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RiccardoR

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Hallo everybody,

I'm going to profile my new Minolta A2 and I would like to know if some one of shooted on real daylight (the sunlight, but not direct) some of this Color Input Targets:

Kodak Q-60, Agfa IT8, Machbeth ecc.

I'm looking forward MRW file abput those subjects.

I'll be fine to labor on it also if I know it will be better to work with an input file obtained directly from my camera ... but before buying the target I would like to make some practice.

Riccardo.
 
I'm using the GretagMacbeth Mini ColorChecker.

Here is a sunny sample.

http://www.orlans-amo.be/A2_Pictures/PICT0788.MRW
Romulus
RiccardoR said:
Hallo everybody,

I'm going to profile my new Minolta A2 and I would like to know if
some one of shooted on real daylight (the sunlight, but not direct)
some of this Color Input Targets:

Kodak Q-60, Agfa IT8, Machbeth ecc.

I'm looking forward MRW file abput those subjects.

I'll be fine to labor on it also if I know it will be better to
work with an input file obtained directly from my camera ... but
before buying the target I would like to make some practice.

Riccardo.
Click to expand...
 
I processed the MRW image with Photoshop CS and ACR 2.2 and I ended up with those custom settings (I left the WB inaltered):

Exposure: +0.15
Shadows: 0
Brightness: 18
Contrast: +25
Saturation: +93
Sharpness: 25
LuminanceSmoothing: 50
ColorNoiseReduction: 50
ChromaticAberrationR: 0
ChromaticAberrationB: 0
VignetteAmount: 0
ShadowTint: 0
RedHue: -11
RedSaturation: -42
GreenHue: +45
GreenSaturation: -25
BlueHue: +8
BlueSaturation: -16

I've followed the instruction contained in this article http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/21351-2.html

At the end I found a good response with the green channel but a slightly drift on the blue and expecially on the red. So I added a Selective Color Adjustments in PS with those settings:

Blues: Y -10
Reds: C +28

You can see my final result on:

http://www.pbase.com/image/31661256

What do you think about it?

Now my expectation:

I would like to apply those settings to all the images for fast batch conversion because I need good quality jpeg preview.

Following the above settings I probably will have good (not perfect) color response (better than Camera Default).

and my doubt:

I left the WB (Temperature:5150 Tint:8) inaltereted ... does those two values influences differently the drift camera color response? In other words may I apply the same color settings with different temperatures and tint and obtain the same good correction?

Riccardo.
Romulus said:
Here is a sunny sample.

http://www.orlans-amo.be/A2_Pictures/PICT0788.MRW
Romulus
RiccardoR said:
Hallo everybody,

I'm going to profile my new Minolta A2 and I would like to know if
some one of shooted on real daylight (the sunlight, but not direct)
some of this Color Input Targets:

Kodak Q-60, Agfa IT8, Machbeth ecc.

I'm looking forward MRW file abput those subjects.

I'll be fine to labor on it also if I know it will be better to
work with an input file obtained directly from my camera ... but
before buying the target I would like to make some practice.

Riccardo.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I attanded a Photoshop workshop where the two instructors had incidentally worked on a month long project trying to profile a Canon 1dS and an Imacon 22meg scanning back to take high accuracy photos under controlled conditions. They took thousands of RAW shots of targets. There conclusion was that there is too much variation in the camera output and it was a waste of time. To do it correctly you would have over a thousand profiles for different types of photos. They were doing this indoors using 'calibrated' studio lighting (that stuff is expensive!!). There recommendation was to take a photo of a white patch (not grey) and use Photoshop to balance to the white patch for the rest of the images from that photoshoot. If lighting conditions change shoot another white patch. These guys work with color accuracy every day as part of their job and if they said it was a waste of time I believed them. They had samples to go with their data and it did look like there was no benefit to be obtained from profiling a camera.
RiccardoR said:
Hallo everybody,

I'm going to profile my new Minolta A2 and I would like to know if
some one of shooted on real daylight (the sunlight, but not direct)
some of this Color Input Targets:

Kodak Q-60, Agfa IT8, Machbeth ecc.

I'm looking forward MRW file abput those subjects.

I'll be fine to labor on it also if I know it will be better to
work with an input file obtained directly from my camera ... but
before buying the target I would like to make some practice.

Riccardo.
Click to expand...
--
http://www.garageglamour.com/portfolios/greatphotos
 
Jerre wrote:
...
Jerre said:
There recommendation
was to take a photo of a white patch (not grey) and use Photoshop
to balance to the white patch for the rest of the images from that
photoshoot. If lighting conditions change shoot another white
patch. These guys work with color accuracy every day as part of
their job and if they said it was a waste of time I believed them.
They had samples to go with their data and it did look like there
was no benefit to be obtained from profiling a camera.
Click to expand...
Your suggestion is welcome and I'll experiment it for secure.

But ... what about if I'm shooting a wide landscape with focus to infinity where do I have to put the white patch? What about Spot Lighting?
How can I reproduce the color accuracy in those cases?

I decided to buy a Minolta A2 because I was enthusiast reading the review on http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/konica-minolta-a2.shtml ... in the Colour Accuracy section it sasy to click on the 18% gray square on the GretachMacBeth with the gray point selector (to set the colour balance) and see what happens to all of the colours. (I think this is equivalent to shot white patch and PS balancing).

Those two method fixes the tonal values (Adjust tab in ACR) but they don't fixes Color Response (Calibrate tab in ACR).

In fact the review says that the are some color drift and ended with "Nothing that can't be corrected with either a custom profile or a bit of work in Photoshop."

In addition in the article mentioned in my first post it's written that the pigments used to create the ubiquitous 24-patch Macbeth Color Checker don't shift color appearance dramatically under different lighting ... this means probably that the Calibration tab setings that I have done in ACR for a specific Tonal setting (obtained with white patch shotting mentioned by Jerre or with whatever else method) could be used and valuable also for differente light temperature, tint and balancing.

I'm secure that my settings couldn't reproduce well all the situations but I will be happy if they will do a good job (better than ACR custom setting) in most cases. The point is I can apply those setting in batch process without any manual settings.
What do you think?
 
Romulus said:
A more interesting exercise with A2 raw and ColorChecker.

If you succeed with this one, you'll get rich.

http://www.orlans-amo.be/A2_Pictures/PICT0922.MRW
Click to expand...
This is funny - or worrying - depending on your point of view...

I've been playing with the ACR calibration for my A2, the defaults were just not close enough for my liking. So I thought I'd have a look at your image; I overlaid your Macbeth checker with an electronic version, punched some holes in it to view yours through it and could clearly see that my reds were a bit off - green and blue were near perfect. Back into ACR, push up the red saturation a little, hit ok and... get a pop-up from CS telling me that it refuses to process banknotes and refers me to an internet information site. I didn't know it did that... but I guess my A2 colour calibration is near enough now!

PS: according to the info sites for US and Euro currency images your image is perfectly legal. I guess Adobe are a bit paranoid about being used in a couterfeit operation.

PPS: I wonder if I raised any red flags anywhere...

--
Regards

John Bean
 
hahahaha ... yeah it's funny!!

I also got up the pop-up when I have finished the calibration ... now I know how to obtain a good result but I think It's not possible with batch conversion ... I always have to calibrate the Adjust Tag in ACR.

How can I manage wide landscape picture with focus to infinity? How can I use the Macbeth?

Riccardo.
John Bean (UK) said:
Romulus said:
A more interesting exercise with A2 raw and ColorChecker.

If you succeed with this one, you'll get rich.

http://www.orlans-amo.be/A2_Pictures/PICT0922.MRW
Click to expand...
This is funny - or worrying - depending on your point of view...

I've been playing with the ACR calibration for my A2, the defaults
were just not close enough for my liking. So I thought I'd have a
look at your image; I overlaid your Macbeth checker with an
electronic version, punched some holes in it to view yours through
it and could clearly see that my reds were a bit off - green and
blue were near perfect. Back into ACR, push up the red saturation a
little, hit ok and... get a pop-up from CS telling me that it
refuses to process banknotes and refers me to an internet
information site. I didn't know it did that... but I guess my A2
colour calibration is near enough now!

PS: according to the info sites for US and Euro currency images
your image is perfectly legal. I guess Adobe are a bit paranoid
about being used in a couterfeit operation.

PPS: I wonder if I raised any red flags anywhere...

--
Regards

John Bean
Click to expand...
 
RiccardoR said:
hahahaha ... yeah it's funny!!

I also got up the pop-up when I have finished the calibration ...
now I know how to obtain a good result but I think It's not
possible with batch conversion ... I always have to calibrate the
Adjust Tag in ACR.

How can I manage wide landscape picture with focus to infinity? How
can I use the Macbeth?
Click to expand...
I don't understand your problem - once calibrated, all you need set is the white balence. You don't calibrate each image in a pano, quite the opposite - all images should have been taken with the same camera settings including exposure, and processed with exactly the same settings.

--
Regards

John Bean
 
John Bean (UK) said:
RiccardoR said:
hahahaha ... yeah it's funny!!

I also got up the pop-up when I have finished the calibration ...
now I know how to obtain a good result but I think It's not
possible with batch conversion ... I always have to calibrate the
Adjust Tag in ACR.

How can I manage wide landscape picture with focus to infinity? How
can I use the Macbeth?
Click to expand...
I don't understand your problem - once calibrated, all you need set
is the white balence. You don't calibrate each image in a pano,
quite the opposite - all images should have been taken with the
same camera settings including exposure, and processed with exactly
the same settings.
Click to expand...
Sorry, forgot to add: if you want to do a batch at those settings then make them the camera default, then until you tell it otherwise those settings will be used by defauly on any new file from that camera.

I have several saved sets that I switch between depending on the subject.

--
Regards

John Bean
 
I didn't know that kind of picture was illegal, at least for Adobe.
And PS 7 didn't send any message either.

My idea was to use a subject with well known colors.

I'll have a second look at GIMP...
Romulus
John Bean (UK) said:
Romulus said:
A more interesting exercise with A2 raw and ColorChecker.

If you succeed with this one, you'll get rich.

http://www.orlans-amo.be/A2_Pictures/PICT0922.MRW
Click to expand...
This is funny - or worrying - depending on your point of view...

I've been playing with the ACR calibration for my A2, the defaults
were just not close enough for my liking. So I thought I'd have a
look at your image; I overlaid your Macbeth checker with an
electronic version, punched some holes in it to view yours through
it and could clearly see that my reds were a bit off - green and
blue were near perfect. Back into ACR, push up the red saturation a
little, hit ok and... get a pop-up from CS telling me that it
refuses to process banknotes and refers me to an internet
information site. I didn't know it did that... but I guess my A2
colour calibration is near enough now!

PS: according to the info sites for US and Euro currency images
your image is perfectly legal. I guess Adobe are a bit paranoid
about being used in a couterfeit operation.

PPS: I wonder if I raised any red flags anywhere...

--
Regards

John Bean
Click to expand...
 
My suggestion would be to shoot your first picture with a white sheet of paper somewhere in the photo. It doesn't have to be in focus, just big enough to get a reading in PP off it. After that your photos should be fine.
RiccardoR said:
RiccardoR said:
There recommendation
was to take a photo of a white patch (not grey) and use Photoshop
to balance to the white patch for the rest of the images from that
photoshoot. If lighting conditions change shoot another white
patch. These guys work with color accuracy every day as part of
their job and if they said it was a waste of time I believed them.
They had samples to go with their data and it did look like there
was no benefit to be obtained from profiling a camera.
Click to expand...
Your suggestion is welcome and I'll experiment it for secure.
But ... what about if I'm shooting a wide landscape with focus to
infinity where do I have to put the white patch? What about Spot
Lighting?
How can I reproduce the color accuracy in those cases?

I decided to buy a Minolta A2 because I was enthusiast reading the
review on

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/konica-minolta-a2.shtml ... in the Colour Accuracy section it sasy to click on the 18% gray square on the GretachMacBeth with the gray point selector (to set the colour balance) and see what happens to all of the colours. (I think this is equivalent to shot white patch and PS balancing).

Those two method fixes the tonal values (Adjust tab in ACR) but
they don't fixes Color Response (Calibrate tab in ACR).

In fact the review says that the are some color drift and ended
with "Nothing that can't be corrected with either a custom profile
or a bit of work in Photoshop."

In addition in the article mentioned in my first post it's written
that the pigments used to create the ubiquitous 24-patch Macbeth
Color Checker don't shift color appearance dramatically under
different lighting ... this means probably that the Calibration tab
setings that I have done in ACR for a specific Tonal setting
(obtained with white patch shotting mentioned by Jerre or with
whatever else method) could be used and valuable also for
differente light temperature, tint and balancing.

I'm secure that my settings couldn't reproduce well all the
situations but I will be happy if they will do a good job (better
than ACR custom setting) in most cases. The point is I can apply
those setting in batch process without any manual settings.
What do you think?
Click to expand...
--
http://www.garageglamour.com/portfolios/greatphotos
 
Romulus said:
I found that information about Adobe's 'counterfeit deterrence
system' (CDS)

http://www.planetphotoshop.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002331.html

So, keep your old PhotoShop versions, their value will increase.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link. You know, the most ridiculous part is how easy it is to work around. I only found the trap when I got the colour spot-on, so all you need is a slight shift for editing (bypassing the trap), a reverse shift for printing...

Stupid, stupid, stupid. If only the criminals were as stupid as the enforcers, the world would be crime-free.

--
Regards

John Bean
 
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