Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One  (Read 13992 times)

ComputerDork

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 43
  • C1, LR, PS
Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« on: April 06, 2012, 01:43:52 am »

I'm wondering.... What's the easiest way to create custom ICC camera profiles for C1 using a ColorChecker chart?

Right now I'm just using the "Nikon Generic" profile included with C1. Normally I'd just use Lightroom with the default Nikon work-alike DNG profiles or use DNG profiles created from ColorChecker shots, but the fact that C1 only seems to have one Nikon profile (and I'm not sure I like it) is getting me inspired to create my own.

I see that I can use Argyll CMS for this, but is there any other way to do this short of buying $2000 software? I see that C1 can save color adjustments as an ICC profile and I see where one person writes in their blog that they just do "auto adjust" in C1 on a shot of a colorchecker chart and copy the adjustments to other photos taken in the same conditions, but I don't quite get how this is supposed to work.

Does C1 somehow recognize the ColorChecker? If so can I do some sort of auto adjust and then save the resulting color adjustments as an ICC profile?
Logged

adias

  • Guest
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2015, 01:57:06 pm »

Bringing this to the top. Yeah... is there a method to create camera profiles in C1 using a Color Checker?
Logged

AlterEgo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1995
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2015, 02:35:35 pm »

Bringing this to the top. Yeah... is there a method to create camera profiles in C1 using a Color Checker?

1) http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/dcamprof.html

2) http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=100015.0

Logged

torger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3267
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2015, 06:48:16 am »

I've now written a tutorial and here's a "as easy it can get" workflow specifically for Capture One.

http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/camera-profiling.html#the_easy_way_c1

I've had some issues with bugs in the ICC generation and it's still "bleeding edge", so you may stumble on bugs. As long as I get reports on them I'll fix them though :)

Using DCamProf is not as easy as using the commercial tools with GUIs, but I'm quite confident in that the result is better, especially if you make one for all-around use, ie adapted to be used with a film curve.
Logged

ZOG

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 39
    • http://
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2015, 08:52:37 am »

Hello Torger,

How good would DCamProf be for artwork reproduction?

I used to use inCamera from Pictocolor. It was a hit and miss....

Thanks

Andre
Logged

Doug Peterson

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4210
    • http://www.doug-peterson.com
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2015, 12:34:35 pm »

Hello Torger,

How good would DCamProf be for artwork reproduction?

I used to use inCamera from Pictocolor. It was a hit and miss....

In Situ Profiling (shooting a single target with a fixed number of colors in a fixed lighting situation) for high end reproduction photography is inherently finicky and error prone. It's also very limited; most people in situ profile with a particular target and then validate with the same target – like teaching someone US History by telling them that George Washington was the first president followed by testing their knowledge of US History by asking who the first president was. If you increase the number of patches being used you can end up with an overly erratic profile which tries to over correct for a spot issue. If you decrease the number of patches being used you can end up with a sloppy profile that misses colors that are wrong. Moreover the array of colors shown on most consumer targets (e.g. Color Checker SG) are not necessarily good matches for the materials and colors used in many art collections.

It's far preferable to have a proper Bespoke Profile created by an expert, who knows and controls the entire pipeline (the sensor, bayer array, IR Filter, demosaic, color engine) and creates the profile by capturing many targets in many lighting setups, validating it against a wide variety of real world materials. The color team at Phase One has created such profiles for Phase One digital backs when used with Capture One 8 CH Edition.

As they say... no muss, no fuss... just extremely accurate color for reproduction work out of the box. If you're doing high end art reproduction I'd strongly suggest trying this route before spending more time on in situ profiling.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2015, 12:37:38 pm by Doug Peterson »
Logged

AlterEgo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1995
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2015, 05:26:13 pm »

just extremely accurate color for reproduction work out of the box.

why don't you quote ZOG some prices though ;) ?

in the whole grand scheme what irritates me is that I can't get Lab color readouts unless this is CH... why in the world it is not in the regular editions ?
Logged

torger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3267
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #8 on: September 11, 2015, 12:36:11 pm »

Hello Torger,

How good would DCamProf be for artwork reproduction?

I used to use inCamera from Pictocolor. It was a hit and miss....

DCamProf is primarily designed with general-purpose photography in mind, and therefore it makes 2.5D profiles when it comes to the colorimetric part, ie exposure-independent. I suspect that in some art reproduction cases a full 3D profile is preferable. I think DCamProf does a very good job for general-purpose photography and adapting the tone reproduction for a curve (which you need in that case). I've studied this case at length, but art reproduction is not my area of expertise.

That said I don't doubt it will do a pretty good job, within the 2.5D limitation. For high end results you probably need to make a custom target which uses the same type of colorants as the artwork you're copying. If lightness is controlled with spectrally flat white/black additives the 2.5D limitation won't hurt.

On this forum I think Iliah Borg is one of the more knowledgeable when it comes to art reproduction if you want profiling tech deep dive.

Doug is right that a custom target can be worthwhile, but you don't need to know the "pipeline" as you profile the whole system, you just need to make sure that you profile with the same gear setup (lens, lights, exposure) as you use when shooting. Making really high end profiles is quite difficult and is a bit of an art, but if you master it you can surely improve on the bundled "bespoke" profiles in CH8, as their profiles still have to be made with some sort of generic target(s).

I'm not sure it's necessary though, it depends on the customer. Actually it would be interesting to test how a CC24 target-based profile would perform in comparison with for example CH8 bundled profiles or a target-specific one. With DCamProf you can do these tests virtually using SSFs. When I've done that type of tests before with various reference data (real human skin, colors from nature etc) it's been shown that it's hard to improve on the CC24 with other generic targets (except for really high saturation colors), you typically need to be spot on with the test target to make meaningful improvements. That is I think a simple CC24-based profile could work for "simpler" work, and for advanced customer work (museums) you might need to do the hard way and actually make a custom target using the same materials as the specific artwork is made of. When LUT smoothing is added on top the results will even out a bit. This is speculation though, as said artwork repro is not my area of expertise.

I assume CH8 out-of-the-box is good enough for most applications though, Doug can probably provide some excellent references.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2015, 01:04:30 pm by torger »
Logged

macphotography08

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13
Re: Camera ICC profiles in Capture One
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2015, 04:15:40 am »

nice information, thanks for sharing.
Pages: [1]   Go Up