Color Checker?

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

OK, now it is in my hands. There seems to be no instructions with it but several parts. Wading through some online stuff but I think I have the process down.

1. It needs DNG to create profiles. I set up LR to do my imports and I did find the way to change the file names on import to match my present way to change names. I like the date and sequence of shooting. Example 06-29-15_0001.nef. Seems to work good for me. I was getting duplicate numbers on photos since the camera will only go to 9999 before it starts over. Wil start converting to DNG now.

2. When shooting should I use the enclosed gray screen to do a custom white balance before shooting?

3. Shoot the color squares at the beginning of each new shooting location?

once I get a change to shoot I can then figure out the LR portion of it.

Any good quick guides anyone can suggest?

 

[Horoscope Fish]

See this video tutorial from the folks at Adorama: Using the X-Rite Color Checker
....

 

[Blade Canyon]

2. When shooting should I use the enclosed gray screen to do a custom white balance before shooting?

3. Shoot the color squares at the beginning of each new shooting location?

If shooting RAW, you don't have to set white balance before shooting, you can do it in post using the pure white square in the lower left of the Passport to set WB in Camera Raw or LR, and you can apply that WB change to all the pics in that session.

Yes, shoot the color squares whenever your light changes. Then in post, use that shot to create your custom profile for that session. Then apply that custom profile to all of the pics from that shoot.

Let us know how it works for you, I have only done some tests but not really used it for a serious shooting session.

One observation: this will change the colors in your shot to what they "actually" are, but sometimes you might want to keep the changes in the subject's color that your actual lighting conditions created. For example, a white house might glow orange when lit by a sunset, and you might want to keep that warm glow. Using the color checker would change the house back to white.

ETA: I watched the tutorial that Paul posted, and the tutorial explained how to use the Passport to adjust warmth and coolness. I don't have the Passport yet, but I have the same software and the Color Checker Classic.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

If shooting RAW, you don't have to set white balance before shooting

This is what I always thought but recently when I was out shooting the milky way with a friend he told me he was setting the WB to 3200k i believe so I decided it wouldn't hurt to try it. Those shots came out so much better. I was not able to correct my shots that were on auto to get as close and good. So I think WB does affect RAW. In normal situations AUTO may be close enough to not make any difference.

Anyone have any good info on White Balance in RAW? Yes, I do know you can correct but might it be better to get it closer in the camera and then fine tune in LR using the Passprot?

 

[Blade Canyon]

That's interesting about WB and RAW. Your own test proved it true, but now you've given me a new project to test the things I've always accepted as true without checking for myself.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

That's interesting about WB and RAW. Your own test proved it true, but now you've given me a new project to test the things I've always accepted as true without checking for myself.

I have learned over the years to accept that I know very little and I listen to almost everyone. Interesting ideas I like to go play with and see for myself how things work. The D5100 was some of my first testing. I wanted to know how far to carry pushing the ISO so I did this test. Pretty crude by my standards today but it did teach me a few things.

http://nikonites.com/d5100/12376-iso-test-d5100.html?highlight=d5100+iso#axzz3eVt74zPC

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

I did get a chance to go out and shoot a few shots late this afternoon. Shot the chart and then a few shots in the back yard. Once I read a quick guide online it was actually pretty easy. What I am not sure of is if I need to do it on every shoot or do some basic morning, daytime golden hour profiles and use those for most times. When doing something critical like a portrait shoot or a wedding then do a profile just for that. If I am just out playing don't even bother with it.

 

[Felisek]

I did get a chance to go out and shoot a few shots late this afternoon. Shot the chart and then a few shots in the back yard. Once I read a quick guide online it was actually pretty easy. What I am not sure of is if I need to do it on every shoot or do some basic morning, daytime golden hour profiles and use those for most times. When doing something critical like a portrait shoot or a wedding then do a profile just for that. If I am just out playing don't even bother with it.

Let me reiterate what Blade Canyon said. If you shoot your chart during the "golden hour", i.e., near sunset or sunrise, the colour checker will try to compensate for the very warm light and make whites white. Other colours will be also change and the resulting picture will look awful. This is not what you want.

I've heard an advice that if you want to shoot at sunset, you should come to your location in the middle of a sunny day and take a picture of your profile for perfect daylight calibration. Use this profile to shoot a sunset later. However, I find this approach excessive. We seldom need sunset colours to look faithful. Most photographers would tweak them anyway too look warmer and more saturated, or change them otherwise to their liking. Personally, I don't think you need a colour checker for this type of photography. Even daylight creates its own colour cast which you might not want to remove for artistic effects.

I believe that colour charts are primarily designed for portrait photography, when you want accurate skin tones. In such case you should take chart photos in every location for every session, as mentioned above.

 

[Felisek]

Here is an example of what would happen if you used colour checker at sunset. First, the picture the way I want it:

Nice sunset, isn't it?

Now, clouds are more-or-less grey, so you can sometimes use them to set the white balance. This is what I did in the picture below. I picked the white balance from the clouds. If you used your colour checker (or just a grey card), you would get a similar effect (not identical, but similar). This is because the grey card would be illuminated by the orange light of the setting sun, and the colour profile would compensate for it.

This is not what you want. To conclude, don't use colour checker or grey card during golden hour.

 

[Bourbon Neat]

Does this go hand in hand with color checkers? Today's deal at BH.

X-Rite ColorMunki Display CMUNDIS B&H Photo Video

If anyone is interested the color checker passport and colormunki can be purchased today only for $198-30 rebate = $168 US dollars at BH.

 

[Blade Canyon]

So I think WB does affect RAW. In normal situations AUTO may be close enough to not make any difference.

So far I have only been able to test this during the day (and not astrophotography like you were doing), but in daylight I see no difference. I put the WB on K and moved the shooting temp through the whole range of temperatures. Then in ACR I moved the temp on all shots to the same value, and they all looked the same.

 

[Felisek]

So far I have only been able to test this during the day (and not astrophotography like you were doing), but in daylight I see no difference. I put the WB on K and moved the shooting temp through the whole range of temperatures. Then in ACR I moved the temp on all shots to the same value, and they all looked the same.

I am almost certain that WB does not affect RAW files. This is because a RAW file is raw data created by the sensor and parameters like white balance, contrast, sharpness and so on are applied later, then these raw data are converted into image (JPEG or TIFF or an image you see in a viewer, which is converted on the fly).

However, the white balance value (as shot) is stored inside the RAW file in its metadata. If you use an image viewer, whether it is a default OS viewer or ViewNX2, it will apply the stored WB value automatically, when converting raw data into an image on the fly. But you can change it into any arbitrary value when converting RAW into image.

RAW file is not an image. It has to be converted into an image ("developed") and in the process of converting many parameters are applied: white balance, contrast, saturation and others. Each of these parameters will affect what the final image looks like.

 

[Blade Canyon]

I am almost certain that WB does not affect RAW files.

Exactly, and that's what we all thought, but then Don said he had better results shooting the Milky Way in RAW with his WB set to a certain temp, and shots made at other temps did not look as good, even after being corrected back to the same temp in post. So, it's an experiment to prove what we thought we already knew...

 

[J-see]

The RAW data is B&W and all color information is simply "attached" and only applied permanently during post processing. When shooting RAW using different WB settings, that does not affect the RAW data itself.

Here's a short pdf explaining what is metadata and what is not.

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/understanding_digitalrawcapture.pdf

 

[Blade Canyon]

Well back to Color Checker discussion: I guess this Color Checker not only corrects for different camera bodies and sensors, but for different color casts in lenses? Has anyone made "Camera Profiles" for specific lenses, too?

 

[Fred Kingston_RIP]

Yes... I have... I'm more concerned about the various color differences under different lighting conditions than the slight differences between lenses though... I preface the different profiles with the camera body names... X-Rite makes a stand-alone program that reads/manages all your LR profiles very easy...

 

[Horoscope Fish]

Well back to Color Checker discussion: I guess this Color Checker not only corrects for different camera bodies and sensors, but for different color casts in lenses? Has anyone made "Camera Profiles" for specific lenses, too?

Well as I understand it, the software uses the twenty-four color chips (the little squares on the color card) in the reference photo you take to correct color in your images. All twenty-four of these chips have absolute color values that are known to the software. These same chips also have a color value in the photos you take. Color imbalances in your photos are corrected by comparing these two values against one another: If the RED Chip in your photo has a color value that does not match the known correct value, there is an imbalance and the software corrects it. The fact you have twenty-four color values to work with is just icing on the proverbial "cake". You also have different "White Balance" chips to work with to consistently warm up or cool down your images.

Further, since the software has known correct color values to work with, it doesn't matter what the source of a color imbalance in the image is (camera body, lens or what have you). The software simply looks at the color value in the image and compares it to a known standard color value.

 

[Blade Canyon]

Further, since the software has known correct color values to work with, it doesn't matter what the source of a color imbalance in the image is (camera body, lens or what have you). The software simply looks at the color value in the image and compares it to a known standard color value.

Point taken, but I'm thinking of times I might not shoot the color checker before taking a few shots (like travel). Having pre-saved profiles (i.e. D800Sunny, D600-70-200outdoor, SonyRX100shade) should still help.

ETA: Come to think of it, if you can export a JPEG to a DNG file, then you could even set up a Color Checker profile for your phone, iPad, and cheap point-and-shoots that won't do RAW.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

ETA: Come to think of it, if you can export a JPEG to a DNG file, then you could even set up a Color Checker profile for your phone, iPad, and cheap point-and-shoots that won't do RAW.

That sounds interesting. Just do some standard profiles for my iPhone. But generally if I have my Color Checker with me I would have my Nikon with me too so I would be using it instead of my phone. LOL

 

[Blade Canyon]

That sounds interesting. Just do some standard profiles for my iPhone. But generally if I have my Color Checker with me I would have my Nikon with me too so I would be using it instead of my phone. LOL

Sorry, I'm not being clear. The idea is that you could take your phone and the CC outside right now and shoot it under a variety of conditions. Then you would use those shots of the CC to make new Camera Profiles in PS right now. One Camera Profile would be "PhoneSunny", for example. You save those in PS now.

Then later, if you take some phone pics outside WITHOUT your CC, you would load the pics in Photoshop and apply the pre-made "PhoneSunny" Camera Profile to those pics, even though you didn't have the CC with you at the time of your shooting. The saved Camera Profile would still make some corrections to your shots.