Camera/lens profiling with new Adobe beta software?

[thompsonkirk]

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I'm about to start working with the LR/ACR profile builder & have some questions about how to proceed. My basic question is whether profiles are really camera-specific, or lens-specific?

 

So far I've tried the ACR/LR Standard M8 profile & see an improvement over the old ones (3.3 & 4.4) . It seems as good as the DNG Neutral profile in C1v4, & I like the workflow better.

 

So now I want to see if I can get better color rendition using Adobe custom profiles specific to my "camera."

 

But I've put "camera" in quotes because I don't understand the idea of a camera profile as distinct from a lens profile. Wouldn't one need profiles not just for one's specific camera, but for specific lenses? New asph lenses seem more inclined to red/magenta renderings; older Leitz lenses incline a little toward cyan/green; CV lenses seem to do something different with blues, & my 21 Biogon's coating seems to produce somewhat more exaggerated contrasts & colors than Leica lenses. (That's using UV/IR filters in all cases & correcting via coding or CornerFix).

 

I'd also noticed different color renderings with Canon 24-105 L vs. older Canon primes.

 

The Adobe website tutorials include instructions for standardizing the color rendition of different cameras - for example, you can 'teach' your 5D to color-match your M8. But wouldn't it make equal sense to do this with, for example, my 28mm Asph Summicron & my 35mm v1 Summicron, two favorite lenses that render colors somewhat differently?

 

I'm going to start out simply by shooting a ColorChecker with my M8 with the 28mm lens that I use most of the time. If the results aren't better than with the standard profile, I'll stop there.

 

But if they are improved, then doesn't it make sense to go ahead to make lens-specific profiles?

 

Or is the point that lens variations are small enough to be correctable just by using one profile & then adjusting WB?

 

Kirk

[archi4]

Hi Kirk,

For what it's worth, my experience:

I find both the 4.4 and the new profile both having too much magenta for caucasian skin, the the new beta profile being the worst. Normally caucasian skin should have at least equal yellow and magenta in cmyk, and preferably a little higher level of yellow.

I have created profiles from a macbeth card and these are closest to the 4.4 profile no matter what lights the chart is photographed with. I have created profiles with the color tables in the profile editor to get what I think is the right skin color.

In C1-4 I use the profiles by Jamie Roberts.

Aperture gives me the most natural skin tones straight away.

My monitor is calbrated with i1 photo which is essential.

Because my MATE tri-elmar becomes a huge monster when using a UV/IR filter and hood, I have made profiles which allow me to use it without the filter - green foliage correction and removing magenta from black synthetics. Unfortunately no one profile works for all situations.

I'd appreciate hearing and learning from your experiences.

Maurice

[Shootist]

Archi4 would you be so kind as to share your profiles?

 

I've made up a couple and find on some pictures the standard 4.4 looks best and on other images my # 6 profile works better.

I think it is all subjective. My # 6 profile has more yellow and green then 4.4.

[thompsonkirk]

Hi, Maurice -

 

My results are initially the same as yours:

 

Old 4.4 profile & custom ColorChecker profile are almost identical;

 

New Standard one seems farther off than either of the above, in both skin tones & blues.

 

Custom profile is off toward Y-ish skin tones, by about as much as Standard was off toward R. Correctable in PS.

 

In a colorful street scene, Standard profile misses especially on oranges (which is the same inaccuracy that messes up skin tones?).

 

C1v4 with DNG Neutral profile was always OK; usually second best; not especially accurate for skin tones.

 

So: No profile is perfect & it's all pretty subjective. And I was more comfortable in the good ol' days when I just trusted ACR, out-of-the-box.

 

This was worth a day's experimenting, & I'll generally use the custom profile, but it's not a magic bullet.

 

Kirk

 

PS: About request to share profiles, see beginning of thread - they won't be accurate for different lenses, even within Leitz-Leica family? If you're going to use custom ones, you really need to get a ColorChecker & make your own? It's not at all difficult!

[archi4]

I just read the posts, and will be happy to share my profiles.

It's about midnight here in Holland, so it will be tomorrow before I get around to doing that.

The only way to do it is to send the recipe:

Loading the profiles into LR2 by simply placing them in the user\application support\adobe\camera raw\camera profiles folder doesn't seem to work. (I just tried it!)

It does work if I send you the recipe, download it to your desktop then open it from the DNG profiler it and then export it as a M8 camera file.

Let me know if that works.

Maurice

[Shootist]

I just read the posts, and will be happy to share my profiles.

It's about midnight here in Holland, so it will be tomorrow before I get around to doing that.

The only way to do it is to send the recipe:

Loading the profiles into LR2 by simply placing them in the user\application support\adobe\camera raw\camera profiles folder doesn't seem to work. (I just tried it!)

It does work if I send you the recipe, download it to your desktop then open it from the DNG profiler it and then export it as a M8 camera file.

Let me know if that works.

Maurice

What you have to do is Export the Recipe. Once that is done the profile can be copied to any computer running PS CS3 with ACR 4.5 or LR 2.

I ran into the same problem with the supplied profiles. Just copying them to the correct folder didn't make them show up in ACR or LR.

I'm going to PM you with my email address.

Thanks.

[thompsonkirk]

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Looks like there will be further discussion of this theme on the Luminous Landscape forum, under Colour Management. Jeff Schewe & Eric Chan (the latter made the Standard profiles) have entered a discussion in which Chan seems to be saying the Standard ones are supposed to be 'pleasing,' perhaps at the expense of accuracy.

 

Most folks there are Nikon & Canon users; some love the new standard profiles, some are cussing at them.

 

Kirk