Colour Consistency between various raw processors

[PeterA]

I have been using Phocus for my Hasselblad files and I am very happy with the functionality of this system. Last night I did my first export to DNG so that I could port over to Lightroom and organise my filing and discovered something very interesting.

The colours I got from Phocus corresponded very closely to colour as shot.:thumbs:
However the exported DNG file could not be worked in Lightoroom to deliver the same quality of colour regarding true to as shot look as in Phocus.:thumbdown:

I have some questions:

1. How do i do a screen grab on a mac so I can post on here to illustrate examples like this?

2. Should I expect to see a big difference in how colour is treated between various raw processors?

3. Is there a set of things I should make sure are in place in order to minimise such differences?

4. I haven't tried exporting a Tiff file to use in Photoshop - should I expect to see the same difference between how Phocus renders a Tiff and how Photoshop ( as an aexample of a post shop programme) displays a tiff file - or should I expect to see the same colours in both?

Thanks
Pete

 

[Greg Seitz]

I have been using Phocus for my Hasselblad files and I am very happy with the functionality of this system. Last night I did my first export to DNG so that I could port over to Lightroom and organise my filing and discovered something very interesting.

The colours I got from Phocus corresponded very closely to colour as shot.:thumbs:
However the exported DNG file could not be worked in Lightoroom to deliver the same quality of colour regarding true to as shot look as in Phocus.:thumbdown:

I have some questions:

1. How do i do a screen grab on a mac so I can post on here to illustrate examples like this?

2. Should I expect to see a big difference in how colour is treated between various raw processors?

3. Is there a set of things I should make sure are in place in order to minimise such differences?

4. I haven't tried exporting a Tiff file to use in Photoshop - should I expect to see the same difference between how Phocus renders a Tiff and how Photoshop ( as an aexample of a post shop programme) displays a tiff file - or should I expect to see the same colours in both?

Thanks
Pete

Pete,

Screen capture on Mac - Cmd-Shift-3 to grab the whole screen, the file is put on your desktop as a .png file. Cmd-Shift-4 and you can drag select what you want for a partial capture. Cmd-Shift-4 followed by the spacebar, you get a little camera icon, click the window you want to capture just one window.

Different raw processors definitely have their own interpretation. In ACR you can go through the calibration routine of shooting a gretag color chart and running a calibration script in photoshop. I've found this one works best for me: http://21stcenturyshoebox.com/tools/ACRcalibrator.html

The tiff file should look the same as the app that exported it as long as you have a color profile embedded.

Thanks,

Greg

 

[TRSmith]

I'll contribute to your first question. The keys for a screenshot in OSX on a MAC are Command + Shift + 3 (which places a picture of your entire screen on your desktop and names it "picture 1"); and Command + shift + 4 (which allows you to select an area of the screen to capture).

All native OS keyboard commands can be found in the System Preferences for Keyboard and Mouse.

 

[PeterA]

Greg and TRSmith - thanks for your help.

 

[Dale Allyn]

Peter, have you played with the application "Grab"? It should be in your Apps. folder or the Utilities folder within Applications. See the item menu item called "Capture" at the top. (This pertains to Tiger and I'm not sure about Leopard regarding this utility.)

Cheers.

 

[Chuck Jones]

Pete, you can also use the "GRAB" utility in OSX. That is what I use, and you can select a specific area on the screen to capture whatever you wish, and you can also save it as a JPG, which I find a lot more useful.

As Greg said above, each of the RAW processors will behave differently from one to the other, as well as from one camera to another. Some work better with files from specific manufacturers also. I have found that normally, the RAW processor supplied or directly supported by a specific manufacturer is probably the best to use in a general sense, for one specific image file. But who of us shoots only one image? NONE! So invariably, our workflow must include something that at least lets us use a simulated lightbox to do image selection. I also use Lightroom most of the time for this, but have also just upgraded my copy of Aperture to give it a good test run. Another RAW processor you mite want to try out with your DNG files is RAW Developer. With some images, it does a really fantastic job.

 

[PeterA]

Thanks Dale and Chuck - much appreciated.

 

[David K]

Learned something new today... good question and answers.