Colour passports, or the little booklet with all the colours on it?

[Valvebounce]

Hi Folks.
I think the thing I'm thinking about is called a colour passport, but I'm not sure. I use DxO 10, I have an X‑Rite ColorMunki Display for monitor correction.
My question is basically how does one use them, is it possible to (easily, I'm not keen on hours of editing) incorporate using one in to the DxO workflow if I need to, and I think I need to, to try and get the colours right. I'm fairly sure my colour memory is as flawed as my what I did yesterday memory. :

Cheers, Graham.

 

[asalaja]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5xSdin2GM

 

[privatebydesign]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5xSdin2GM

At 13:50 he makes a classic error. He applies both WB, which is good, but also profile before he has restarted the program, that is why the 'new' version looks so bad and red, he is reapplying Adobe Standard by mistake!

 

[Halfrack]

There are 2 levels of doing this - getting the right white balance or going full color profile. The 'getting the right white balance' involves a gray card or the white/gray/black trio and is a really good idea if you have the time when shooting. Doing an XRite ColorChecker and full profile is a lot more work, but is essential when doing catalog or color critical work. It's also helpful when moving between cameras and camera brands, and each has their own quirks.

If you look around the video guys have a cheaper model - X-Rite ColorChecker Classic Card - so start with that and see if it works into what you're doing.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I bought a X-Rite color checker passport photo from B&H during their black Friday/cyber Monday sale and it came last night.

I have been trying to set up and use it today, its frustrating. No instructions, to get them you must create a X-Rite account, but even though I went thru the horrible process of creating the account, they did not send me the e-mail activation code, so I'm waiting for a hour to see if it arrives.


The software on the CD was obsolete by a few years, of course, but it updated to the latest.

I did try watching some of the online videos that I could access, but found them to be worthless.

 

[Viggo]

I bought a X-Rite color checker passport photo from B&H during their black Friday/cyber Monday sale and it came last night.

I have been trying to set up and use it today, its frustrating. No instructions, to get them you must create a X-Rite account, but even though I went thru the horrible process of creating the account, they did not send me the e-mail activation code, so I'm waiting for a hour to see if it arrives.


The software on the CD was obsolete by a few years, of course, but it updated to the latest.

I did try watching some of the online videos that I could access, but found them to be worthless.

FLip it up and place it the correct way up. Shoot it under the desired light source, make three things very sure:

Even light across the CC (ColorChecker)
Expose correctly.
Use the lowest possible ISO, and not above 400.

Convert the raw to DNG
Open AdobeDNG Profile Editor and make the profile there, forget the X-rite software. And eyedrop the middle grey square on the bottom line.
I can't remember if it stores automatically to Lightroom, but mine does now, restart Lr and it's availabe.

Let' say you would like a warmer wb for a portrait, just eye drop the raw CC on the portrait to landscape grey squares and it warms up without mis-tinting (if that's a word).

I have created a few dual illuminant profiles and they work great! spot on every time.

 

[privatebydesign]

I don't use the X-Rite software, it is not good. Adobe have a free program, DNG Profile Editor, that I find much nicer to use and has more control.

 

[Maiaibing]

I bought a X-Rite color checker passport photo from B&H during their black Friday/cyber Monday sale and it came last night.

I have been trying to set up and use it today, its frustrating. No instructions, to get them you must create a X-Rite account, but even though I went thru the horrible process of creating the account, they did not send me the e-mail activation code, so I'm waiting for a hour to see if it arrives.

I did try watching some of the online videos that I could access, but found them to be worthless.

FLip it up and place it the correct way up.

Just some nit-picking comments to your excellent guide:
Does not matter whichever way you place it.

Shoot it under the desired light source, make three things very sure:

Even light across the CC (ColorChecker)
Expose correctly.

Spot on - do not overexpose to either side - no 100% black or white!

Use the lowest possible ISO, and not above 400.

Have not seen any effect of shooting higher iso like 1600(?)

Convert the raw to DNG
Open AdobeDNG Profile Editor and make the profile there, forget the X-rite software. And eyedrop the middle grey square on the bottom line.
I can't remember if it stores automatically to Lightroom, but mine does now, restart Lr and it's availabe.

This works. I use the X-rite software myself as I do not want to make DNG files first. Works fine with CR2 RAW (needs a workaround for 5DS/R files however).

Let' say you would like a warmer wb for a portrait, just eye drop the raw CC on the portrait to landscape grey squares and it warms up without mis-tinting (if that's a word).

I have created a few dual illuminant profiles and they work great! spot on every time.

Can you explain how you create these. To me it seems the software decides the illuminant?

 

[Viggo]

I'm only on my cellphone now so didn't find the write up of the dual profile, but I read it on the X-rite site. You shoot both under daylight and, I used a normal light bulb, tungsten and you use both CC-shots when creating one profile.

I have shot the CC in higher iso before and the noise/colornoise interferes with the actual color making the profile behave weird and producing unexpected colors.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Folks.
I started watching the video but it looks like something other than DxO being used, before I watch this is the principle the same for both programs? Not withstanding the fact that pbd pointed out a problem I just don't want to head off down the wrong road.

Thanks for the help so far.

Cheers, Graham.

 

[wojtek]

I am using the xrite color checkers and I wish I knew this before as I wouldn't sold one sigma lens years ago which couldn't produce nice greens as per bad color reproduction. The xrite helps a lot with colors but you need to have a good one. My first one was the passport version and I wasn't happy with the blue patch on it as the calibration was over saturating and darkening blues. I was sure my camera is not that bad with blues, so I went and bought the big one, the ColorChecker Classic, which is around 8x10" and now all is perfect.

there are some things to know when using these -
you have to have even light on it, that's obvious, you are better off to calibrate all your lenses for flash light (this will give you the lens calibration setups that you can quickly apply on each picture without the need of shooting the test each time), the flash light covers a very wide color spectrum so this way you have it sorted against all the color problems from different lenses. I would advise to do 3 versions for each lens: F2.8 for all wide open apertures, F5.6 for the mid way and F11 for the closed apertures. This is for much more precise calibration against color shifts caused by lenses.

when it comes to the highest calibration needed, for example when you photograph oil paintings etc, it would be advised to do the tests for the very aperture you are using. The thing is that a given lens may have a very nice colors when wide open and it may turn a bluish when stepped down to F16 or more as the light bounces a lot more inside the lens before getting thru the closed aperture, being colored by different antireflex coatings from all the lens elements inside your lens.

Another news on the subject is that the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport software can not process files above 40 megapixels at the moment. I am still able to create a color profile for my 6D but I wasn't able to do the same with 5DSr as it was giving me the error message. I got in touch with the X-Rite support team recently and they told me they working on the update at the moment and it should be ready for around Jan/Feb 2016, but for the time being it is enough if I switch the camera to medium or small raw mode to bypass this problem.

 

[privatebydesign]

Try Adobe's free DNG Profile Editor, I much prefer it to the X-Rite software anyway.

 

[wojtek]

Try Adobe's free DNG Profile Editor, I much prefer it to the X-Rite software anyway.

Thank you for this advice, I tried and it works on the large files alright but I don't like the effects it is producing. It makes almost no change to adobe standard setting but it pushes the hue of the reds a bit towards oranges and comparing to the Xrite software when used on the same files, xrite clears colors nicer, removes this delicate fog, adds a bit of contrast and vividness but the adobe looks like all was almost good and only a little correction was needed