For those who own both cameras, have you noticed a difference in the way the 7D renders skin tones? Most interesting to me would be your impressions using a DPP-based RAW workflow, or in-camera JPEGs, and also your Picture Style preferences for this work.
It definitely pays to callibrate the 5D2. The adobe DNG profile editor and a gretag mcbeth color checker card is all you need. The results are dramatic after the callibration. Somehow both ACR and DPP have profiles which give very saturated reds.
JameelH wrote:
It definitely pays to callibrate the 5D2. The adobe DNG profile editor and a gretag mcbeth color checker card is all you need. The results are dramatic after the callibration. Somehow both ACR and DPP have profiles which give very saturated reds.
To use that do you have to always convert to DNG though? I don't quite understand what you're calibrating.
TTLKurtis wrote:
To use that do you have to always convert to DNG though? I don't quite understand what you're calibrating.
No - the DNG Profile Editor allows you to create a camera-specific profile from an image of a Color Checker chart taken with your camera. The DNG Profile Editor analyses the colors of chart, and creates a color-adjusted profile to match the colors accurately.
This profile can then be used in ACR (as an alternative to Adobe Standard, Camera Neutral, Camera Standard, etc...). The camera profile I created this way renders reds very differently. I like this profile a lot for general use, although I do not lke for sunsets or fall foliage, where I want my reds to be bold!
I contacted Beverly Guhl about this (the OP of the other thread mentioned). She tried the camera profile I created, and was very pleased with the results. She said this convinced her to created her own camera profile.
If you want to test out my camera profile, PM me with your email address, and I'll forward you the info I sent to Bev.
JameelH wrote:
It definitely pays to callibrate the 5D2. The adobe DNG profile editor and a gretag mcbeth color checker card is all you need. The results are dramatic after the callibration. Somehow both ACR and DPP have profiles which give very saturated reds.
Can you elaborate on this procedure? .. basically step-by-step how it's done?
Thanks.
Make sure to photograph the front-lit chart in full daylight, or better yet, use the specific full-spectrum 6500K and 2850K illuminants that Adobe recommends.
Make sure to photograph the front-lit chart in full daylight, or better yet, use the specific full-spectrum 6500K and 2850K illuminants that Adobe recommends.
Is a simple solution to just shoot a color checker, then import and view in LR while also viewing the same color checker next to the monitor and make adjustments until the monitor looks the same as the actual checker?
Then save those color adjustments as a preset and auto-apply that preset on import?
Mike Mahoney wrote:
Is a simple solution to just shoot a color checker, then import and view in LR while also viewing the same color checker next to the monitor and make adjustments until the monitor looks the same as the actual checker?
Then save those color adjustments as a preset and auto-apply that preset on import?
Conceptually, this is exactly what the Adobe DNG Profile Editor does, except that the tool automates the process and creates a single camera profile that can be applied to all images. Doing this tweaking by hand would be possible, but very tedious, as each color needs to be adjusted for hue and saturation, and these adjustements interact...
Please consider that your calibrated profile will only be "accurate" at WB temperatures very similar to the one that you made the test with - all others (warmer/colder/fluorescents) will show some hue shifts in between the primaries.
The primaries in the camera are red, green and blue - just as in your screen - but placed a little different in wavelength, and more often than not less symmetrical.
Depending on WB temperature, the intermediate colours will be pushed towards one side when WB changes (yellow/orange will become more red and blue-green will become more green when you shoot in lower WB temperatures (warmer colour), and the opposite "reaction" for higher WB temperatures (colder colour)
LR/ACR/DNG can compensate for this by having two complete sets of correction values, but these "variant" profiles HAS to be made with the specified 2850K and 6500K illuminants if you want the correct result (unless you know how to modify illuminant tags in DNG profiles).
The Passport or CC24 by X-rite are good products, but actually a little to coarsely populated to make an accurate profile - you need more patches than 18 to allow the profiling to work with any accuracy... (Six of the patches aren't "colour", they're patches of "almost perfectly gray"). But you WILL get better results than the "canned" profiles in most cases anyway.
For most photographers, two or three sets of profiles covers most bases, and only in more accurately controlled environments is it worth the hassle to do a "scene-specific" profile. One of the occasions when a "scene-specific" profile IS worth the hassle is under fluorescents, indoors. Shooting in offices/presentation aulas/kitchens or other fluorescent lit areas you notice a very large difference with/without profiling. Ice-hockey rinks and other indoor sports are also a good target use for specific profiles.
>>One of the occasions when a "scene-specific" profile IS worth the hassle
The new X-rite software (that works with the Passports or their older, full-size cards) will make a dual illuminant profile with a few clicks. And it takes literally 30 seconds to create a scene-specific profile with their Lightroom plug-in. They took the hassle out of it.
