ACR: embedded vs adobe standard

[edwardkaraa]

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Hello,

 

I'm a new M9 owner here. Just wondering which profile do you find better. I do understand the difference, embedded being the camera profile from the manufacturer, and adobe standard being the profile made by adobe for the camera. I am a bit undecided, sometimes I find one to give better results, just to change my mind later on. So what do you guys think?

[edwardkaraa]

No one uses ACR?

[250swb]

I use ACR all the time, and you are right, one profile is better than the other for different images. There is no right or wrong, just choose the one that matches what you want from the image. It should be the photographers choice, not the people at Adobe or the people at Solms who made the profiles.

 

Steve

[edwardkaraa]

Thank you Steve!

 

I'm wondering if nevertheless there is any technical reason to choose one over the other, like reds too saturated in adobe, or a bit purplish in embedded. Any thoughts?

[adan]

Last time I made the choice was right after the M9 came out and Adobe got around to creating their own profile.

 

I use Adobe Standard - but only as a basis for creating my own profile with a ColorChecker target card. At the time, I thought Adobe's profile was slightly more accurate, but it was by no means perfect, thus my own modifications (moving the various hue/saturation sliders around to create a fixed profile that I saved as my preset and is now applied to all my pictures automatically.)

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It's pretty simple - photograph the Colorchecker (CC) card under sunlight, open the picture in ACR, and set global white balance using the WB eyedropper on one of the CC grayscale squares. Set exposure, brightness and contrast so that you have a full-tonal-range image, with neither clipping, nor excessively gray whites and blacks.

 

Then move to ACR's calibration page to begin adding modifications on top of the default profile (Adobe or embedded, as preferred - I like Adobe).

 

First, set the shadow tint - put your ACR eyedropper over the darkest square in the image of the CC grayscale, and tweak the shadow tint green or magenta if needed, until the RGB values for that "black" are as equal as possible. Image noise means they will jump around a bit moving the cursor around the image, but ideally you can reach an "average" that is something like 20,21,21.

 

Then move on to calibrating green, blue and red. Use the eyedropper to measure the color of the primary green patch on the CC. Compare the measured values to the standard values that that green SHOULD be.

 

What are the "standard values?" They vary with the output color space you have chosen (presumably Adobe RGB 1998, but not necessarily). To see some standard values, see page 5 of this pdf: http://www.babelcolor.com/download/RGB%20Coordinates%20of%20the%20Macbeth%20ColorChecker.pdf

 

The "green" hue slider shifts the green to be more cyan (higher blue value) or more yellow (higher red value). The green saturation slider decreases/increases red and blue together (the more saturated the green, the less red and blue; the more red and blue, the more washed-out or desaturated the green.

 

Anyway, eventually, your measured value of the green patch in your picture will be within a point or so of the target values from the pdf (or other source of your choice). Your greens are calibrated (almost).

 

Move on to the blue sliders, measuring the RGB values of the primary blue color patch in your image. Again, hue will shift the blue towards magenta or cyan, increasing the red or green numbers. Saturation will reduce or increase red and green together. Most canned profiles from Adobe and camera makers tend to need a BIG reduction of blue/yellow saturation.

 

Move on to the red sliders and the red square in your image, and shift the red to more yellow or more magenta until your numbers match the target values.

 

Now - you'll have to repeat calibrating all three colors a couple of times, because changing the red and blue sliders will have slightly shifted your green calibration, and redoing the green calibration will slightly alter the red and blue calibrations. But the changes get smaller each time until all the calibrations are correctly in sync together.

 

At this point, what I do is save "New Camera Raw" defaults - and my slider-modified calibration will be the default applied to every new M9 picture I open.

 

below - MY M9 calibration tweaking the Adobe Standard calibration, and the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker (mini version).

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[nggalai]

Andy, have you tried out the Passport-Software already? It does pretty much what you describe automatically and also works with standard ColorCheckers or the Mini variants, no need for the ColorChecker Passport “hardware”.

 

You can find it in the Support area here: X-Rite: Support FAQs & Downloads

 

(Xrite took over Gretag a while ago, i.e. it’s the same hardware/software as before.)

 

The Adobe Lightroom download installs a standalone application (which Lightroom calls when using the plugin); but you can use the application without Lightroom, too.

[adan]

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I'm a Leica M user - by definition, I never use automation when I can do it myself.

 

But yes, that software is available.