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Leica colours - What's up with the green cannel?


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After owning both the Leica X Vario and now the Q, and really loving everything about these amazing pieces of equipment I really have to raise the question about the greens in the shots these cameras are giving me.

 

I'm not sure about you but I find the greens so unnaturally saturated as opposed to the other colours and need almost without exception to tone down the green channel considerably to make my landscapes as close to natural colours as possible.

 

Is this normal for Leica or is this something that you agree with me is way to exaggerated in the Leica colour pallet?

 

Thanks, Al

 

 

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If you have the camera set to Adobe 1998 rather than sRGB then the jpegs will look a little garish. I don't have a Leica Q, but I have my X Vario set to sRGB for jpegs (though I mainly have them set to B&W) and use the DNG file for colour images. That way I can assign the appropriate colour space during image processing.

 

Geoff

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If you use JPG you are stuck with what Leica think is right .... which may not be to your taste .

 

With DNG in LR you currently only have the Leica Embedded profile available..... but the results seem to be better 

 

Eventually there will be an Adobe Default which may be better still....... and of course you could always do your own dual illuminant DNG profile using a Colour Checker Passport or similar.

 

There have been similar issues with most Leica Digital releases and they are usually fixed by the DNG Developer producing the appropriate profile or Leica doing a firmware update if enough people moan about it (as they did with the M240)

 

Personally I would stick to DNG and use LR as supplied .... and either wait for the profile update or create your own.....

Edited by thighslapper
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After owning both the Leica X Vario and now the Q, and really loving everything about these amazing pieces of equipment I really have to raise the question about the greens in the shots these cameras are giving me.

 

I'm not sure about you but I find the greens so unnaturally saturated as opposed to the other colours and need almost without exception to tone down the green channel considerably to make my landscapes as close to natural colours as possible.

 

Is this normal for Leica or is this something that you agree with me is way to exaggerated in the Leica colour pallet?

 

Thanks, Al

Could it be that the colors in beautiful Iceland are just a lot more saturated :-) ?

 

More seriously could it be Lightroom?  The new upgrade to Lightroom seems to render the greens a little less intensely based on a couple of images posted by Overgaard.

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If I import my Q files into the Lightroom CC version, will the updated profile apply? Or do I need to convert in updated Camera Raw? Thx in advance.

For the images you downloaded previously, the Embedded profile is used till you eventual change it. For the new images you download after the update* LR will use Adobe Standard. You can still choose which one you want to use in the bottom right corner:

 

camera-profile-adobe-standard-lr-6-1-1.j

 

* = To get the full new camera profile, you have to update both the Lightroom CC to Lightroom CC 2015.1.1 (or the Lightroom 6 you got with your Leica camera to Lightroom 6.1.1) and then get the new Camera Raw 9.1.1 as well. 

 

So it is two things. The Camera Raw 9.1.1. contains the actual Leica Q profile and is an underlying "engine" that simply contains different camera profiles so the numbers fromt the sensors are translated to exact colors. Till now such profile existed for the Leica Q, so that is why the colors was kind of ok but not precise. Not it exists and the translation from sensor to colors on the screen is defined 100%. 

 

It's a little confusing, but here is a direct link to the explanation on how to do it, and links to downloads: Understanding and installing Camera Raw 9.1.1 and LR 6.1.1 

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.... and to change all the previous images .... highlight them all in develop, select Adobe Standard in one,  click 'sync' .... tick calibration in the dialogue box and press synchronise ......

 

The differences are quite subtle in some images but do produce much more natural colours .....

 

apologies if most of you know how to do this ...... but even I had to scratch my head and try to remember what to do ....

Edited by thighslapper
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  • 1 year later...

I found this to be an issue also and decided to create my own color profiles with X-rite color checker passport pro.  I was disappointed that Leica Q had an oversaturated, overly greenish yellow cast.  Even when I imported the RAW files to Lightroom, they all needed adjustment.  The Adobe LR profile is not that great.  After calibrating with the X-rite, things are much better.  Just disappointed that I had to go to this length.

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