Leica CL Standard embedded profile for CL on LR - Colour rendition very "Postcard-ish"

[wlaidlaw]

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The appearance of the DNG's on the SL seemed to improve, when the firmware went into the 3's, so I guess Leica tweak the recipe. I don't think Phase One change their camera profiles for Leica at all regularly since the bust-up with Leica, as even getting any profile for a new camera model at all, takes a lot of whinging at them. 

 

Wilson

[jaapv]

Possibly!

Even with a custom profile, I found landscape green too strong with the M240. I have a preset for landscapes that reduces yellow and green for landscapes, but not for other shots. This isn't confined to the M240 - I've seen a lot of complaints about 'acid grass green' on other forums about other cameras.

The CL appears to be rendering a bit yellowish/neon green as well. I find myself reducing yellow saturation by about 20% regularly. It takes away the overemphasis on green too. I guess I should tweak the profile a bit.

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[wlaidlaw]

The CL appears to be rendering a bit yellowish/neon green as well. I find myself reducing yellow saturation by about 20% regularly. It takes away the overemphasis on green too. I guess I should tweak the profile a bit.

 

I found the winter light profiles I did with the Color Checker Passport, also too acid on greens but the summer light DCP profile was fine. I guess it may be something to do with the colour temperature of winter light incident on the colour swatch card. I do all my profiles with a fixed colour temperature of 5400ºK and obviously, fixed ISO. 

 

Wilson

[lct]

My yellows don't look bad so far but i need -20% green saturation generally. I don't use LR though.

[jaapv]

Yes, you can get a similar effect by dropping WB a few hundred degrees or reducing vibrance and desaturating green, but it all depends on the subject and the light. The CL files are very malleable and versatile, I think the choice of Bayer filters was a very happy one. 

[rob_w]

I have a CL out on 3-day test drive and I am disappointed with initial results in LR.  The version of LR I use is the last perpetual version 6.14; it appears to use the embedded profile for the camera rather than have a specific CL profile.

 

I can work on the files to get something acceptable but the overall result tends to be underwhelming.  So I have decided I will keep hold of the test files after the loan period and try them with alternative raw developers to see what difference it makes.  In any case, my plan is to move away from LR in the long term as I don't like their subscription model.

 

Would it make a difference if I tried the same DNGs with, say, C1 or DXO Photolab for instance -- what is the experience have other CL users? 

 

Thanks

[thighslapper]

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DNG's are digital negatives. They are not the problem 

 

The final image is dependent entirely on how you process it and what you use...... processors, profiles, settings etc etc ...... the 'underwhelming' result is mainly user issue not a CL one..... 

 

The CL output closely follows a generic look that is present in all Leica digitals, which after a few initial firmware tweaks are invariably indistinguishable. 

 

Personally I find the subscription cost of LR a bargain, considering you get the power of PS thrown in and a selection of other freebies. Adobe's customised profiles are usually spot on ...... my CL images are to all intents and purposes identical to my SL ones at 'normal' viewing sizes and with 'normal' processing ......

[rob_w]

Thanks for the response Thighslapper.  I know what a DNG is, of course.     I've owned numerous Leica digital cameras and other brands and used a whole range of processing software since starting the move from film to digital 16 years back.  For me the CL negs take a fair bit of work to match or even come close to my 240 images  -- more than I would consider 'normal'.  I wouldn't want to do that for every picture I take.  And I'm not sure I am seeing the 'generic Leica digital look' to which you refer.

 

Since I don't have access to Adobe's own camera profile for the CL I wondered whether other forum members found they produced good results using different profiles and different raw converters from other software companies, e.g. C1 and DXO.  Thanks.

[ramarren]

I think I was using the wrong version of LR. It is a bit confusing having so many different versions on my computers. I have changed from LR 2015.13 to LR Classic CC V7.1 with Camera RAW 10.1. If I use the Adobe Standard profile, which in this version is available, that is a lot better than the embedded profile. As I am remotely accessing my Mac Mini, on which all my images are saved on its 2TB SSD, via Jump Desktop, I am reluctant to run any Terminal commands (exiftool etc). They can have unexpected effects when run remotely. Interestingly, I note that a profile for the Leica CL is not shown in LR Classic CC App/contents/resources/Camera profiles/Adobe Standard, unlike most of the other Leica Profiles, which are. This seems odd as I am running ACR 10.1, which should definitely include the CL. 

 

Wilson

 

 

I'm running Lightroom v6.14 on macOS. When processing CL DNG files, the Camera Calibration panel gives me the choice of Embedded and Adobe Standard.

 

Examining the app bundle the same way you did, I can find no specific camera calibration profile named for the Leica CL, which leads me to believe that the CL sensor and calibration profile is shared with one of the TL models (probably the TL2 ??), and that they pick which profile to use based on metadata information processed by the LR app before the profile lookup is done. 

 

I haven't shot a Color Checker yet to evaluate the CL sensor and profile against my other cameras, which usually indicates to me that I'm not seeing anything that's a major problem with the way that LR is processing the raw files. In general, I find the CL's rendering is pretty close the same way I find the M-D's rendering is pretty close when using the Adobe Standard defaults ... but I tend not to worry about absolute accuracy so much as how easy it is to get what I want out of it.

 

I've not found it to be difficult at all...

 

When you're looking at a file with EXIFtool ... what kind of file (jpeg or dng)? and what EXIF keys are you looking for? I can look at the same and report back to you what I get, if you're interested. 

Edited July 29, 2018 by ramarren

[wlaidlaw]

I don't like LR but that is due more to the way it works rather than its performance. Phase One were, as has been par for course for the last few years, very slow in building an ICC profile for the CL, so for a few months I was using LR. My end results were OK but now I have gone back to C1, I see that there is more subtlety in the colours and skin tones are better before you start processing. I have been comparing the same image in LR and C1 just a few minutes ago. I admit that I had not bothered to make my own profile with the Color Checker programme for the CL as I fully intended to revert to C1 as soon as they had a CL profile. LR colours are a bit brighter and more "primary". Shadows are less graduated.  The only thing I really miss on C1 is the de-haze tool. of LR. You can de-haze on C1 but it is a multi step process and even then, not as effective, so I leave that to be done in PS, (where I do my prints from), using the RAW filters facility. 

 

Wilson

[rob_w]

That's a good tip, Wilson.  Thanks.  Based on your experience I will download a demo version of C1 11 and give it a try.

[ramarren]

Wilson, I feel the same way about C1 that you feel about LR with respect to workflow: I dislike the way it works. 

 

LR has produced what I wanted for many thousands of photos, whatever its deficiencies might be. No client of mine has ever suggested that there was something lacking and I can't say as I see anything lacking either. Other tools produce slightly different results too, each one peculiar to the particular tool. Unless your goal is forensic quality documentation to reference standards, it's all pretty much a matter of what one likes anyway. So I don't sweat it very much.

 

But let's not make this into yet another raw converter rant session.

 

All I'm saying is that LR v6.14 (perpetual license) seems to have the correct Adobe Standard camera calibration for the CL based on the choices provided in the Camera Calibration panel, however it is that they manage to provide them. Whether you, or I, like what it produces or not is out of scope. 

[thighslapper]

Bear in mind the current subscription 'classic' version of LR now offers Embedded, Embedded B&W, Adobe Standard B&W, Adobe Color, Adobe Monochrome, Adobe Landscape, Adobe Neutral, Adobe Portrait, Adobe Standard and Adobe Vivid for the CL from the main choices, plus another 45 colour and B&W profiles of varying degrees of lunacy if you so wish. All change the main image as you move the cursor over the relevant thumbnails, so it takes seconds to flick through the lot and choose what you prefer. 

 

I've found the Adobe Standard a pretty good neutral starting point, usually just press AUTO and then bring up contrast (it reduces it too much) and then occasionally make WB and shadow adjustments. 95% of CL images look great with this minimal approach. 

 

Anyway, all of this business depends very much on what you eye has become used to ..... any changes tend to be magnified by previous expectations ......  every new camera produces images which differ in subtle ways from it's predecessor, but that doesn't mean the final result is wrong and after a while it becomes the new 'normal'. 

[LocalHero1953]

Thanks for the response Thighslapper.  I know what a DNG is, of course.     I've owned numerous Leica digital cameras and other brands and used a whole range of processing software since starting the move from film to digital 16 years back.  For me the CL negs take a fair bit of work to match or even come close to my 240 images  -- more than I would consider 'normal'.  I wouldn't want to do that for every picture I take.  And I'm not sure I am seeing the 'generic Leica digital look' to which you refer.

 

Since I don't have access to Adobe's own camera profile for the CL I wondered whether other forum members found they produced good results using different profiles and different raw converters from other software companies, e.g. C1 and DXO.  Thanks.

I have the CL and the M240, and I use Adobe LR Classic CC (i.e. subscription model, desktop package). I use the Adobe Standard profile (I used my own custom profile until Adobe and Leica tweaked their own versions to a standard I could live with). I wasn't aware that there was no CL-specific Adobe profile*

 

My interpretation of Thighslapper's "generic Leica look" comment is not an IQ issue, but just that Leica prefers to present users with a flat, low contrast image which requires processing to get to something we like. This has been my experience with the M240, SL, TL2 and CL. My experience with the M9 was different: I found the colours garish, cartoon-like, typical unreal in-your-face Kodachrome. I recognise some people like this and praise the CCD sensor for its colours and want to return to it. I don't!

 

To be honest, I haven't noticed the advantage of the M240 files over the CL's - more the other way round if anything, but I am gratified that a camera with a smaller sensor (and so smaller sensels, given the same resolution) can produce images that are, in IQ terms, the equivalent of the M240, and better than the M240's at higher ISO. It is why, despite having found an Olympus OMD-EM5ii very acceptable in many ways (aside from the menus), its images were never comparable with the M240's; I find that the CL, M240 and SL, for most uses, produce images that are comparable. I don't feel I have to pick one of them if I want the best IQ - it comes down to practicalities (the SL zooms, OIS, and convenience with larger flashes), the CL small size, the M240 gestalt (though I admit that is dropping down my priority list - it is squeezed between the CL and the SL).

 

* Edit: Just checked: there IS a file 'LEICA CL Adobe Standard.dcp' profile in the Lightroom Classic CC Camera Profiles folder (Windows 10).

Edited July 29, 2018 by LocalHero1953

[ramarren]

...  I find that the CL, M240 and SL, for most uses, produce images that are comparable. I don't feel I have to pick one of them if I want the best IQ - it comes down to practicalities (the SL zooms, OIS, and convenience with larger flashes), the CL small size, the M240 gestalt ...

 

 

Comparing some of my M-P 240, M-D 262, SL, and CL files of similar subjects ... made even with the exact same lens ... I have to agree with that. There are differences but they are quite subtle and show up more clearly with edge cases, where you're reaching the limits of a particular camera's capabilities. 

 

I also found the standard JPEGs and default raw conversion of the M9 files pretty horrid in terms of the color palette. I made my own profiles for it within a week of owning it and then it made decent results for me, but I was never truly at one with the camera both for these imaging reasons and because I found it slow and unresponsive in use. The M-P240, for me, first realized the digital Leica M; the M-D 262 is my final joy in a digital Leica M, my favorite M of all over the many years I've owned and used them. 

 

My SL is gone now as is the M-P, the M-D is what I pick when I want to use a rangefinder, the CL has specific things I'll use it for aside from more general purpose photography. For instance, this is a photo made of my buddy Jack on a moto ride in 1997 with a Minox B subminiature camera. The CL + Focusing Bellows-R + Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm lens did a lovely job of digitizing it. No work with this aside from the inversion and adjustment from the negative really: 

 

Jack - Mount Hamilton 1997

 

 

That's a better result than I could get out of the SL, frankly, because with the SL you need double the magnification to get the same pixel resolution, and that doubling of magnification nets more problems which tend to degrade image quality. 

[Stonewall Brigade]

I highly encourage Leica RAW shooters to use Capture One Pro fro your editing and that software program's great treatment of DNG files.  I am quite amazed at my new CL's RAW output and I attribute part of that to Capture One's "generic CL" profile.

[ramarren]

LOL! Phase One has been trying to encourage me for years. They haven't improved the workflow one iota far as I can see.

[wlaidlaw]

LOL! Phase One has been trying to encourage me for years. They haven't improved the workflow one iota far as I can see.

 

It is obviously different strokes for different folks. LR is just the world's most illogically laid programme for me. C1 however, has I think, made the workflow far more complicated recently than it need be but you have to keep updating to get the newer camera ICC profiles. It is especially difficult for me at the moment as I am running OS Mojave Beta 4 on the same machine as C1 and C1 falls over if you try and customise the menu bar. 

 

Wilson

[Stonewall Brigade]

LOL! Phase One has been trying to encourage me for years. They haven't improved the workflow one iota far as I can see.

 

https://triumph.smugmug.com/Flowers/Leica-M10-Floral-Photography-with-Leica-R-Lenses/

 

having no problem trying to learn Capture One's work flow to process Leica DNG Raw files

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[ramarren]

https://triumph.smugmug.com/Flowers/Leica-M10-Floral-Photography-with-Leica-R-Lenses/

 

having no problem trying to learn Capture One's work flow to process Leica DNG Raw files

Good for you.