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IQ180 with Phase One DF camera-colour issue

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GeoffRoss

Guest
Hello everyone,

This is my first time here, so I hope I am doing this correctly.

Yesterday I received my Phase One camera and lenses, along with the IQ180 back. Overall it is a very nice system, and I am most pleased with the detail, exposure capture, ease of use etc. etc., but there is one issue I am having, and I was wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing or not. It is to do with colour accuracy, and more specifically in the orange-red and red-brown colour spectrums. They are consistently over-saturated in all images.

I have spent a lot of time, effort and money over the years developing a high level of colour management for both viewing and processing of images, which is essential when publishing books etc. So I feel very confident that this is not an issue that is related to colour management.

Has anyone else experienced this problem, and if so how have you resolved it, apart from the obvious selection of that colour range and reduce the saturation in Capture One? Obviously I would prefer not to have to do this for all my images.

Regards,
Geoff Ross
www.geoffrossphotography.com
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Can you post a sample picture that outlines the problem colors?

Obvious first question is what basic C1 settings are you using?

Next, what profile are you using in the recipe you have hi-lighted when you edit, and what option/profile have you selected for proof view?
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Do you have the back set on AWB also. Use only daylight and or tungsten in that light and WB from there in C1.

Might be helpful for us to see a color chart . My immediate trouble shooting guess is AWB is really is not accurate.
 
G

GeoffRoss

Guest
Thanks for the swift reply, I wasn't really expecting a response so quickly!

I have used both Auto and Daylight white balance settings on the IQ180, yet the over-saturated red tones are there in all images that contain these colours. Other colours look pretty good. I must stress that I am quite fussy when it comes to colour accuracy, but I think anyone with just a reasonable ability to judge colour accuracy would see what I am referring to. The level I must make adjustment is by around -20 saturation in Capture One after selecting the relevant colour sample using the eye-dropper. This brings the oarange-reds/brown-reds back to a fairly accurate level.

I will process an image as is, and one with the colour level corrected so that you can see exactly what I mean, and hopefully attach it to this.

Regards,
Geoff Ross
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
... and what option/profile have you selected for proof view?
I'll bite .. never changed this. Isn't covered in the LuLa tutorials that I can remember, not sure what it's supposed to do. Mine's set to selected recipe .. I assume that's default.
 
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GeoffRoss

Guest
I've just viewed the original RAW flle in Lightroom, and the saturation of the reddish tones is normal, so the problem must lie somewhere in Capture One, and certainly not the IQ180 back

Regards,
Geoff Ross
 

baxter

New member
I agree the left hand image does have overly intense reds and you've done a good job of correcting in RH image.

You can save all the adjustments you've made into a Style and apply this to all images easily. However this is a workaround and I think you are right to see what is the fundamental underlying problem in the set-up. Although I don't have an IQ80, I have been reading posts and not seen any reference to this issue, nor the same trait in posted images. After all you've invested heavily into a wonderful camera system, you want it to work as you'd like.

When viewing my P45+ files in LR3 they look rather awful and I wouldn't be using this as a gauge, but as you've noted it can be useful for relative comparison of tones.

What saturation setting are you using? I seldom go above +3. My C1 skill level isn't on a par with Jack, Guy and a whole host of others here. But living in the UK, at least I am able to post now whilst they sleep!
 
G

GeoffRoss

Guest
Baxter,

Up until more recent times, I have been concentrating on Lightroom rather than Capture One, and to be honest each program has its merits and downfalls. In terms of colour manipulation Lightroom has the edge in my opinion. I am quite happy to work in either program, but my knowledge is certainly greater in Lightroom.

I am strongly suspecting the problem lies within a setting somewhere in Capture One, but it isn't showing itself to me yet. The suggestion about the overall saturation isn't really the answer I don't think, because if I bring the overall saturation back to correct the brickwork, then all the other colours are very much under saturated.

Regards,
Geoff
 

yaya

Active member
A RAW file with a macbeth colour chart will be a good start for troubleshooting this one. Note that WB presets are just presets and for accurate WB you should use a grey card

Yair
 
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GeoffRoss

Guest
Yair,

There is a reasonably close grey card with the drive-way, but I repeat the overall saturation isn't the issue, it is distinctly restricted to the reddish spectrum, whereby the only solution I am seeing so far is to do an isolating desaturation of the colours concerned.

Regards,
Geoff
 
G

GeoffRoss

Guest
Can you post a sample picture that outlines the problem colors?

Obvious first question is what basic C1 settings are you using?

Next, what profile are you using in the recipe you have hi-lighted when you edit, and what option/profile have you selected for proof view?
Jack,

The Proof Profile is set to Adobe RGB, and the same for the recipe.

Regards,
Geoff
 

gazwas

Active member
It looks to me that you might have the ICC profile of you camera set to Flash which is how C1 defaults your setting to for some reason regardless of WB. This boosts reds a lot IMO. Try changing this to outdoor daylight and that should help calm the redish tones. Your camera ICC profile can be found in the "Base Characteristics" tool in the camera tab in C1.
 
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GeoffRoss

Guest
Gareth,

No, it is set to daylight. I am using the latest 12 core Mac, and I know there were some odd things happening prior to the last upgrade. So maybe this is one of them that didn't get addressed. I have spent a good part of today trying all sorts of different settings, but to no avail. It is starting to look like I will just have to apply a Style to my images to correct for this over saturated red tones. Not the end of the earth to do, but not ideal either.

Regards,
Geoff
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
I think using a gray driveway for WB if you are being very colour critical is madness personally. The only way to get to the root of this is to shoot with a proper WB card, to make sure you have the correct ICC profile selected in Base Profile and that you have properly WBd the file from your WB card, and to ensure that you view on a fully profiled monitor and print to a fully profiled printer and paper.

Anything else is guesswork and will drive you bonkers!

If it were me I would also shoot a full gretag and if I were not satisfied having done all of the above I would make a profile for the camera in daylight using a Colour Checker Passport. All of this I would do before the blanket solution of reducing saturation selectively and then saving it as a style: IMHO this is likely to throw off images made under different circumstances.

If I get a chance this afternoon I will shoot a Passport under studio light and look at it on a profiled monitor to see if I can replicate your problem on my IQ180/DF combo.

HTH

tim
 
G

GeoffRoss

Guest
Tim,

I assure you I am far from being mad. Whether the driveway grey or a grey card is utilized for gauging a neutral, all other colours will be modified as well, and not just the red tones. The issue I am having is that the red tones are being over-saturated, it is not actually a colour tonal problem. The colour when the saturation is reduced is actually very close indeed.

I am in total agreement about all else you have said, as I too have given a great deal of attention to colour management over the years.

Regards,
Geoff
 
G

GeoffRoss

Guest
Jack & Guy,

It is just about time for me to call it quits for today, but the best settings that I have been able to work out in Capture One is to have under:
BASE CHARACTERISTICS
Daylight
Linear response

If I reduce the overall saturation levels slightly, the red tones are still over saturated to what they really are, and still require attention in the selective colour editor.

Colour charts are all good and well, but they do not compete with "real world" photography for making real assessments about colours of things we are very familiar with. This is very much the situation with things I have photographed around the house with the new system over the past day that have disclosed this obvious over saturation problem. As I mentioned earlier, this issue is not happening in Lightroom, so it would appear to be a Capture One problem of some kind.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Regards,
Geoff Ross
 

Digitalcameraman

Active member
When you open a RAW file in Capture One, it tags your images with an ICC camera profile (flash by default)

I think what you may be experiencing is that the images in Capture One are tagged with this profile, but when you open the image in LR, they are not tagged with a ICC profile by default, so no profile is being applied. I think that this is why you are observing a difference in color and saturation.

In Capture One you can edit that ICC color profile and just dial down the saturation, save that out as an edited profile and simply apply it to all your new images that you shoot tethered or to a CF card. This works really well when you want to use Capture One as your standard processing engine.

Below is the link to the Professor's Blog where this topic was covered.

http://blog.phaseone.com/?s=color+editor

I work with many photographers with backs and they tell me yep but I want to shoot into LR instead of C1 and I say no problem, but when they get the image into PS they like the C! results better. They feel it has more shape and contrast, more detail, and more accurate color. Much of this has to do with the ICC camera profile. LR cannot use this profile.

But you can make a profile for LR using X Rite Passport system which works good too. I see the main difference when I compare color areas, the C1 files seem to have more detail with more texture. The color in LR is good but lacks some snap in the detail of certain colors.

Good Luck,



Sincerely,

Chris Snipes
Sales Manager, Florida
Capture Integration
http://www.captureintegration.com

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Thanks for the swift reply, I wasn't really expecting a response so quickly!

I have used both Auto and Daylight white balance settings on the IQ180, yet the over-saturated red tones are there in all images that contain these colours. Other colours look pretty good. I must stress that I am quite fussy when it comes to colour accuracy, but I think anyone with just a reasonable ability to judge colour accuracy would see what I am referring to. The level I must make adjustment is by around -20 saturation in Capture One after selecting the relevant colour sample using the eye-dropper. This brings the oarange-reds/brown-reds back to a fairly accurate level.

I will process an image as is, and one with the colour level corrected so that you can see exactly what I mean, and hopefully attach it to this.

Regards,
Geoff Ross
 
Hi Geoff,

Unfortunately I cannot offer direct advice as using a Leaf back. But I am fussy about colour!!. By default in C1 under Base Characteristics, ICC profile and Curve are present for me. In the ICC profile I have a ton of options and to be honest most are overly red. There are three out of 17 choices that are of any use whatsoever. Most of them blow the red channel to a large degree making things such as the colour of brown hair go red around the fringe, nasty halos/posterisation on cheeks and so on. They would certainly cause something similar to the sample images you have shown. I have found in many cases the default saturation in C1 to be too high.

The only thing I can offer is that it took a lot of experimentation to choose the three ICC profiles that are at least 'ok'. I hope to get an xrite colorimeter that I can create a proper lens profile soon. In lightroom I used the colour checker passport for this, but it won't generate an ICC profile, only an LR adjustment file.

Check also that you don't have a Style/Preset being applied to all images. The easiest way is to enable the Quick tab (View -> Add Tool Tab), there's a Style Preset tool on there.

Finally, as others have pointed out, the colour space of the "Process Recipe" under the output tab can also have adverse effects. I have a setting for Tiff 100% with a colour space of ProPhoto that I use to export to PS.

C1 is certainly a differnt workflow, confusing to start with, but kind of makes sense once you get into it.

Hope that might be of some help.
Paul
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Jack,

The Proof Profile is set to Adobe RGB, and the same for the recipe.

Regards,
Geoff
Do me a favor, and try setting your proof profile top "selected recipe" instead and let me know if it looks any different. It appears like a wide-gamut monitor trying to view an un-tagged sRGB image...

Which camera profile are you using, flash or daylight? (Note that "flash" truncates and bumps red and blue saturation and Outdoor Daylight is a larger space and more even, and more accurate.) Which standard curve -- should be film standard? Do you have any styles enabled? What rendering engine are you using in color preferences, Relative or Perceptual? (Try perceptual if you set it to RC). Is your Adobe revcipe 8 or 16-bit? If 8, move it to 16.

Your bricks look horrible in the left uncorrected image, so something is definitely amiss. My first best guess is you are using the Flash profile and something is not catching in the dedicated proof profile... So try Perceptual rendering intent in your color preferences, "Selected Recipe" in your proof view and flash for your camera profile, then instead of using AdobeRGB, try using Profoto 16 bit or "embed camera profile" in 16 bit and see if that helps at all.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I'll bite .. never changed this. Isn't covered in the LuLa tutorials that I can remember, not sure what it's supposed to do. Mine's set to selected recipe .. I assume that's default.
Hi Wayne,

Selected recipe is what I recommend unless you have a dedicated workflow which requires a specific profile, like a CMYk offset shop...
 
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