Blown reds & Adobe RGB

[kevm14]

Just another test report in my string of them. I promise I'm actually using my camera, not just testing it.

Once again, in the midst of processing these wedding photos I stumbled upon this one. I normally shoot in sRGB for landscapes (IIIa).

This lady's shirt was all blown out, even with the saturation set to Normal (not Enhanced). So on a whim, I set the color mode to II and low and behold - significantly retained red detail. Check it out.

Before (IIIa):



After (II):



IIIa crop:



II crop:



I have a serious of pictures I took of a red car and the reds looked horrible. Now I want to re-shoot in aRGB!

 

[THKTHK]

Yes, it is a well known problem. The more saturated red a subject is, the worse this is. Probably they do not like bright red dress in Japan, otherwise I cannot understand how a camera allowed to behave like this.

I had the camera for only about a week and ran into the same, because our girls had red coat for winter. It is not just the false colour in sRGB, but also fine detail completely missing:



To make things worse, if you shoot in RAW and use Nikon Capture for convert and save in sRGB JPG (for web, for friends, for printing - Adobe RGB isn't recognised everywhere), you'll have the same result.

But when you select Adobe RGB colour space and convert to sRGB in Photoshop, it will remain OK!

--
Henrik

 

[RomanJohnston]

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/printer_gamuts/

Go to the link above and download the VRML plugin for your browser and play.

If you choose the default color space and then choose the D70 you will see why. Reds and some blues are chopped off even in the aRGB color space....evedinced by your testing....(and purple is VERY difficult to nail with a D70)

If you shoot in RAW and convert in Photoshop (or you can add the color space of Nikon Capture..just add the profile to the folder nikon looks to to get its profiles from, and you can add any profile to the available list) to ProPhotoRGB you will capture ALL your color......then when you CONVERT to a diffrent color space, you can have it taken into consideration during the conversion.

Roman
--

Photoshop is like bondo. Use it to smooth out and polish your work, not to compensate for your lack of body work skills.

http://www.pbase.com/romansphotos/

 

[kevm14]

To make things worse, if you shoot in RAW and use Nikon Capture for
convert and save in sRGB JPG (for web, for friends, for printing -
Adobe RGB isn't recognised everywhere), you'll have the same result.
But when you select Adobe RGB colour space and convert to sRGB in
Photoshop, it will remain OK!

Yes, that's exactly what I did. Another reason why I haven't saved a single JPEG with NC. I feel CS2 is waaay more sophisticated at it.

 

[echelon2004]

electronic shutter blooming, the price we pay for faster flash sync speed on the D70/D70s.
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[RomanJohnston]

Not sure where you get your info from.....but if it was electronic shutter blooming it wouldnt change with a change of color space. I did quite a bit of testing on this and it truly is a color space issue.

I have only seen blooming effect brightness of things like the sun my my D70.

Roman

electronic shutter blooming, the price we pay for faster flash sync
speed on the D70/D70s.
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

--

Photoshop is like bondo. Use it to smooth out and polish your work, not to compensate for your lack of body work skills.

http://www.pbase.com/romansphotos/

 

[THKTHK]

Thanks for the link, I'll play with it

But what can be the explanation for the camera (or Nikon Capture) chopping off reds way sooner than Photoshop? Isn't sRGB colour space standardised?

I like Nikon Capture, and would not use Photoshop for most pictures (precisely why I like NC: mostly everything can be done with it) - but if there is a bigger red subject on it, there is no choice, I have to use PS for simply converting correctly into sRGB.

--
Henrik

 

[johnnymcclung]

This is probably the only / main reason why I will leave my D70s for the D80 or D200 at some point. I love the D70s to death especially the size / weight etc. I have several shots into the sun - or similar shots where it way blown out because of the electronic shutter chip deal taking up space on the CCD...

electronic shutter blooming, the price we pay for faster flash sync
speed on the D70/D70s.
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

--
'Procrastinate now, don't put it off.'

 

[RomanJohnston]

Thanks for the link, I'll play with it

Cool...it will become quite evedent once you look at the modles.

But what can be the explanation for the camera (or Nikon Capture)
chopping off reds way sooner than Photoshop? Isn't sRGB colour
space standardised?

Its not a photoshop thing....its a color space thing....when you use sRGB...(once you look at the color space modles in 3D) you will see how it chops off the red....aRGB being a bit larger only chops off a smidge....ProPhotoRGB is quite a bit larger...but contains ALL the color space of the D70....and THAT is why I said it was my choice of color spaces.

I like Nikon Capture, and would not use Photoshop for most pictures
(precisely why I like NC: mostly everything can be done with it) -
but if there is a bigger red subject on it, there is no choice, I
have to use PS for simply converting correctly into sRGB.

Like I said earlier...just download the ProPhotoRGB color space and put it in the folder that Capture used to choose color spaces from...(cant remember where it is...but if you try to change your default color space...the browser that changes it will show you where they are) and just drop in that color space...it will be avalible for RAW conversions.

--
Henrik

--

Photoshop is like bondo. Use it to smooth out and polish your work, not to compensate for your lack of body work skills.

http://www.pbase.com/romansphotos/

 

[kevm14]

Thanks for the link, I'll play with it

But what can be the explanation for the camera (or Nikon Capture)
chopping off reds way sooner than Photoshop? Isn't sRGB colour
space standardised?

I like Nikon Capture, and would not use Photoshop for most pictures
(precisely why I like NC: mostly everything can be done with it) -
but if there is a bigger red subject on it, there is no choice, I
have to use PS for simply converting correctly into sRGB.

Hey you're onto something.

I just converted my test NEF in ACR, staying in sRGB. Here are the results:



This is the aRGB from NC for comparison:



And this is the sRGB from NC:



What's going on here??? I like the color of the ACR one the most but I dislike ACR as a RAW converter. It can't use the custom curve I had in my camera, there's no D-lighting, etc, etc. What to do...

 

[echelon2004]

be effected enough to prevent clipping by rendition in sRGB or Adobe RGB?

That makes absolutely no sense, and if the problem would be poor color management in Nikon software, shooting raw and converting in a proper raw converter should cure the problem totally, which it doesn't.

Early clipping of the red channel is a common, well documented problem with the D70, it is not something I just invented

Cheers
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[kevm14]

be effected enough to prevent clipping by rendition in sRGB or
Adobe RGB?

That makes absolutely no sense, and if the problem would be poor
color management in Nikon software, shooting raw and converting in
a proper raw converter should cure the problem totally, which it
doesn't.

Early clipping of the red channel is a common, well documented
problem with the D70, it is not something I just invented

I believe that in my example where I used aRGB (or used ACR and sRGB) the remaining blown reds are perfectly inline with other blown highlights in the picture. Meaning, to my uncalibrated eyes, the reds do not appear to be clipping prematurely, compared to the other channels.

The question is, why does the NC sRGB processing seem to blow them horrifically where NC aRGB or ACR sRGB does not?

 

[echelon2004]

Don't look through the viewfinder of a D200, it will cost you $1699

Still trying to resist, really have no use for another camera, but I'm getting weaker every day...
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[RomanJohnston]

Check out the link I posted in an above post.

It will explain everything.....seeing the diffrent color spaces.

Roman

be effected enough to prevent clipping by rendition in sRGB or
Adobe RGB?

That makes absolutely no sense, and if the problem would be poor
color management in Nikon software, shooting raw and converting in
a proper raw converter should cure the problem totally, which it
doesn't.

Early clipping of the red channel is a common, well documented
problem with the D70, it is not something I just invented

Cheers
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

--

Photoshop is like bondo. Use it to smooth out and polish your work, not to compensate for your lack of body work skills.

http://www.pbase.com/romansphotos/

 

[THKTHK]

Its not a photoshop thing....its a color space thing....when you
use sRGB...(once you look at the color space modles in 3D) you will
see how it chops off the red....aRGB being a bit larger only chops
off a smidge....ProPhotoRGB is quite a bit larger...but contains
ALL the color space of the D70....and THAT is why I said it was my
choice of color spaces.

I understand aRGB is more wide space than sRGB and also can imagine ProPhotoRGB to be even wider. Most of the time aRGB is fine for me, reds look acceptable.

What I do not understand though: sRGB from Photoshop is also fine! It is only the sRGB output from Nikon Capture (or right from the camera in JPG) what chops reds too early.
So it seems the way Nikon converts into sRGB is not proper for saturated reds.

If it was possible to change this conversion in Nikon Capture with a user defined colour profile, I would be most happy.

--
Henrik

 

[echelon2004]

I'm quite familiar with color management thank you=)

I couldn't view the link you provided as it demands some funky plug-in which I don't have, but almost all the difference in the sRGB and Adobe RGB is in the blue-green spectrum.

Thus your theory can't possibly be correct. The difference between the renditions is by far too large.

BTW, I wouldn't referre people to drycreek for evidence, it is the color and printing equivalent of rockwell...

Cheers pal...
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[THKTHK]

I remember somebody complaining about the same clipped reds even on a D200 in sRGB.

If this is true (I'm not sure), then it is clearly not the electronic shutter, just the way Nikon does sRGB conversion.

--
Henrik

 

[kevm14]

I understand aRGB is more wide space than sRGB and also can imagine
ProPhotoRGB to be even wider. Most of the time aRGB is fine for me,
reds look acceptable.
What I do not understand though: sRGB from Photoshop is also fine!
It is only the sRGB output from Nikon Capture (or right from the
camera in JPG) what chops reds too early.

Right, I posted an example of this above.

What about if I wanted to shoot JPEG? I guess I'd have to use aRGB. But what would my workflow be to maintain correct color rendition? Would I have to setup my CS2 in some way to work in the aRGB colorspace then save to sRGB for web viewing/printing?

 

[THKTHK]

be effected enough to prevent clipping by rendition in sRGB or
Adobe RGB?

It is possible, if it was not clipped in RAW, just during conversion.

Both statements can be true: it is perfectly possible that D70 itself, even in RAW, clips reds earlier than other cameras.

Beside this, it is also possible that it oversaturates reds (probably for the sake of nice skin colour) in sRGB.

At least, this is what we see in the above examples: aRGB is fine, sRGB looses red details (and even has false, more orange-like colour).

--
Henrik

 

[echelon2004]

to be a result of the rather weak IR filter in the D70.

I have not seen any mentioning of the problem with D200, would be interesting to see?

I never ever shoot jpg with my D70, thus Nikons sRGB makes no difference at all to me. Yet, the red channel shows clipping in RGB histogram earlier then the other channels even when it shouldn't.

I never ever use Nikon Capture either, so that is not the problem either.

Color management problems can't cause the problem.

According to Nikon here in sweden it is a result of the electronic shutter, but if what you said about the D200 is true, then the information I relayed obviously isn't accurate.

Cheers=)
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism