D-80 not capturing true colors - Purple

[srichardson]

Hello everyone,

I'm having a hard time getting my D80 to show the actual shade of purple. I am shooting some shots that contain

purple objects and they are coming out blue. I only shoot RAW. I have been looking at the RGB in the histogram

and it doesn't show any clipping on any of the color channels. I thought this might cause the problem. I did some

more experimenting yesterday, shooting a Taco Bell container. It has some vivid purple in it. Every shot, in

every configuration, and using all my white balancing techniques turned out a shade of blue in place of the

purple. All the other colors are very true. I have tried everything I know to get the colors of the purple to

match. I have used a gray card, white balance card, coffee filter, coffee can lid, to set my white balance.. None

of those would give me a true shade of purple and keep the other colors correct. Let me make one thing clear. I

can get the color of the purple to match the original purple by setting my white balance to make it the correct

shade, but every other color is off then. I cannot get a white balance setting to get all the colors correct at

the same time. I can correct it in post processing, but doing that, I'm having to guess from memory what the

shade really looked like. How do you get around these kind of problems?

 

Thanks,

Steven

[phule]

Coming out blue where? On the LCD of the camera? On the screen of your computer? On your prints?

[Matt Laur]

Right. You certainly can't judge color accuracy using the camera's LCD display (and, remember - what you're seeing there is a thumbnail derived from a JPG version of the RAW file, whether you're storing only RAW files or not). That means you have to judge color on a computer display or a print. And if your display isn't calibrated properly, or your printer driver and your choices of paper definition (in the print dialogs, as you send the print job) aren't right, then color WILL be (or appear to be) wrong.

[srichardson]

Rob,

On the camera LCD, and PC screen.. All the other color shades look great on both the Camera and PC.. I'm just having trouble with purple colors..

[ShunCheung]

Check out this thread:

http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00HQ8E

[pankaj purohit]

I don't think that anything can capture true colors. Purple is one of the most difficult color to achieve

perfectly as I experienced so far. That's all depend on yourself that how perfectly you can represent a art piece

using the camera and your computer.

[david.elliott]

If you try adobe's profile editor (for camera raw) and shoot a color chart, you should get pretty accurate color.

 

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles:Editor

 

Might be worth giving it a go.

[srichardson]

Thanks everyone.. I've been doing some more shots.

 

 

 

Rob,

After comparing the LCD and the PC shots. I see that the LCD is way off as compared to the RAW file when viewed on my PC. I never noticed the difference until you brought that up. I guess the camera is capturing the color, just not as well as I would like for it to, but the LCD on the Camera is not displaying it well.

 

I can and have tweaked the purples in post processing, and can make them work that way. It makes me feel better knowing that purple is a difficult color for everyone.

 

David,

I will take a look at the ink you sent.. Thanks.

[ilkka_nissila]

In order to reproduce the appearance of all colours correctly in a photograph, you would need to reproduce the

spectral reflectance of the subject. This cannot be done by using just three different filters on top of the

sensor. Having a few dozen different filters would be good, but then you'd lose a lot of spatial resolution to

gain spectral resolution. I think you just need to accept that photography doesn't reproduce true colours,

and live with it. ;-)

[phule]

[[i see that the LCD is way off as compared to the RAW file when viewed on my PC. I never noticed the difference until you brought that up.]]

 

This is one of those aspects of digital photography that a lot of people don't really realize until they encounter a problem like you have here. The LCD on a camera is not a highly accurate color calibrated device (though wouldn't it be nice if we saw such a thing in the future?). The LCD is there to review composition, exposure (via the histogram), shooting data but beyond that it really should not be relied upon for accuracy. Always allow for some wiggle room. :)

 

Hopefully when the manufacturers get the LCD issues worked out they also have worked out the issues with purple!

[aaron l]

Are you using an Xrite white card or color chip card as a base. White balance off the xrite white card. If you're using

just paper, coffee can lids or whatever, these items will induce a surprising amount of color shift. When you need

accurate colors, you'll have to shoot a sample card in your image with the exact same lighting, then match in post.

 

Many objects which look to be the same color under one type of light source can and will appear different colors

under another light source. This effect is called metamerism and is a complicated blend of different reflectance

characteristics that add up to the same color you see using a tristimulus response of your eye.

 

Also, if you monitor isn't calibrated, you'll have issues, too. The LCD on the camera won't get you accurate

representations of color, either. If you're editing in PS, look at the color space you're using as well as what color

viewing space you're using in proof setup under view. I've had wildly different colors because I wasn't using the

correct viewing space.

[ronb]

I had the same difficulty getting accurate purples in my shots. I got good results using the preset white balance function on my camera (with a gray card).

[srichardson]

Aaron,, I was using a gray card ,and all the other methods that I mention in the first post for my white balance. I know what you mean about different color shifts. I have seen the difference using the different items to do white balance. I'm going to look at the Xrite. I've been using a gray card as my reference in my post correction. It has been doing a pretty good job. I don't have too much problem correcting the colors in PS. It all comes down to to me wanting to get the colors a good as they can be when I take the RAW shot in the camera before post. I feel like the better and closer the colors are when the file is captured in the camera, the better it will be over all, and a lot less post editing.