Every few weeks I copy paintings (1DSmk2) for an artist and then produce A4 prints, which she uses to promote her work. It’s a tough test because of the combination of the wide range of colours, her good “sense of colour” and her insistence on a side-by-side comparison. Having tried most of the raw converters, I normally use DPP and when I take the prints back and compare them with the originals in the same lighting used to take the shots, DPP is close enough to keep us both happy. (IMO DPP has some big problems but colour is not one of them.)
But this week I used LR and was surprised to see how different they were. A side-by-side comparison was downright embarrassing and I rapidly offered her a reprint (and a secret re-work in DPP). Previously I’d been fairly happy with LR’s colour results for other work but now I’m not so sure.
I like many aspects of LR and if I want to use it, maybe I have to shoot a GM chart in that lighting and calibrate LR to get it closer? And maybe only use that calibration set for that situation? (I profile my monitor regularly.)
I know the arguments about the difficulty/impossibility/etc of colour fidelity, and my normal conclusion is that if it looks okay, it is okay, but clearly that doesn’t apply to copying artwork. Trying hard not to be AR over this, but I can’t help wondering how other subjects are affected by unidentified colour shifts in LR.
