camera profiles in acr/lightroom & xrite colorchecker practicality

[kimballistic]

I think I've got this down, but I'd like to run this by you guys.  My understanding so far, with a few questions thrown in:

1) xrite's marketing suggests that proper use of the colorchecker involves creating a new camera profile every time our lighting changes

2) this is stupid.  Our list of camera profiles in lightroom will grow to the point of absurdity. (who actually does this?)

3) the good news is this practice is only necessary if we are creating single-illuminant profiles (and by the way, how does applying a single-illuminant profile differ from applying auto white balance?)

4) dual-illuminant profiles are what we want because they are valid for a wide range of lighting conditions (how wide?)

5) the built-in adobe camera profiles are dual-illuminant

6) so why bother with the colorchecker?  because the camera model used to build adobe's profiles might not provide the same color response as your version of that camera.  therefore better to build your own dual-illuminant profile (sounds dubious)

7) two photos of the colorchecker taken under daylight and tungsten respectively are used to build a dual-illuminant profile (light sources at 6500K & 2850K color temperatures).



Here's where I get lost.  Or at least I finally realize how lost I am.

How do you ensure your light sources match those two color temperatures?  The xrite youtube videos don't seem to give a damn, seemingly as long as you use their software.  Adobe's dng profile editor documentation says otherwise (what's a d65 emulator?).

What about fluorescent lighting?  Shade?  Moonlight?  Will a daylight/tungsten dual-illuminant profile still provide reasonable colors for these conditions?

Ultimately, is profiling via the xrite colorchecker a solution in search of a problem, or do real photographers actually see a noticeable improvement with their custom profiles?

[JRSmit]

First of all  the way your camera/lens combi "sees" light varies indeed with different lighting.
For situations with controlled lighting, studio flash in my case, ccp with single illuminant works fine. Even in such situations i take images of the CC24 under different angles just to be sure i do not run into a lighing situation of the CC24 card which would result in a DCP profile that is off.
Such profile then does not work at all when used for tungsten lighted situations.

I also created profiles with lighting situations aoutdoor, with clear blue sky and cc24 lit by the sun, that too can provide good results that can be used on most images shot under similar lighting conditions.

The effect on the image on screen, in my case with Lightroom, is quite visible compared to the LR canned camera profiles, in my case for Nikon D700.
Note that the version 3 (v3) profiles for the nikon d700 are quite good actually.

Creating a DCP with CCP or with DPE does not give the same result, in my case most noticably in the color ranges blueish and reddish. The DPE are somewhat less saturated, not much, but visible. I prefer the DPE results, as i believe the CCP are in those ranges a bit over-saturated.

[Ernst Dinkla]

What happens after that on matching a CC with even the best printer profile can be seen in Andrew's review of i1Profiler or is that mismatch a result of scanner metamerism? Counted 5 matches on my screen of the 24 patches, not even a wide gamut monitor. Maybe a disclaimer about FBA Luster paper and scanner illumination/sensors is needed there.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/x_rite_i1profiler_review.shtml

Nice review BTW.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst

New: Spectral plots of +250 inkjet papers:

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

[digitaldog]

What happens after that on matching a CC with even the best printer profile can be seen in Andrew's review of i1Profiler or is that mismatch a result of scanner metamerism? Counted 5 matches on my screen of the 24 patches, not even a wide gamut monitor.

Ah, don’t use that as anything but an example of what the holy checker with a print behind it looks like. Its shot under a Fluorescent booth with a Canon 5DMII pretty much quick and dirty and the visual match is much, much closer (so yes, you are seeing a lot of metameric failure due to a number of factors here).