Skin Colors in LR

[Baxter]

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Woody

 

My experience is that Rags Gardner's script produces better results than Thomas Fors (YMMV) and the settings vary significantly in different lighting. You'll need several settings for each main type of lighting - my results were linked earlier in the thread inc North light equivalent.

 

Be warned it is approx 40 mins to run each lighting setting with this script.

[hofrench]

I have turned belatedly to using Capture One for any images I judge particularly important.

Lightroom is fine for routine raw conversion, especially since I mostly do b+w work, but C1 really is superior in color rendition, detail and noise suppression in files shot at 320 and above.

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[Albert4321]

Good thread. I have been struggling with M8's skin tone, and interested to see what you all come up with (especially in ACR.)

 

Here is an example I tried with (1) Barjohn' ACR setting, (2) Sandy lastest setting, and (3) ACR default. It is not a good example photo but this is kind of stuff I am struggling with. Lighting was shoot with video light, combine with the flourescent type ceiling light at the Four Seasons Hotel. I pick the color picker on the groom's shirt. Auto on the basic settings (exposure thru saturation). I know there is no one size fits all setting, but here are the samples:

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[barjohn]

Interesting results. I am puzzled by the different results we all seem to be getting. I did use a Gretag Macbeth color chart taken outside on a nice sunny day and shooting it as the basis for running the script.

 

The M8 seems to favor both reds (given its high IR sensitivity this isn't surprising) and yellows, note the yellow cast on the skin in various parts of the face. Even on the LR default, the girl's forehead and eye area has a slight yellow cast. Of course some of this may be due to the lighting outside the window reflecting on the skin.

[sandymc]

My experience is that Rags Gardner's script produces better results than Thomas Fors (YMMV) and the settings vary significantly in different lighting.

 

I'm actually not using any of the scripts, for a number of reasons, one being that I don't have PS as part of my workflow. But more important, what I set out to do was to find out how easy (or not!) it is to get specific color results from each of LR, Aperture and C1. Note here I say specific color results, as opposed to pleasing color results. Although, given that the specific results are a match to the MacBeth chart, one would hope that the specific results would at be a sound starting point towards pleasing results.

 

However, I did take a close look at what both the Fors script and the Gardner script do, and I would definitely expect that the Gardner script would produce better results. The reason is that in view, the Fors script is just plain wrong. Thomas assumes in his script that LR (and PS's) RGB values are from the the ProPhoto color space. Actually, LR uses uses Melissa RGB space (aka "Bastard RGB"), which has the same primaries, but a different gamma. So Thomas is matching colors from one colorspace to those from a different space. The Gardner script on the other hand uses the Adobe "solidcolor" function to compare colors, which should, in principle, get the colorspaces right.

 

All of which is long way of saying that if you're going to use a script, the Gardner's one is the one I'd go for.

 

Sandy

[sandymc]

Interesting results. I am puzzled by the different results we all seem to be getting.

 

John, my current hypothesis is that a few things are happening here:

 

1. Adobe's color management is notorious for getting reds wrong (see some of the threads on Luminous Landscape, for example)

 

2. The M8, as you point out, also has issues with red, so in combination with (1), quite small changes in settings give quite large output swings

 

3. Finally, at least in the case of my adjustments, I haven't yet found a good way of building a calibration that's robust with changes in the LR brightness setting. I think that the last profile I built is better than the first ones in this regard, but I still need to put some more work into understanding how exactly the brightness control impacts on color rendition.....

 

Sandy

[Albert4321]

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John, my current hypothesis is that a few things are happening here:

 

1. Adobe's color management is notorious for getting reds wrong (see some of the threads on Luminous Landscape, for example)

 

2. The M8, as you point out, also has issues with red, so in combination with (1), quite small changes in settings give quite large output swings

 

3. Finally, at least in the case of my adjustments, I haven't yet found a good way of building a calibration that's robust ...

Sandy

 

I agree with you 100%. Also, with the M8, if I shot in ISO higher than 640, all bet are off (in tearm of getting clean color, especially skin tone.) Plus shitty lighting situation that I normally deal with, there is no way I could get good skin tone. With Canon, if I get the WB correct, the skin tone will follow. Sadly, I don't really like the canon color. The Contax ND has the best color IMHO in good light.

 

Anyway, here are one more sample I played, shot in shade, auto WB in ACR, which is close to as shot, and the shade preset.

 

2nd set is the normal cheeze processing/actions I do with my general proofing from the same set of pics.

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[Jamie Roberts]

Sandy, Baxter,

 

Thanks for the kind words about the profiles. It seems like I've been waiting forever to update them, but I've been waiting for C1 V4 Pro. FWIW, they work quite well in C1 V4 "LE"...

 

I expect the Pro version of C1 to have discrete colour control / a colour editor just like V3.7. That's when I'll tweak the existing profiles.

 

@ Albert, if that really is the "shade preset" in ACR / Lightroom with the M8, then there is something wrong with ACR colour wrt skin tones; worse than I suspected, even! Of course, it's always hard to tell from a JPEG; want to make the RAW available?

[Albert4321]

Albert, if that really is the "shade preset" in ACR / Lightroom with the M8, then there is something wrong with ACR colour wrt skin tones; worse than I suspected, even! Of course, it's always hard to tell from a JPEG; want to make the RAW available?

 

Sure, can u pm me your email address? I could not finger out how to attach file via pm here nor I could not find your email address at your site.

 

Just to clarify a bit:

 

Here is the WB value of the pic in PS3 ACR:

 

As shot: 7400 tint +8

Auto: 7500 tint 0

Shade pre-set: 7500 tint +10.

 

There are some differences but closed enough not to be siginificant (especially between as shot and shade) for my taste or print.

[robsteve]

John, interesting - which setting was that, and brightness setting did you have in?

 

Sandy

 

I get similar/bad results when I try some of the suggested settings posted here. Is it perhaps a Windows versus Mac Lightroom problem?

[Jamie Roberts]

Sure, can u pm me your email address? I could not finger out how to attach file via pm here nor I could not find your email address at your site.

{snipped}

 

Albert, upload it through YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement and then PM me here with the URL (don't like putting my email address in here because of spam...) or if you want others to have a look, just post the yousendit link.

[barjohn]

I'm using Mac version and running it on a Mac. My monitor is color calibrated with a gamma of 1.8 at 6500k using a Spyder 2 Pro ver 2.2. I don't know if the Windows version produces different results.

[sandymc]

Ok, the saga continues. I don't have any new calibration settings, but a have made some progress with understanding what exactly Lightroom is doing.

 

To achieve that, what I've done is to build a set of synthetic images of a GretagMacBeth 24-patch test chart as M8 DNG files. In fact, they are real files, just with the original image data replaced.

 

In the event that someone else finds that useful, I've posted them at the CornerFix download location:

 

SourceForge.net: CornerFix

 

They are under the "Calibration Images" package.

 

These images are in various Leica M8 DNG formats:

 

1. TestChart_LevelCompressed is in standard M8 8-bit compressed format. Any raw deleoper capable of reading an M8 file will opens this

 

2. TestChart is a linear 14-bit resolution file. This is the recommended file for all Adobe products, and Apple Aperture

 

3. TestChart_CapOneV4 is a linear 16-bit resolution chart built to accommodate Capture One Version 4

 

These images were built by taking the CIE L*a*b* color specifications for the various patches on the GretagMacBeth chart, and creating raw data which corresponds to those values. As such, they represent what a "perfect" Leica M8 would produce. Perfect in the sense of matching exactly to the Leica calibration data contained in a DNG's camera data fields.

 

As such, these images are NOT useful for camera calibration, as they do not represent a real camera. They are however very useful for characterizing post camera workflow.

 

Note, the white balance is "As shot"

 

Also note these files are pretty small, about 130k each, as they are just repeating data, and compress real well.

 

Sandy

[rdney]

Hi Sandy,

 

Can you post your updated Apple Aperture Presets?

 

I would really appreciate it a lot.

 

Thanks

 

Rodney

[sandymc]

Rodney, still busy developing those(!). But I will be posting a new set of presets for both LR and Aperture in the next few days. This has just been a lot more difficult and time consuming than I thought.

 

Sandy

[rwfreund]

I'm using Mac version and running it on a Mac. My monitor is color calibrated with a gamma of 1.8 at 6500k using a Spyder 2 Pro ver 2.2. I don't know if the Windows version produces different results.

 

John,

Why are you using a gamma of 1.8?

thanks

-bob

[barjohn]

Because that is the preferred gamma for IMacs as I understand it. Perhaps you can educate me on that one but it also seems to result in prints that more closely match the monitor than using 2.2.

[rwfreund]

John,

Gamma 1.8 is an historical artifact. See Aperture: Color and gamma settings for print and web

Matching your prints and screen might also be due to screen luminance being too high, printer profiling, print viewing lighting conditions, or perhaps mis-use or non-use of soft proofing.

Thy 2.2 gamma D65 (6500K) and 110-120 lumins for a lcd monitor.

-bob

[carstenw]

As Bob says, more recently the recommendation for both Macs and PCs is 2.2, which I am using on my Mac.

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[charlesphoto99]

Because that is the preferred gamma for IMacs as I understand it. Perhaps you can educate me on that one but it also seems to result in prints that more closely match the monitor than using 2.2.

 

John, I was concerned as well when reading you were using 1.8. I use and everything ive read is 2.2. You'll also find that the adobe rgb space is a native 2.2 and so for b&w I use a grayscale gamma 2.2 space that matches nicely when switching back and forth (I do a lot of grayscale scanning)

 

Good luck!