Problem - Xrite Colorchecker Passport system

<p>Hi, I tried it out. I have a GMB colorchecker and downloaded the free software. Please refer to images. Shot in RAW, with the incandescent mode inside the house with the lights on.</p>

<p>Nikon D2h. RAW. No flash.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>After the adjustment is applied. </p><div></div>

<p>Aren't you suppose to click for R=G=B neutral in the gray patch next to the white before creating the profile? And expose the scene so that white reads around 230-240 RGB in luminance and the black reads about 20-30 RGB luminance.</p>

<p>Not sure on this since I haven't shot a CC chart for incandescent lighting, only for outdoor daylight. </p>

<p>Those samples look awfully under exposed.</p>

<p>The Xrite passport system has a downloadable software utility which creates the profile. </p>

<p>You use LR or ACR to create a exported DNG you then drag this into the Xrite software and it creates a camea calibration profile for LR by automatically seeking the different patches. You select the image and go to LR develop mode - choose the profile you created under camera calibration and it applies it.</p>

<p>Tried it outside with the camea set to daylight WB. Works great. I preview in LR - X/Y comparison view and I see the differences as the ones you see with Luminous Landscapes - they did a review on it.</p>

<p>Still trying to work around mix lighting. I mean it would be rather more useful to use color mgmt in difficult lighting than daylight. Will try the exposure carefully but then again it gave a color shift which shouldn't be the case the Xrite software also auto detected the patches without a hitch.</p>

<p>As the software says:</p>

<ul>

<li>Open the Raw image of the ColorChecker target that you previously shot. You do not need to perform a white balance; the ColorChecker Passport application will analyze the image and make adjustments automatically.</li>

<li>Do not edit the image. In fact, any edits will be ignored when you begin building the profile.</li>

</ul>

<p>I done some further tests. </p>

<p>Coincides with my indoor icandescent shot. </p>

<p>I find it works well under daylight when you have the camea set at the approx WB. </p>

<p>If in daylight you accidentally shot it in the wrong WB - like incandescent and then try to fix it up it won't work. Regardless if the color chart was shot in incandscent incorrectly or correctly in daylight WB. </p>

<p>In my view it is not a silver bullet and not a insurance policy but it just improves the color if you are a primarily an outdoor shooter in daylight WB and you have a strong workflow established.</p>

<p>Tonight I will do the incandescent again, with the camera set at incandescnet. And see if it would work at all.</p>

<p>Ray, the question I have about trying to create a profile for incandescent is how are the color patches suppose to look under this light when corrected by the profile?</p>

<p>Are you suppose to retain the incandescent amber yellow color cast while making the color patches look the same as they would under full spectrum D50 daylight or are the colors suppose to retain a somewhat incandescent color cast color impurity/ambience?</p>

<p>The instructions say to leave the color cast as is and not to edit in any way and all will be fixed automatically, but what that fixed look is suppose to look like isn't clear. Does fix mean the gray patches should read R=G=B?</p>

<p>I would think that if shooting under incandescent's amber light the photographer is not looking for R=G=B gray, but a better looking hue of amber 3000K color cast.</p>

<p>I see very little difference in the color patches in the before and after but the gray neutrals have noticeably shifted.</p>

<p>Ray, I have a ColorChecker Passport and it works great. I generated a profile for my camera using a shot of the ColorChecker in sunlight and incandescant light (dual luminant profile) and use it for my general profile. <br>

I think you are not clicking on the gray patch with the white balance tool in the RAW converter to set the correct white balance. You still have to set the correct white balance when using the passport profile. The Passport profile does not correct white balance, it's makes the colors more accurate when the correct white balance is set. </p>

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<p>it's makes the colors more accurate when the correct white balance is set.</p>

 

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<p>What is the correct white balance for incandescent lighting? Do you click in the gray patch for R=G=B neutrality or do you adjust WB for what looks accurate to the scene by retaining some warmth that incandescent lights imbue?</p>

<p>Most folks including myself often don't realize with each image shot just how much color temperature influences the look of those color patches and so don't know what manipulation the profile needs to get it to look correct or accurate whatever that may be to produce the right profile.</p>

<p>The page linked below which is a fairly new addition to this very informative site illustrates why I find profiling doesn't do enough to get you closer. In fact it often makes certain scenes with differing contrast ratios overly saturated with certain primary colors.</p>

<p>Note on that page the disconnect between rendering a grayscale properly at the same time trying to control hue/saturation appearance. I can tell you in my experience this is par for the course with a profile doing very little in fixing this. And those shots of prints were made in overcast daylight, not incandescent.</p>

<p>None are no where near what I'ld consider accurate.</p>

<p>http://www.sphoto.com/techinfo/rawconverters/pages/colorchart2.htm</p>

<p>Yeah what I found out was if you purposely do the wrong WB, it won't fix it. If you set it right in daylight WB, it does improve on the color.</p>

<p>Still have to play around with incandescent.</p>

<p>I have a look at the other ideas. Cheers.</p>

<p>Ray, when you work this out, let us know if the results were worth the trouble you went through.</p>

<p>I've found on Raw shots of flowers lit by direct sunlight, using the default ACR 4.4 profile, adjusting the HSL panel combined with very careful tweaking of the color temp (mainly the green/magenta tint) sliders in Adobe Camera Raw got me closer and faster to my desired result than using the custom DNG CC chart profile. </p>

<p>However, my camera is a Pentax K100D where your camera may have better default settings that give better results using a custom profile than mine. Don't know for sure.</p>

<p>But going by the examples in that link I provided it's clear that color can be all over the map with digital camera's requiring the photographer to do most of the heavy lifting if accuracy is the desired result.</p>

<p>I forgot to shoot RAW when I had florescent lighting. So that is a miss. I tried again with incandescent. I can say that my Nikon D70 works better than my Nikon D2h. My D70 does work in incandescent, it gives a hint of warmth just by doing the minimal automation steps. My D2h gives a cast, maybe too warm. The red bed spread also has a yellow shift too. </p>

<p>Daytime as I said before, works great. Even on the D2h. </p>

<p>I tried again, if I purposely muck up the WB on camera, the software does not fix it. </p>

<p>So I think, it works if you camera body corresponds well. But for most photog it might not be worth my time, most times I can pull a few levers and get a satisfactory result. If I was doing product photog or macro or an impt portraiture shoot or studio, I may use it. But they have to be formal shoots, so that I can batch it through.</p>

<p>I don't normally go via the calibration settings, I use ACR via LR. I tried a few, pretty suttle. A few other standard settings but they were way too strong. I normally edit them without going via calibration.</p>

<p>Not sure what you mean going via the calibration settings. Hope you aren't adjusting those sliders. As far as I know the only way you can use a DNG CC chart profile is through the drop down menu in the Calibration Panel in ACR. I don't get any profile selections in this panel to apply to jpegs, but then I've never made a profile from a jpeg. I only do this for Raw processing.</p>

<p>I was talking about using the HSL panel which can give identical if not better results compared to using a profile when shooting high contrast and saturated subjects.</p>

<p>I understand now. </p>

<p>In LR there is a Camera Calibration panel under DEVELOP. I have never used that section ever before, I tried it with my images as above, but they didn't work for me, you can use some of the profiles that LR installs by default but they didn't work for me. Over there you can also change the shadows and RGB primary hue and saturation sliders - I didn't.</p>

<p>Yeah I tend to use HSL and Tone Curve under LR. Maybe some brightness and saturation, exposure, fill light etc.... when required.</p>

<p>Ray,</p>

<p>Below is a scene I just shot today in my kitchen which is lit by a 15watt 5000K/daylight balanced GE Sunshine fluorescent tube. The camera's WB was set to Fluorescent 'W'=White Light Fluorescent Lights.</p>

<p>These lights give off a slight dull yellow hue which the ACR "As Shot" Defaults don't show. If I'ld chosen the incamera WB of Fluorescent 'N'=Daylight White Fluorescent Lights, the "As Shot" would be an almost dead on match.</p>

<p>I've discovered the appearance of "As Shot" color temp influenced by various incamera WB settings, Fluorescent being one of them, vary among camera brands and models even when using AWB.</p>

<p>Note from the sample that using a profile built from a DNG converted shot of the CC chart in <strong>Daylight</strong> will give different results that's far from accurate and primarily influenced by the appearance of color temp. Seeing that camera's balance for fluorescent lights so differently clicking for R=G=B neutral might give biased results in the profile.</p>

<p>Maybe this is why they don't want you to do any editing to the image before the profile is created.</p>

<p>Note also in the sample the "Accurate" version in the bottom left achieved just using color temp adjust and HSL is exactly as my eyes see the subject being it's just a few steps away from my display.</p><div></div>

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<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=749786">Ray -</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"></a>, Dec 06, 2009; 05:44 p.m.</p>

Response to Response to Problem - Xrite Colorchecker Passport system

 

<p>I understand now.<br>

In LR there is a Camera Calibration panel under DEVELOP. I have never used that section ever before, I tried it with my images as above, but they didn't work for me, you can use some of the profiles that LR installs by default but they didn't work for me. Over there you can also change the shadows and RGB primary hue and saturation sliders - I didn't.</p>

 

 

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<blockquote>

<p>Yeah I tend to use HSL and Tone Curve under LR. Maybe some brightness and saturation, exposure, fill light etc.... when required.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ray, the profiles that LR or ACR uses are special profiles developed by Adobe or made by you using the Adobe DNG profiler software. They are not standard camera icm or icc type profiles. Does the software you have make a standard profile or and Adobe type profile? The Adobe type profiles need to be put in a special folder for LR or ACR to find them and for them to show up in the camera profile choices.</p>

<p>I bought a ColorChecker Passport a few weeks ago, and just got around to testing it now. My conclusions mirror yours exactly, i.e. in daylight (in my living room, so overcast-shade) the colours look more realistic using the new profile, and in tungsten light (same living room, same scene, evening, dark outside, one normal bulb, one half-gold bulb) the results are much too yellow and somehow wrong all over. I get quite good results by choosing white-balance on the second-lightest grey field. I was quite careful not to overexpose any colour channels, and I tried both directly in Lightroom (2.6) and also in the Passport program. I tried with both my Leica M8 and my Sinar eMotion 54LV MFDB, with the same results.</p>

<p>I am a bit disappointed, because in the daytime I don't usually have colour problems, and I specifically bought the card to help me get better colours in tungsten lighting. I will see if I can report the problem to X-Rite somewhere.</p>

<p>I just reported the problem via X-Rite's support form, so let us hope that there will be an update soon.</p>

<p>

 

<p>X-Rite downloaded my sample Leica M8 raw file and will be putting it through the Passport program in the coming days. More to come...</p>

 

</p>

<p>X-Rite asked for more photos, and I just sent 2 more exposures of 2 more locations in tungsten lighting, i.e. 4 more photos for them to analyze.</p>

<p>Still more to come...</p>

<p>Carsten, it isn't clear what problems you're having. It sounds like you shot the CCPassport in tungsten lighting; made a profile from that shot; but applying that profile to images shot in that lighting didn't "cure" their tungsten color cast. However, selecting a neutral or warming/cooling chip with the white-balance eyedropper corrects the white balance fairly well. Is that the case?</p>

 

<p>I also did a white balance before running the program, as described in the guidelines. Yes, the white balance works well, but not perfectly. That is what the profile was meant to solve.</p>

<p>Yes, my profiles tended the reds toward yellow and orange'ish also, but very minutely and in every light I tried. The blues shift favorably, however. In any case, the Passport software should be ignoring whatever edits might be stored in the DNG. It's trying to profile the camera sensor. And since that's the case, I apply the calibration profile very early, during import in LightRoom. Subsequent white balance uses the colors as adjusted by the profile. It still isn't perfect, but very close in my use.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Yes, that is what I was hoping for my use too, but I still get the best results with Lightroom's own WB, and that just ain't right after spending €100 :)</p>