Hi All
I know there are many different options out there, but since 5d days through fuji and now with only Sony kit I've stuck with LR/CC.
I was opening an image today in Image Edge (actually to find a pixel shift set later in the shoot) and noticed how much more natural the colours and contrast looked compared to LR. The LR image in contrast looks very low on contrast and way too much cyan/green. This is after i've selected the Sony Camera Standard profile (I pretty much always shoot in that profile in cam).
So what gives, I know i can probably tweak the LR image to look better, but is there a profile or calibration method to get it looking better as standard?
Spend the extra couple of bucks and get a colorchecker passport at the very least. Creating profiles is easy and way better than custom slider settings.
There's a really good dual illuminant profile for A7RII which I have somewhere. If anyone wants it shoot me a pm.
Yeah, Adobe Color or a DIY profile on import are the way to go.
I have a few I use regularly, riffing off of RNI and VSCO color adjustments and tone curves, although I do like some of the new "modern" Adobe stock ones, too. Never, ever use the Sony ones or Adobe Standard as a rule.
My problem with Sony are the colors as well. Sometimes I use Capture one, sometimes Lightroom and I was never happy.
Recently I bought the huelight profiles, and some time ago also downloaded the piraccini ones...
But still not as pleasing as the canon or fuji I previously had.
Some time ago, in one of my "research" about how to get nice colors from Sony in Lightroom, y discovered the software dcpTool. I extracted some dip profiles from a canon camera, changed the name of the camera with an xml editor for my camera (Sony a7rii), and compressed back the profile. I had all of them in Lightroom since them (all the canon profiles made by adobe for a canon 6d if I'm remembering correctly). But when I tried them, I saw the white balance and of course the colors were way off and it would be too difficult to fix...
Just a couple of days ago I realised that the only thing off in the white balance is actually the tint, and if you start with "as shot" as white balance, actually my photos with those "ported" canon profiles looked really good, except for the green and some other colors that were too "funky", so yesterday I tried this:
From preview, I downloaded a raw file from the comparison tool from the canon 6d and another one from my a7rii.
I opened both raw in Lightroom, applied the canon Standard profile for the canon, and my ported canon standard profile.
Then adjusted the white balance to the white patch, and adjusted the exposure with a curve looking at the grey patches.
Then tried to calibrate the colors only using the camera calibration sliders (not the individual colors sliders). Then I spent a lot of time trying to tweak the individual colors, but after fixing one thing I was breaking some other, so finally after some versions, I stocked with only the calibration sliders and create a preset.
I'll show you here the difference in a couple of pictures, the only edit is applying different calibration profiles and my preset (that used my ported profile, my tone curve and my camera calibration tweaks).
Yep, rule number one for me : never use Sony profiles ^^
Imho, the "new" adobe color seems to do a pretty good job for a neutral rendition with my Sony A9. Slightly improved curve and contrasts compared to the old "adobe standard" which seems sometimes a little bit too flat.
Adobe color is what I would called a very "robust" profile : it works very well in a lot of different lights, with minimal posterization when a lot of colored spots are in the way (ex : dancefloor). It's "easy" to build a profile which seems flattering in good light, but it's when the difficult conditions appears (high isos, intense colors) that you can see if the profile is interesting or not...
At least for me, as a wedding photographer with my A9.
And indeed : if you tweak a profile from a different camera (vsco indeed doesn't support the A9 for all of their presets), don't touch the white balance before applying the preset.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Instead of Camera Standard, use Adobe "Color".
Than tweak "Calibration" using the below as a start and change it to taste.
Wow! Tried this last night and changed my import profile to automatically apply these changes. Really livens up all of my images and has a color cast much like my old Canon gear. Many thanks, Fred!
One of the "problems" with learning new LR tricks is that a part of me wants to go back and apply it to 20 years of digital photos. I'll just fo the old ones on an as needed basis.
I never realized how cool/blue the Adobe Standard color profile was until I applied theses tweaks. I use a Spyder5 and DisplayCAL software and all of my monitors are profiled. Really a game changer!
numbertwo wrote:
My problem with Sony are the colors as well. Sometimes I use Capture one, sometimes Lightroom and I was never happy.
Recently I bought the huelight profiles, and some time ago also downloaded the piraccini ones...
But still not as pleasing as the canon or fuji I previously had.
Some time ago, in one of my "research" about how to get nice colors from Sony in Lightroom, y discovered the software dcpTool. I extracted some dip profiles from a canon camera, changed the name of the camera with an xml editor for my camera (Sony a7rii), and compressed back the profile. I had all of them in Lightroom since them (all the canon profiles made by adobe for a canon 6d if I'm remembering correctly). But when I tried them, I saw the white balance and of course the colors were way off and it would be too difficult to fix...
Just a couple of days ago I realised that the only thing off in the white balance is actually the tint, and if you start with "as shot" as white balance, actually my photos with those "ported" canon profiles looked really good, except for the green and some other colors that were too "funky", so yesterday I tried this:
From preview, I downloaded a raw file from the comparison tool from the canon 6d and another one from my a7rii.
I opened both raw in Lightroom, applied the canon Standard profile for the canon, and my ported canon standard profile.
Then adjusted the white balance to the white patch, and adjusted the exposure with a curve looking at the grey patches.
Then tried to calibrate the colors only using the camera calibration sliders (not the individual colors sliders). Then I spent a lot of time trying to tweak the individual colors, but after fixing one thing I was breaking some other, so finally after some versions, I stocked with only the calibration sliders and create a preset.
I'll show you here the difference in a couple of pictures, the only edit is applying different calibration profiles and my preset (that used my ported profile, my tone curve and my camera calibration tweaks).
I also hated the 'old' LR profiles for the Sony and was very pleasantly surprised by the improvements with Adobe Color.
As for the Canon and other profile comparisons, I may be in the minority but always thought my Canon 5DmkIII in LR had very flat reds and see that here too. I prefer the Adobe Color on Sony reds now.
I'm always looking for a 'better' color workflow / option for my Sony files (A73) but I'm fairly happy with LR and the Sony neutral profile. I tweak the HSL and calibration.
smpetty wrote:
Wow! Tried this last night and changed my import profile to automatically apply these changes. Really livens up all of my images and has a color cast much like my old Canon gear. Many thanks, Fred!
One of the "problems" with learning new LR tricks is that a part of me wants to go back and apply it to 20 years of digital photos. I'll just fo the old ones on an as needed basis.
I never realized how cool/blue the Adobe Standard color profile was until I applied theses tweaks. I use a Spyder5 and DisplayCAL software and all of my monitors are profiled. Really a game changer!
This is my standard calibration for portraits and landscapes. I also have a custom calibrated profile for each of my lenses whenever color accurate is crucial but I really like to use this one as my default. Sometimes I reduce saturation a bit but very rarely.
I've played with this a lot and imo color accuracy does not mean better and really depends on the image.
Steve Spencer wrote:
This is of course a matter of taste but in all the images I find the Canon ported profile to be too yellow.
I prefer the Canon ones, they just look more natural to me, truer reds and not the muted and artificial green/purple shades in the other profiles. And in tungsten etc, the other profiles are this ugly yellow and the Canon has a warmer natural look, not the cold yellow one...
