[font color=\'#000000\']I posted this in the old discussion forum just shortly before the demise of the old forum software. Since there really wasn't any chance for anyone to reply, I decided to re-post and see if anyone has any comments.
Michael's review of the inCamera color profiler rightly begins and ends with a question--do you really need exactly accurate color? For what I do, the answer is no. I need reasonably accurate color that is visually pleasing. Nonetheless, I found the article to be very thought-provoking, as it suggests some questions I have been puzzling about since I began spending some significant time with a digital camera recently-- a Nikon D100.
As film photographers, we know that different films have different color palettes. Some are very saturated, some are warm, some are cool, some are contrasty, etc.
How would you describe the color palette of your digital camera? I find the D100, when using the Adobe RGB color space and correct white balance, to be very neutral over a wide range of subjects and colors. In other words, it seems to have very good color accuracy right out of the box.
It would be interesting to see how well the color accuracy of various pro films would compare with a typical high end digital SLR. I assume that a film like Fuji Velvia, which is so popular with landscape photographers, would score rather poorly when rated solely for accuracy because of its highly saturated character. Whether it is pleasing is another question. However, if we are happy with the accuracy of Velvia (or Provia, which is more neutral) for landscape shots, it seems likely we can be satisfied with digital SLRs, without the need for a product like inCamera.
Obviously there are photographic applications that demand optimal color accuracy, but I don't think landscape photgraphy falls in that category. I find that my post processing of digital landscape images often includes a little tweaking of the color, such as increasing warmth or saturation, to enhance the mood of the shot, but seldom requires much adjustment to get the colors to appear accurate and realistic. This is in contrast to processing scans of film shots for which I often have to work carefully to get the color balance right.
For landscape photographers, and perhaps many others, it might be more useful to have a software product that produced different color palettes, like Velvia, Portra etc., rather than one designed to achieve perfect accuracy.
John DeMott[/font]