shot at ISO 50 with the A7rII, here a CCSG and IT8.7 :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qitmp7aanzg72us/FH-A7_charts_ISO50.zip?dl=1
Shot with strobes around 5000K (.sp files included for each) + flat field pic. The folder includes the capture one v9 settings too.
CCSG is post Nov 2014, IT8 is from W. Faust (charge R131007).
Since I don't use my A7rII much, I have not bothered to create some ICC profiles yet.
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Hello there. Just registered and this is my first post. I know this is an old thread and all, but I just wanted to thank Torger for his works on the profiles made available here.
I have taken a picture of a flower and I can't seem to get a decent camera profile that doesn't make it's colors "electric".
Also, I can't ever seem to find Lightroom's skies rendered better then CaptureOne, and that's with C1's default color profile.
Don't really know about skin tones, but I have a question: is there any one single profile that looks good for every kind of photography ( considering same illuminant)?
Landscape, macro, portrait etc, supposing same weather conditions - is it too much to expect that I can use only one profile for it all and it will always looks awesome?
Anyway, here's a link to the original compressed RAW file of the flower and it's in-camera generated JPEG.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jaec602w6kavg7a/AADtVy2UsLx-L3DaaOhktDLfa?dl=0
The Adobe "standard" profile does the best job at keeping the colors "natural", but they kinda lack some vibrance and always look kinda plain. But it's not really linear, if I crank the vibrance slider up, some colors look too vibrant (can't recall which ones right now, camera is new and I haven't taken too many decent pictures with it worth peeping to much).
Still, the in-camera JPEG is close enough to what I recall from the scene, but still a bit electric too. And I just love shooting RAW for a variety of reasons.
Also, C1's color renderings almost always look better then Lightrooms, as I said. The problem is: I think the software itself is too cumbersome and Lightroom is A LOT more practical to work with.
BTW: These verification steps are a PITA.
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Do you have any target that includes colorchecker patches? IF you do, could you take a picture on a midday that would include the target, skies (the light cyan to deep purplish gradient in case a clear sky would be great) and the subject in question (flower).
The common problem is the saturation vs lightness compromise. You either have the right saturation, but the most of the photo is dull, or you have popping picture with light bright cartoonish colors.
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Nope, unfortunatelly I don't have a colorchecker. I'm thinking about buying one. Is the X-Rite Passport good enough? Is there any one better?
Would that problem be solved with some wide gamut monitor? Isn't it possible to dull down the extra-vibrant colors to "compress" it to an sRGB monitor and all look nice and natural?
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Nope, unfortunatelly I don't have a colorchecker. I'm thinking about buying one. Is the X-Rite Passport good enough? Is there any one better?
you can experiment with the following raw cgats files (see .ti3 attached) - those files work both for dcamprof command line (free) and LPrD GUI (commercial) - they shall work for both ACR/LR dual illuminant and C1 single illuminant profiles building :
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=118075.msg980902#msg980902
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=118075.msg980903#msg980903
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Nope, unfortunatelly I don't have a colorchecker. I'm thinking about buying one. Is the X-Rite Passport good enough? Is there any one better?
depends on the flower - if the color is saturated then Passport is not the one (but it is a good target in terms how patches are made) , but then - are you trying to do repro or just kick the colors ? if latter then why not in postprocessing - there are tools/plugins like http://www.uni-vologda.ac.ru/~c3c/plug-ins/colorwizardbasic.htm or https://www.3dlutcreator.com/ or http://nuclearlight.net/firegrade.html or http://curvemeister.com or whatever... even a naked PS can do
PS: and for certain colors you might run into issues how decent camera's sensor CFA spectral sensitivity will handle those
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you can experiment with the following raw cgats files (see .ti3 attached) - those files work both for dcamprof command line (free) and LPrD GUI (commercial) - they shall work for both ACR/LR dual illuminant and C1 single illuminant profiles building :
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=118075.msg980902#msg980902
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=118075.msg980903#msg980903
while trying to repeat somebody converting in one converter in a different one is a very ungrateful thing - here is a simple pure matrix profile built with above mentioned raw cgats in ACR vs posted C1 conversion... not 100.00000% but
(https://s26.postimg.org/f6ushtqhx/ACRvs_C1.jpg) (https://s26.postimg.org/vumakbl9j/ACRvs_C1.jpg)
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All three ARWs were opened with a custom profile in C1 then I adjusted the exposure slider to avoid clipping in critical areas. Nothing more. The profile was made with Lumariver and is made for a linear curve use. In general I can recommend to use linear curve in C1.
Does this looks better to you?
Edit: As the colors in the first one looks too blue I've added a processed-to-my-taste version (whitebalance set to daylight + some contrast with curve/contrast/brightness/vignetting).
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Hello again Scyth and Sebbe.
Sorry for the delay, I work out of state and my laptop is frustratingly slow. I also have a very tight schedule from time to time, which makes things even more complicated.
I tried to read more about color calibration, but I'm really crude in this area. I thought there would be a single profile for each illuminant that would make all my photos render perfectly, but that doesn't seem to be the case and I still don't really understand why.
I'm looking forward to buying a colorchecker - if that will help me get more accurate colors. I'm not a professional photographer, and I just want my pictures to look good. And by good I mean close to reality - I don't like overprocessing, tone-compressing HDR and those "fine art" BS. Why can't a CCD have the same response as a film and call the day? :/
Anyway, what am I supposed to do to have decent looking photos, with realistic colors? Sorry for the dumbness.
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Hi Mauricio
It's as you said. There is no profile for everything. But if you're avoid clipping and not shooting bright colored light you may be fine with one profile.
A profile is a combination of camera, lens, light and used used target. Most tend to reduce it to the camera only.
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Aaaww that's a little frustrating... :(
But which colour target should I buy? Which one is a good all rounder?
Also, what would those 3d LUT softwares be useful for?
Thanks again, guys!
Best regards
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Ciao Mauricio
I was in Italy for holidays. :)
If you're already frustrated then don't start with it. Shooting targets and building profiles needs time and knowledge. And there is also a good amount of try and error to get a final and reproducable setup.
We're subjects therefore any picture, it's colors and processing are subjective views on reality. No matter how good your profile is. This is the great thing about humanity it opens the possibility to be creative. And because of that there is no need to be very exact in colors.
About the target question: The best general target in my oppinion is the Color Checker SG but it is also the most expensive. If you want a cheap and easy to use target go for the Color Checker Passport. It may be not the best if you look after controlling very saturated colors. If you look at color transitions take the it8.7 target.
Have a good day, Seb.
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We're subjects therefore any picture, it's colors and processing are subjective views on reality. No matter how good your profile is. This is the great thing about humanity it opens the possibility to be creative. And because of that there is no need to be very exact in colors.
Yeah man, you're right. I'm kinda perfectionist and the colors in my RX-100 M1 were a little off, specially in the blue/purple range. Maybe the best for turning Lightroom's color handling accuracy to something more like C1 would be ideal, but I don't think it's worth buying a US$ 300 dollars target that'll last maybe only two years. Besides, I don't know if I'll be able to shoot the targets with zero reflection, so I'll end up wasting money. The Passport is kinda ok, but it won't help much with highly saturated colors and I can use C1 just for those occasions.
I'm going for a road trip in California in September. Hope to get some nice shots and take a break from life. Hehe
Thank you all again for your help, and I wish you all the best!