What color calibration RAW tools do you have for your digital camera?
Discussion
3 replies
Posted by David Senesac on November 4, 2006 at 11:39 PM
Someone recently mentioned to me that calibrating digital camera RAW output to accurately represent natural color and shades had come of age though I rather doubted that was true for most users. Of course for years computer monitor color calibration has itself been a can of worms that has been plagued by low end cheap consumer sensors and tools. In large part due to X-Rite's long time stranglehold on all the pricy commercial level products. Of course anyone considering getting DSLR colors right must start with their computer monitor which is a whole other subject. So I spent a bit of time today searching for digital camera color management guides, user forum dialogue, and reviews, noting for many asking and responding to forum questions it is beyond what they are presently doing. Seems those serious enough about adjusting their cameras to reality, just to get started need to fork over $1500 for the Eye-One Photo Kit and another $300 for the 140 patch Gretag-Macbeth color target. Otherwise many are using the old 24 patch G-M print target or targets from files they print out with printers and just crudely adjusting their cameras. And in fact reality is not an interest to many who just adjust their high end DSLR cameras to something they like and learn to love it. So I'd expect despite the fact a majority of you NPN photographers now have digital SLRs, that most have not come up to speed with all the latest camera color calibration tools or software? ...David
In a word - none. The same is true for my film scanner. I never found it necessary to calibrate my input device because I work each of my images independently and differently to achieve a given look. To that extent the only devices I need calibrated are my monitor and printer.
I can understand accurate color input as a requirement in say some scientific applications but beyond that I personally don't find much value in it for my purposes.
If anything, I think the transition to digital cameras has made this less of an issue since film and most consumer film scanners are much less consistent than raw capture in a given camera sample.
Guy
Posted by Jay Barnes on November 5, 2006 at 6:50 PM
As Guy points out, it really depends on your individual pupose and the target customer.
With my shooting, I prefer the results to have fairly accurate color, so I calibrate my input by shooting a Kodak gray card every time the lighting conditions change. I keep part of the card in shade so I can average the two white points (with more weight on the unshaded portion) to come up with an acceptable white value for the related set of photos. Only takes a couple seconds to shoot the card, and less than a minute in post-processing to set the white balance for a few hundred photos. This, along with a calibrated display and accurate printer profiles, is good enough for me.
Going through the trouble of shooting a G-M target to obtain pinpoint accurate color for outdoor nature photography in natural light would be a waste of time for me. Natural light is usually made up of at least two light sources of extremely different color temperatures: sun and sky. When the ratio of those two sources changes, or if your subject moves in relation to you and the sun, a slight shift in hues reflected by your subject can be observed and you would need to shoot the target again. This is obviously not an option when photographing wild birds.
I'm quite certain these accurate color management processes are in use where I work, where the wrong shade of pink could result in the recall of 20,000 sweaters or panties, or the reshoot of a product line for marketing. A $2,000 color management kit is pretty cheap compared to getting Tyra Banks back in the studio because the camera-shooter-guy thought a gray card was sufficient.
Posted by David Senesac on November 5, 2006 at 9:32 PM
Hello Jay,
I follow your reasoning however my admittedly quite limited experience with different digital cameras is that there is comparable variation between different models and individual cameras as there are with different monitors or scanners and individual units. Of course the manufacturers benefit from not having to calibrate individual units for compliance to some level of specifications and instead just plunk in whatever range of characteristics the generic sensors from their parts vendors and the associated electronic circuitry provide. That also doesn't motivate manufacturers of the color sensor chips to expend more effort to screen or provide more consistency in their own devices. Consumer level monitor calibration colorimeters are one device where that lack of effort is sometimes all too obvious reflecting that attitude. In any case I would not surprised if there are some higher end more pricy digital cameras where the manufacturers do in fact make an attempt to control color and luminance charcteristics. Though calibrating the white point with gray cards as you are doing is the primary key to day to day work, there is considerably more parameters within the relationships of color and luminance that might still be significantly off. I'm always surprised at how some people get used to looking at obviously uncalibrated monitors thinking the display is reasonably ok only to be shocked at the difference when they see a well calibrated unit. All three rather pricy compact digital cameras I have owned since they came on the same earlier this decade have had some noticeable shortcomings. My current Coolpix requires an input in my part in Photoshop of de-saturation of red about -25 and a shift in sky cyan/blue hues of +7 else the resulting images are obviously way off. ...David
Discussion
3 repliesIn a word - none. The same is true for my film scanner. I never found it necessary to calibrate my input device because I work each of my images independently and differently to achieve a given look. To that extent the only devices I need calibrated are my monitor and printer.
I can understand accurate color input as a requirement in say some scientific applications but beyond that I personally don't find much value in it for my purposes.
If anything, I think the transition to digital cameras has made this less of an issue since film and most consumer film scanners are much less consistent than raw capture in a given camera sample.
Guy
With my shooting, I prefer the results to have fairly accurate color, so I calibrate my input by shooting a Kodak gray card every time the lighting conditions change. I keep part of the card in shade so I can average the two white points (with more weight on the unshaded portion) to come up with an acceptable white value for the related set of photos. Only takes a couple seconds to shoot the card, and less than a minute in post-processing to set the white balance for a few hundred photos. This, along with a calibrated display and accurate printer profiles, is good enough for me.
Going through the trouble of shooting a G-M target to obtain pinpoint accurate color for outdoor nature photography in natural light would be a waste of time for me. Natural light is usually made up of at least two light sources of extremely different color temperatures: sun and sky. When the ratio of those two sources changes, or if your subject moves in relation to you and the sun, a slight shift in hues reflected by your subject can be observed and you would need to shoot the target again. This is obviously not an option when photographing wild birds.
I'm quite certain these accurate color management processes are in use where I work, where the wrong shade of pink could result in the recall of 20,000 sweaters or panties, or the reshoot of a product line for marketing. A $2,000 color management kit is pretty cheap compared to getting Tyra Banks back in the studio because the camera-shooter-guy thought a gray card was sufficient.
I follow your reasoning however my admittedly quite limited experience with different digital cameras is that there is comparable variation between different models and individual cameras as there are with different monitors or scanners and individual units. Of course the manufacturers benefit from not having to calibrate individual units for compliance to some level of specifications and instead just plunk in whatever range of characteristics the generic sensors from their parts vendors and the associated electronic circuitry provide. That also doesn't motivate manufacturers of the color sensor chips to expend more effort to screen or provide more consistency in their own devices. Consumer level monitor calibration colorimeters are one device where that lack of effort is sometimes all too obvious reflecting that attitude. In any case I would not surprised if there are some higher end more pricy digital cameras where the manufacturers do in fact make an attempt to control color and luminance charcteristics. Though calibrating the white point with gray cards as you are doing is the primary key to day to day work, there is considerably more parameters within the relationships of color and luminance that might still be significantly off. I'm always surprised at how some people get used to looking at obviously uncalibrated monitors thinking the display is reasonably ok only to be shocked at the difference when they see a well calibrated unit. All three rather pricy compact digital cameras I have owned since they came on the same earlier this decade have had some noticeable shortcomings. My current Coolpix requires an input in my part in Photoshop of de-saturation of red about -25 and a shift in sky cyan/blue hues of +7 else the resulting images are obviously way off. ...David