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Profiling the D700 with ColorChecker Passport - test results

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Julian Vrieslander

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I built a daylight profile for my D700 with X-Rite's ColorChecker Passport software, and processed a few shots to compare it against Adobe's canned ("standard") profiles. You can find the test shots and an explanation of my method here:

http://julianv.zenfolio.com/p564329719

I'm just starting out with camera profile building, and interested in comparing notes with others who have been doing it for a while.
 
On some images I find the ColorChecker Passport profile results in over-saturated reds. If you have that problem you can try the Adobe DNG Profile Editor. It will create a profile from you ColorChecker Passport image that has a somewhat different interpretation than the X-Rite software. The Adobe DNG Profile Editor is free.
--
Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
 
Robin Casady said:
On some images I find the ColorChecker Passport profile results in over-saturated reds. If you have that problem you can try the Adobe DNG Profile Editor. It will create a profile from you ColorChecker Passport image that has a somewhat different interpretation than the X-Rite software. The Adobe DNG Profile Editor is free.
Click to expand...
Yes, I've already seen quite a few shots where the reds seemed to be coming off the screen. Thanks for the tip about the DNG Profile Editor - I'd forgotten about that one.

A few months ago I had a chance to run some tests on a pre-production version of Datacolor's SpyderChekr. Instead of creating DNG camera profiles, it creates presets for the HSL palettes in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom. This has the advantage that you can fine tune the effects on individual colors, saving the changes in your preset or just in a particular image. The disadvantage is that if you have other presets that you use in the HSL palette, you will have to think about how (or whether) to combine them with the SpyderChekr presets.

I found the SpyderChekr's color corrections for my D700 to be in the same directions as those from ColorChecker Passport, but a bit more subtle. The reds were not pushed as hard.

Which brings up a question I have had for a long time. When I use the built-in camera profiles in ACR, the reds from my D700 and D2X shots often seem desaturated and/or biased toward orange. Why is this? When I use custom profiling products, this is the most obvious correction. Could it be that reds are dialed back intentionally, because they are often clipped in images metered by automatic exposure systems?
 
If you want to adjust the tone curve for the profile, use the Tone Tab of the Adobe DNG profile editor to modify the tone curve and save a new profile. You can also adjust saturation of the profile by using the Color Matrices tab and adjusting the Primary Saturation sliders for Red, Green, and Blue by equal amounts. You may be able to tone the Red down by just adjusting the Red, but I have not tried that.

Adobe has released a new version of the DNG Profile Editor that meet version 1.2 of the DNG specification. You should use the new version if you plan to make any adjustments to the version 2 or 3 of the Camera profiles since they do not work with the first version of the DNG Profile Editor.
 
Yep. As opposed to Nikon software, ACR tries hard not to blow reds. It produces a flatter tiff version. Depending on a lot of factors - like how accurate is your monitor and how carefully has it been calibrated - red can be a difficult channel to conquer. Red flowers, red jerseys, orange poppies, etc, etc can all be problems. The red channel can easily blow. When I see this might happen I usually drop the exposure .3 to even a full stop. If you are extremely good with PS CS5 you can make a red mask to handle the troublesome reds without affecting other colors. Back in the days of Cibachrome, red masking was often necessary. All done with film!!!
Julian Vrieslander said:
Robin Casady said:
On some images I find the ColorChecker Passport profile results in over-saturated reds. If you have that problem you can try the Adobe DNG Profile Editor. It will create a profile from you ColorChecker Passport image that has a somewhat different interpretation than the X-Rite software. The Adobe DNG Profile Editor is free.
Click to expand...
Yes, I've already seen quite a few shots where the reds seemed to be coming off the screen. Thanks for the tip about the DNG Profile Editor - I'd forgotten about that one.

A few months ago I had a chance to run some tests on a pre-production version of Datacolor's SpyderChekr. Instead of creating DNG camera profiles, it creates presets for the HSL palettes in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom. This has the advantage that you can fine tune the effects on individual colors, saving the changes in your preset or just in a particular image. The disadvantage is that if you have other presets that you use in the HSL palette, you will have to think about how (or whether) to combine them with the SpyderChekr presets.

I found the SpyderChekr's color corrections for my D700 to be in the same directions as those from ColorChecker Passport, but a bit more subtle. The reds were not pushed as hard.

Which brings up a question I have had for a long time. When I use the built-in camera profiles in ACR, the reds from my D700 and D2X shots often seem desaturated and/or biased toward orange. Why is this? When I use custom profiling products, this is the most obvious correction. Could it be that reds are dialed back intentionally, because they are often clipped in images metered by automatic exposure systems?
Click to expand...
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com
 
b2martin_a said:
Adobe has released a new version of the DNG Profile Editor that meet version 1.2 of the DNG specification. You should use the new version if you plan to make any adjustments to the version 2 or 3 of the Camera profiles since they do not work with the first version of the DNG Profile Editor.
Click to expand...
Do you have a link for 1.2? I could only find 1.0 Beta 3.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs%5Fdngprofileeditor
--
Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
 
It would be interesting to corner one of the engineers from Adobe and ask them why ACR is dialing back on reds. Does it do this with raw files from other cameras, too?

Here's a bit of speculation. Camera exposure metering systems sometimes fail to take into account the bright red objects in a scene. When the white balance code kicks in, the reds get boosted, and clipped. So perhaps Adobe feels that toning down the reds helps to preserve detail in that channel.
Steve Bingham said:
Yep. As opposed to Nikon software, ACR tries hard not to blow reds. It produces a flatter tiff version. Depending on a lot of factors - like how accurate is your monitor and how carefully has it been calibrated - red can be a difficult channel to conquer. Red flowers, red jerseys, orange poppies, etc, etc can all be problems. The red channel can easily blow. When I see this might happen I usually drop the exposure .3 to even a full stop. If you are extremely good with PS CS5 you can make a red mask to handle the troublesome reds without affecting other colors. Back in the days of Cibachrome, red masking was often necessary. All done with film!!!
Click to expand...
 
DNG Profile Editor 1.0 Beta 3 is the latest copy. This version meets the DNG 1.2 specifications. Version 2 and 3 Camera profiles for the D700 and others will not work with the previous version of DNG Profile Editor. Sorry for the confusion.
 
Actually, it probably has more to do with spectral sensitivities of an RGB sensor. However, this would open up a huge very scientific discussion if thoroughly discussed. Do a search on dpreview. It gets pretty complicated!
Julian Vrieslander said:
It would be interesting to corner one of the engineers from Adobe and ask them why ACR is dialing back on reds. Does it do this with raw files from other cameras, too?

Here's a bit of speculation. Camera exposure metering systems sometimes fail to take into account the bright red objects in a scene. When the white balance code kicks in, the reds get boosted, and clipped. So perhaps Adobe feels that toning down the reds helps to preserve detail in that channel.
Steve Bingham said:
Yep. As opposed to Nikon software, ACR tries hard not to blow reds. It produces a flatter tiff version. Depending on a lot of factors - like how accurate is your monitor and how carefully has it been calibrated - red can be a difficult channel to conquer. Red flowers, red jerseys, orange poppies, etc, etc can all be problems. The red channel can easily blow. When I see this might happen I usually drop the exposure .3 to even a full stop. If you are extremely good with PS CS5 you can make a red mask to handle the troublesome reds without affecting other colors. Back in the days of Cibachrome, red masking was often necessary. All done with film!!!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com
 
Steve, some questions. I read your posts in http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1021&thread=36169012&page=4 carefully, and have some questions. Tried to make camera profiles for D700 with x-rite CC chart and x-rite "free Passport"software (PS CS5) but did'n get very good results - some patches are ok, some are off. Can you add some information about your settings?

1) any preference for in-camera settings, or these just need to be the same for both reference ColorChecker shot and "real" shots (yes, I understand about right exposure and WB),
2) what settings in ACR for saving .dng, or it's irrevelant,

3) more about ACR settings when you tweak exposure/WB before setting camera profile - what about brightness/contrast/blacks etc, or you just use Auto and let ACR do things. Also, what about Tone Curve - just ACR default Medium Contrast?
Thanks in advance,

--
Peteris
 
Peteris said:
1) any preference for in-camera settings, or these just need to be the same for both reference ColorChecker shot and "real" shots (yes, I understand about right exposure and WB),
Click to expand...
Shoot RAW. WB is then irrelevant to creating profiles. I shoot everything with UniWB and it hasn't affected ColorChecker Passport profiles.
Peteris said:
2) what settings in ACR for saving .dng, or it's irrevelant,
Click to expand...
I believe it is irrelevant.
Peteris said:
3) more about ACR settings when you tweak exposure/WB before setting camera profile - what about brightness/contrast/blacks etc, or you just use Auto and let ACR do things. Also, what about Tone Curve - just ACR default Medium Contrast?
Thanks in advance,
Click to expand...
I like to set the camera profile first. Other settings depend on the image and what I want from it. I'll sometimes use Auto to see what it does, but usually tweak it or undo it completely.

--
Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
 
I would pretty much agree with Robin on these three questions.
How do you know some of your patches are off - as you stated?
Robin Casady said:
Peteris said:
1) any preference for in-camera settings, or these just need to be the same for both reference ColorChecker shot and "real" shots (yes, I understand about right exposure and WB),
Click to expand...
Shoot RAW. WB is then irrelevant to creating profiles. I shoot everything with UniWB and it hasn't affected ColorChecker Passport profiles.
Robin Casady said:
2) what settings in ACR for saving .dng, or it's irrevelant,
Click to expand...
I believe it is irrelevant.
Robin Casady said:
3) more about ACR settings when you tweak exposure/WB before setting camera profile - what about brightness/contrast/blacks etc, or you just use Auto and let ACR do things. Also, what about Tone Curve - just ACR default Medium Contrast?
Thanks in advance,
Click to expand...
I like to set the camera profile first. Other settings depend on the image and what I want from it. I'll sometimes use Auto to see what it does, but usually tweak it or undo it completely.

--
Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
Click to expand...
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com
 
Thanks for answers!
Steve Bingham said:
How do you know some of your patches are off - as you stated?
Click to expand...
I make custom profile and load nef with ColorChecker in it in ACR. Make some tweaks (exposure), set custom camera profile and open in PS CS5. Where I check with color picker. For example, blue patch is always too dark, dark skin also is off etc. So I'm jealous because you wrote 8 months ago "I get extremely accurate results - as measured by my CS5 color picker in the tiff files. By accurate I mean only 1-2 points away". Ok, I will test another lighting and see, although need accurate colors in what i already tried.
 
Peteris said:
Peteris said:
How do you know some of your patches are off - as you stated?
Click to expand...
I make custom profile and load nef with ColorChecker in it in ACR. Make some tweaks (exposure), set custom camera profile and open in PS CS5. Where I check with color picker. For example, blue patch is always too dark, dark skin also is off etc. So I'm jealous because you wrote 8 months ago "I get extremely accurate results - as measured by my CS5 color picker in the tiff files. By accurate I mean only 1-2 points away". Ok, I will test another lighting and see, although need accurate colors in what i already tried.
Click to expand...
Is your monitor calibrated? Have you compared it with a print?
--
Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
 
Make some tweaks (exposure),

This makes me nervous. Before converting to tiff?

You should start with:

1- Make sure your camera is white balanced for the situation. Use the Macbeth White Balance or Gray Scale Card

2- Make sure your monitor is calibrated properly

Failure to do both of these can invalidate your patches.

It is not as easy as I make it sound. Please accept my apologies. Check patches 6 and 11. If there is a problem with blues or yellows, these values will be reversed.

Go to http://www.gretagmacbeth.com for more help.
Peteris said:
Peteris said:
How do you know some of your patches are off - as you stated?
Click to expand...
I make custom profile and load nef with ColorChecker in it in ACR. Make some tweaks (exposure), set custom camera profile and open in PS CS5. Where I check with color picker. For example, blue patch is always too dark, dark skin also is off etc. So I'm jealous because you wrote 8 months ago "I get extremely accurate results - as measured by my CS5 color picker in the tiff files. By accurate I mean only 1-2 points away". Ok, I will test another lighting and see, although need accurate colors in what i already tried.
Click to expand...
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com
 
Also, where are you getting the value numbers? I am not sure the large and small charts use the same values! Also, there are a lot of conflicting values floating around the net. http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1257
Steve Bingham said:
This makes me nervous. Before converting to tiff?

You should start with:

1- Make sure your camera is white balanced for the situation. Use the Macbeth White Balance or Gray Scale Card

2- Make sure your monitor is calibrated properly

Failure to do both of these can invalidate your patches.

It is not as easy as I make it sound. Please accept my apologies. Check patches 6 and 11. If there is a problem with blues or yellows, these values will be reversed.

Go to http://www.gretagmacbeth.com for more help.
Peteris said:
Steve Bingham said:
How do you know some of your patches are off - as you stated?
Click to expand...
I make custom profile and load nef with ColorChecker in it in ACR. Make some tweaks (exposure), set custom camera profile and open in PS CS5. Where I check with color picker. For example, blue patch is always too dark, dark skin also is off etc. So I'm jealous because you wrote 8 months ago "I get extremely accurate results - as measured by my CS5 color picker in the tiff files. By accurate I mean only 1-2 points away". Ok, I will test another lighting and see, although need accurate colors in what i already tried.
Click to expand...
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com
Click to expand...
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com
 
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