M9 Color Hell

[Pindy]

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I wonder if anyone can confirm what I'm seeing as normal M9 behavour. I have noticed in many of my indoor shots, the skin tones of people tend to have major magenta/red splotches that usually go away when I adjust to WB to be too warm, thus not helping in the end.

 

Here is an OOF close up on part of the frame in (I think) halogen light, possibly mixed, that has it really strong:

 

 

Now if I go into the HSL panel in LR3 and adjust anything, it doesn't go away, the magenta and reds only adjust one way or another (color, no color; dark, light; purple, red)

 

Here is what happens if I turn the WB tint control to the green side:

 

 

Too green. I didn't use a grey card but I did click the dropper on something very neutral and you get more or less the same result as the auto WB setting.

 

Here is what happens when the WB is turned to higher degrees Kelvin (but now making it too warm:

 

 

 

I'm kind of disheartened by this. All the DSLRs I have owned have not been so troubled in their color rendering in mixed lighting. But maybe that's it? If there are a couple of different color temperatures at work here, am I basically out of luck?

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[Nitnaros]

I had "too much magenta" from incandescent lighting a lot when using Aperture.

 

Capture One is much better than Aperture color-wise, particularly in difficult lighting situations.

 

Not sure about Lightroom, though.

 

Peter

[Overgaard]

It kind of looks too over-adjusted to begin with, like if you were trying to adjust LED light (which can be quite unpredictable).

 

First of all, I would never go above 800 ISO for something I want to be able to use (contrary to things you shoot because you WANT a picture, but not necessarily need perfect one).

 

And when shooting 800 ISO, I would be careful that I have the correct white balance by doing a manual white balancing - or if doubt (or in a hurry), select 3200K manually so the result is in the area of what it should be. And then I would make sure the exposure is about right.

 

If you do that, you will get pure and true colors. The more you press the ISO, and the more you want to adjust after the fact in terms of white balance and/or exposure, will be computer-renderings based on a wrong result to begin with.

 

I know some cameras are very good in low light with high ISO, and can handle white balance automatically. But they also get this plastic look of daylight even it was dark. So in my opinion, the M9 offers more true images - if you start out with photographing as it is in terms of WB and exposure.

[Pindy]

It kind of looks too over-adjusted to begin with, like if you were trying to adjust LED light (which can be quite unpredictable).

 

That's pretty much a default rendering.

 

And when shooting 800 ISO, I would be careful that I have the correct white balance by doing a manual white balancing - or if doubt (or in a hurry), select 3200K manually so the result is in the area of what it should be. And then I would make sure the exposure is about right.

 

If you do that, you will get pure and true colors. The more you press the ISO, and the more you want to adjust after the fact in terms of white balance and/or exposure, will be computer-renderings based on a wrong result to begin with.

.

 

I have a WhiBal card that I will start to use more regularly and set the camera for a custom WB next time. I'm going back to this same venue tomorrow and will test it out.

 

Are you saying, though, that a custom WB will cause a better result than shooting the card and using the dropper on it in post? Is that possible? I think, in the end, I'm a victim of low light, high ISO and mixed lighting, but anything I can do to improve my lot is appreciated and many thanks.

[Pindy]

I had "too much magenta" from incandescent lighting a lot when using Aperture.

 

Capture One is much better than Aperture color-wise, particularly in difficult lighting situations.

 

Not sure about Lightroom, though.

 

Peter

 

I'm curious enough to try a demo, if one if available.

[Jamie Roberts]

Adjusting for skin tones is a bit of a black art, but I think you're on the right track.

 

First, I'll make my own usual disclaimer that, at least out of the box, C1 is better IMO than Lightroom for skin tones from the M8 or M9. LR3 is better, for sure, than previous versions, but I just don't see those magenta splotches on skin in C1.

 

Having said that, you're falling prey to the notion that a WhiBal card, which will give you good colorimetric neutrals, will give you good skin in less than optimal light. It won't. It's a good starting point, of course, but honestly if skin is the important thing in the shot, then I'd bias my adjustment for that.

 

It's also the quality of the less-than-full-spectrum and mixed light that's throwing this off, not the ISO level per se.

 

Personally, I'd use your warmer white balance posted and then drop the saturation significantly, which is causing the over-warm problems. It won't look as warm without so much saturation; the added cyan due to desaturation will cool it down and also kick the magenta out of the shot.

 

Try it and see what you think...

[Pindy]

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Adjusting for skin tones is a bit of a black art, but I think you're on the right track.

 

First, I'll make my own usual disclaimer that, at least out of the box, C1 is better IMO than Lightroom for skin tones from the M8 or M9. LR3 is better, for sure, than previous versions, but I just don't see those magenta splotches on skin in C1.

 

Having said that, you're falling prey to the notion that a WhiBal card, which will give you good colorimetric neutrals, will give you good skin in less than optimal light. It won't. It's a good starting point, of course, but honestly if skin is the important thing in the shot, then I'd bias my adjustment for that.

 

It's also the quality of the less-than-full-spectrum and mixed light that's throwing this off, not the ISO level per se.

 

Personally, I'd use your warmer white balance posted and then drop the saturation significantly, which is causing the over-warm problems. It won't look as warm without so much saturation; the added cyan due to desaturation will cool it down and also kick the magenta out of the shot.

 

Try it and see what you think...

 

Appreciated. I downloaded C1 and instantly the skin looks better in the default rendering, though I'm loathe to supplement Lightroom., but if I can't tweak in LR sufficiently, something will have to give. I will try your suggestions—thanks.

[Pindy]

Jamie, excellent suggestion:

 

 

A vast improvement. Now if I could only figure out why I'm getting horizontal noise lines in my images at ISO 1250!

[Rick]

Don't dispare. Go to HSL, and then to Luminance, and turn the yellow slider down to -80 then turn your WB Temp to 3600 and the Tint to -12. This is just a guess. Adjust the WB from there. Try and get the Tint slider as far to the left as you can.

 

If, you have to go back to HSL and turn yellow to -65 and then, redo the WB. The goal in WB adjustment when you see this is, try and get the Tint slider as far to the left as you can because anything to the right is MAGENTA.

 

If, this works I'll tell you the simple version of why. Also, the real problem could have been solved if, you would have looked down at your histogram when you took it and saw that the curve is slammed up against the left wall. Move it more to the center when you shoot higher ISO settings. In other words, you shot this photo underexposed when you should be trying to overexpose at higher ISO. Then, you won't get this effect.

 

Good luck.

 

p.s. Horizontal lines mean you underexposed. Again move the histogram to the right.

[Pindy]

Don't dispare. Go to HSL, and then to Luminance, and turn the yellow slider down to -80 then turn your WB Temp to 3600 and the Tint to -12. This is just a guess. Adjust the WB from there. Try and get the Tint slider as far to the left as you can.

 

If, you have to go back to HSL and turn yellow to -65 and then, redo the WB. The goal in WB adjustment when you see this is, try and get the Tint slider as far to the left as you can because anything to the right is MAGENTA.

 

If, this works I'll tell you the simple version of why. Also, the real problem could have been solved if, you would have looked down at your histogram when you took it and saw that the curve is slammed up against the left wall. Move it more to the center when you shoot higher ISO settings. In other words, you shot this photo underexposed when you should be trying to overexpose at higher ISO. Then, you won't get this effect.

 

Good luck.

 

p.s. Horizontal lines mean you underexposed. Again move the histogram to the right.

 

Appreciated. Your guess is close, but still a bit green/yellow, so I'm working on alts. It's difficult to expose higher in a room like that cause the spotlights (in the ceiling—the only real illuminant) flare up on some subjects in a major way, same goes for paper and computer screens of which this room has a certain amplitude). Still, I think I'm seeing the difference between cameras that hold your hand and cameras that don't. The M9 is one that doesn't and exposure needs to be more nailed than my previous experiences would have led me to believe.

 

Just for a little context, the room is like this (with a warming WB and desaturation):

 

 

Kind of a nightmare lighting scenario. And on the other side of the glass:

 

[Rick]

I see that is a tough room. Sometimes you just have got to over expose to the left and let the highlights clip. You may loose some detail in highlights, but it may be better than noise. Use the "Recovery" slider to bring back 1-1.5 stops. And, never judge what the final image will look like using the LCD on the back of the camera. Trust the histogram on the camera.

 

Digital is way different than film because you can retrieve information out of the highlights with the recovery slider and you can use the tone curve sliders to lower some of the highlights as well. But, when you are shooting higher ISO, you really think about not compressing your information to the left, where the s/n is low.

 

Good luck.

[Pindy]

I need to work on that. Expose to the right is something I've always espoused on a tripod, but rarely felt confident doing handheld and in these conditions. Thanks again.

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

 

Just for a little context, the room is like this (with a warming WB and desaturation):

 

{snipped}

 

Glad the desaturation / warming suggestion worked out alright Rick is quite right about exposure and banding at ISO 1250...

 

If you need to let the white score sheets in the shot blow out beyond 255/255/255 to get a decent exposure (to avoid banding) just clip them at 242/242/242 with a levels adjustment; it'll print ok without blown artifacts (it'll look darker than the paper white even if there's no real detail on the 'pages') and that will lower the contrast, too, (which will also lower saturation through the midtones...which is a good thing in this case ). And if you follow me, it will do all that without shifting midtone colours like highlight recovery techniques often do. If you don't need to print the detail, then why bother?

 

You could also do a selective "burn" of lighter elements...that should work in C1 or LR...

 

BTW--it looks like they're scoring Winnie The Pooh?

[Pindy]

If you need to let the white score sheets in the shot blow out beyond 255/255/255 to get a decent exposure (to avoid banding) just clip them at 242/242/242 with a levels adjustment; it'll print ok without blown artifacts (it'll look darker than the paper white even if there's no real detail on the 'pages') and that will lower the contrast, too, (which will also lower saturation through the midtones...which is a good thing in this case ). And if you follow me, it will do all that without shifting midtone colours like highlight recovery techniques often do. If you don't need to print the detail, then why bother?

 

 

Good advice—I'll try that.

 

BTW--it looks like they're scoring Winnie The Pooh?

 

Right you are!

[texasrancher]

Excellent tips for a very common problem in our mixed light interiors with God-knows-what type of bulbs in the light fixtures. I had a similar problem a couple of months ago with pics of our first grandchild and me. As Rick and Jamie pointed out, the basic cure for color problems with the M9 at high ISO is to push the histogram to the right in the initial exposure. Leica should really include some guidelines like this in their instruction manual - would certainly aid the entry process for photographers new to the M9. Many thanks to all of you elder statesmen (& I don't mean just Lars) for taking time to share your wisdom and occasionally your wit!

[Jerry_R]

I saw exactly the same behaviour on some Flickr samples - NEX + CV ultra wide, city by night.

So it can't be M9 specific.

[archi4]

The advice given is all more than excellent.

I was however surprised by the extent of the blotchiness on the initial image at 1250. I have never had it that bad at this iso, neither with my m8 nor now my m9's under sometimes nasty mixed incandescent and other lighting.

I have had overall skin tones which were too magenta to my taste at all iso values in LR. I prefer the skin tones from Capture One which is my developer of choice.

For Lightroom3 I made my own profiles using both the Adobe DNG profile editor (free download from Adobe Labs) and the x-rite color checker passport program.

In Capture One the color editor can easily solve such problems and using the uniformity slider under the skin tone option will also help. These settings can be saved as a profile as well.

Sorry if the above is redundant information

[Luke_Miller]

I use Lightroom primarily, but keep Capture One for situations where I am having problems with skin tones. One reason I tend to prefer Lightroom is that it has reasonably good tools for doing selective edits, which I use when processing images with mixed lighting.

 

Often there are no global settings that can be applied to a mixed light image that give satisfactory results overall. Generally I will go for the best skin tones with the global adjustments and use selective adjustments to correct the color shifts elsewhere in the image. I am really pleased to see Capture One start to add selective adjustments in Version 6. Still pretty limited, but I suspect more is to come.

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[Pindy]

Great advice here.

 

I took the M9 back to that same room last night, albeit for only a few minutes. I snapped off a few that were exposing higher and I'll get them into LR3 today and report. I also tried Thorsten's white balance suggestion, so hopefully it's a double-whammy. The histogram showed a lot of whites blown out, but the selective histogram on the M9 showed good exposure on the faces, which in this case, is what I have to choose to the exclusion of all else in the frame.

[Pindy]

I just came across Jaap's high ISO contribution in the FAQ—very good reading.