Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: natas on October 13, 2009, 11:53:29 am

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: natas on October 13, 2009, 11:53:29 am

I saw this product today and was wondering one thing. In order to create the color profiles for my camera in lightroom do I need to convert my images to DNG, or will I be able to create the profile and apply it to any canon raw file (cr2)?

Another thing that is confusing me is will I need to create a different camera profile for every new lighting situation? The way I wanted to use this was create a camera profile that I use on all photos, then use the "Creative Enhancement Target" for correcting white balance when I need it...is this going to be ok?

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 13, 2009, 12:23:34 pm

Quote from: natas

I saw this product today and was wondering one thing. In order to create the color profiles for my camera in lightroom do I need to convert my images to DNG, or will I be able to create the profile and apply it to any canon raw file (cr2)?

Another thing that is confusing me is will I need to create a different camera profile for every new lighting situation? The way I wanted to use this was create a camera profile that I use on all photos, then use the "Creative Enhancement Target" for correcting white balance when I need it...is this going to be ok?

I tried mine out over the weekend.  Very easy to create the profile but you do need to convert the image to DNG.  Profle gets automatically added to Lightroom.  Don't know if you need to do a separate profile for each lighting situation as I've not tried that out.  In the field it worked well in terms of getting a true white balance.

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: Ben Rubinstein on October 13, 2009, 01:23:39 pm

I don't know about LR but you don't need the file to be a DNG in ACR. If you want a profile embedded then it needs to be DNG. If you don't need embedding then don't bother.

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: natas on October 13, 2009, 02:00:10 pm

Quote from: pom

I don't know about LR but you don't need the file to be a DNG in ACR. If you want a profile embedded then it needs to be DNG. If you don't need embedding then don't bother.

So if this statement is true I should be good to go in lightroom or photoshop, I just don't convert to DNG, I prefer the original raw file.

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 13, 2009, 02:44:26 pm

Quote from: natas

So if this statement is true I should be good to go in lightroom or photoshop, I just don't convert to DNG, I prefer the original raw file.

Correct and you can see a slight difference when you use the camera profile (in my case it was in Lightroom and the camera in question is the Nikon D300.  You only need a DNG of the original target to create the profile.  The software is pretty cool as it automatically crops the color chart.

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: natas on October 13, 2009, 07:05:41 pm

Thanks everyone for the information. I bought the colorchecker today and made profiles for my 3 cameras. I am amazed at how much of a difference this made. In the past I had to spend a good amount of time correcting the colors manually to look the way I wanted them to. It now looks like I will spend less time correcting color (not talking about white balance).

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: Frank Doorhof on October 14, 2009, 02:03:47 am

Hi,
the process is very simple.
Make a photo of the subject with the card.
Convert only that photo to DNG and drag it into the software.
The software will create the profile.
That profile can be used on the normal RAWs (no need to convert to DNG).

I shoot a checkershot with every change in lightsetup.
In the past I used the gretag but stopped because it simply was too much work and switched to one profile per lightsetup and used whitebalance cards.
With the colorchecker I'm back to shooting a colorchecker before every serie.

The difference varies per lightsource, especially the 5DmkII benefits A LOT under studio lights, my Leaf Aptus does benefit but less dramatic.

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: digitaldog on October 14, 2009, 10:55:29 am

Quote from: natas

In order to create the color profiles for my camera in lightroom do I need to convert my images to DNG, or will I be able to create the profile and apply it to any canon raw file (cr2)?

You need a DNG of the ColorChecker to build the profile in the stand-alone app, but you don’t have to be using a DNG for the profiles to be accessible to you in LR.

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: markhout on October 14, 2009, 01:40:21 pm

Quote from: natas

Thanks everyone for the information. I bought the colorchecker today and made profiles for my 3 cameras. I am amazed at how much of a difference this made. In the past I had to spend a good amount of time correcting the colors manually to look the way I wanted them to. It now looks like I will spend less time correcting color (not talking about white balance).

Just to say I second that. They should think of a workaround for the restarting of LR after calibration, but otherwise the color checker is well worth the investment.

Title: ColorChecker Passport question
Post by: madmanchan on October 15, 2009, 08:28:23 am

Mark, yes I agree, and that will likely be in a future update of LR.