Dear Luminous Landscape experts,
I’m hoping you may be able to suggest improvements to or advice and feedback about my ACR workflow so that I might capture and process colors more accurately. I’m a painter and photograph my own work, from which I prepare jpegs to post on my website. The work is for sale so an accurate representation of colors is important.
My current capture workflow:
I shoot outdoors on overcast days against a wall with white background paper using a Canon 550D and a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens with a tripod and remote shutter.
I set up the shot and then shoot a custom white balance reference through a white balance lens cap, which I then set the camera to use. I then shoot a number of exposures of the painting, aiming for ISO 100 and 1/125 shutter speed and f5.6. If the lighting changes noticably during the shoot, I’ll redo the custom white balance.
My processing workflow:
I bring the RAW images into ACR viewing them on a warmed-up NEC PA301W wide gamut monitor calibrated every two weeks with the NEC MDSV puck. I use the NEC Spectraview II software set on “Photo Editing” with a D65 white point Gamma 2.20 and the “native” gamut. I have the advantage of comparing my RAW captures with the actual painting.
I have ACR set as follows: Camera Profile: Adobe Standard, Lens correction enabled for the Canon 60mm lens.
My results prior to any white point or color adjustments in ACR:
Paintings with muted colors seem pretty accurate, requiring very little correction. Paintings with strongly saturated hues- particularly blues but also reds, yellows, and greens exhibit noticable hue and saturation shifts definitely requiring correction. Some shots seem to require none or very little white balance adjustment, while others require a large WB adjustment. Any large WB adjustment tends to improve the colors to a good “starting” place.
If I apply any of the in-camera settings to the image in ACR- such as “Camera Neutral”, “Camera Standard” etc, they usually seem pretty de-saturated compared to Adobe Standard, so I leave it set to Adobe Standard as the starting point.
My post-processing workflow:
After doing any WB adjustment, I try to do most of the color correction in ACR. A file is then output to PS at the (default) size in ProPhotoRGB 16bit and a “master” image is saved. (In addition to jpegs for the internet, I’ll eventually make another targeted file for an archival quality inkjet print.) Spot removal, cropping etc are then done to the image. I’m still experimenting whether it’s best to do my capture sharpening in ACR or PK Sharpener. If other color corrections are still needed, I’ll do these with adjustment layers and masks. I’m still learning the various basic techniques in PS for targeted color corrections.
From the corrected master image, I duplicate the file, prepping it for output as a jpeg. Viewing the image as sRGB with the soft-proofing function, I notice that images of paintings with muted colors shift very little; those with strongly saturated colors exhibit noticable shifts regardless of ReCol or Perceptual rendering intents. I then try to bring those shifted colors into line using adjustment layers. After a PK Sharpener output sharpening, a jpeg of the appropriate size is then made with sRGB embedded.
My questions:
1. Will I benefit by using the X-rite ColorChecker Passport- shooting a reference color card before and after each photo shoot, and creating a twin-illuminant custom camera profile for use in ACR with the images from that particular photo shoot?
2. Am I overlooking anything obvious that could give me more accurate captures to begin with, or in any other part of my workflow?
3. If I am doing everything possible for color accuracy up front, should I adjust my attitude and expectations to accept the results as viewed in ACR as always a starting point, and that color adjustments big or small to the RAW capture are inevitable and normal?
4. If I am doing everything possible for color accuracy in adjustments to the RAW capture and the master image, should I adjust my attitude and expectations to accept the conversion to an sRGB jpeg- with it’s resulting small or large color shifts- as a starting point, and that color adjustments big or small to the jpeg-targeted file are inevitable and normal?
Thank you very much for reading this, and for your advice and suggestions!
-George