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A little game of D800 profile guessing...

tashley

Subscriber Member
This file has had LR lens corrections and WB applied, otherwise nothing. I then still in LR4, made my own X-Rite passport profile and tried it against various Nikon profiles such as Vivid, Landscape, Neutral and also Adobe Camera Standard.

Since you weren't there when I shot it, you won't know which is 'right' but then this faces all of us quite often: the need to retro-fit the best colour to a file from memory.

So which of these (files in Adobe RGB) do you prefer, find most natural, least natural?

I'll post the answers later!

Originals here: http://tashley1.zenfolio.com/p847354947/hb10dbb#hb10dbb












 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Blue sky at mid day, but with a medium density cloud passing at that moment as far as I remember...
 
S

Shelby Lewis

Guest
I'd probably prefer #2 as a starting place for post-processing (in RAW form).. although it's hard to tell on my laptop if the highlights have held, even in such a low contrast rendering.
 
#2 is made from colors i mostly recognize from my home planet. The others more closely resemble pictures I see on the internet (as you might guess, I am not an über-saturation dude).

In all of them, including #2, the red channel is heavily clipped. Did this happen in camera or in processing?
 

EH21

Member
Thanks for sharing here. When I really look at these, I see lots of differences, but actually none of them look 'real' to me mostly because of the reds and yellows. Is that why you went to the through all the profile comparisons in the first place?
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
In all of them, including #2, the red channel is heavily clipped. Did this happen in camera or in processing?
Interesting observation.... I haven't opened the file in NX but in LR it has a nicely centred histogram, even if I download the files from what I've posted here, rather than looking at the originals. So I tried dropping jpegs and TIFFs into C1 (it doesn't open NEFFs) and at first sight it looks light a fairly good histo, but in fact it does go off a bit of a cliff at the right though there are no highlight clipping warnings for the reds in either C1 or LR. Obviously C1 is depending on the TIFF I output, which was 16 bit full size.

Running a dropper over the files in LR does show in a small number of areas 100% red though. However if I subtract about 1/3rd stop in exposure, or simply drop luminosity in the reds, this goes away.
 

ustein

Contributing Editor
I always create ColorChecker Passport profiles but the reds and greens are still not great.

I wait for the support by DxO because there colors seem always be very good by default.
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
So that was a difficult shot with no wide reference palette for the eye to get stuck into. This next was at 1112 am BST and I had a UV filter on. They are in the same order of profile processing as the tulips.









 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Tulips -- Green separation is my biggest peeve with DSLR files, and where MF reigns king IMHO. That said, your #4 has the best green separation -- however it comes with poorer red separation than #3. Best red separation appears to be #2 (ACR std?), to my eyes. So for "balance" I should give #3 the nod, but is is also higher contrast and slightly over-saturated for my liking (possibly the ACR "Vibrant" profile?) -- so if you dialed back contrast by about 8 points, I think that might make it my favorite.

Of course this is about pleasing color and nothing above has anything to do with what is the most "accurate" color, that is an entirely different discussion.
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member

My guess for the tulips:

# 1 Adobe Standard

# 2 Camera Neutral

# 3 Camera Standard

# 4 Camera Landscape

# 5 Camera Vivid
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Because I am a sloppy dolt (I really do apologise) the second set differs from the first set.

The tulips have, NOT IN THIS ORDER, Xrite Profile, Adobe Standard, Camera Vivid, Camera Landscape and Camera Neutral. There is no Camera Standard rendition.

The castle has almost the same BUT I accidentally did a Camera Standard rather than an Adobe Standard so there is NO Adobe Standard.

So given that most users seem agreed that they don't like the Adobe Standard profile, the Castel series is more interesting because it has only the Camera recipes and my home-brew Xrite recipe...

Sorry for the confusion... I shouldn't answer the phone whilst processing :banghead:
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I have been using Camera standard mostly as it renders the blue sky about the best but again we all have different color preferences so it is tough. The color from the D800 is good but again I would like to profile mine anyway but I am kind of waiting to see what C1 has and work in that program if I'm going to do anything. So right now I'm on holding pattern.
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member

oh sorry about my above nonsense guess, Tim, I misunderstood the possibilities to choose among :facesmack:
 

hcubell

Well-known member
The second of the castle photos would be my choice because it appears, on my iPad 3, to have the most shadow detail and "moderate" saturation. I prefer a more neutral starting point with the raw file. In fact, I wish that Adobe provided a profile that looked more like the color palette of a nice color negative film. It's easy to dial up contrast and saturation in PS and LR, but not so easy to produce nice pastels.
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member

Ok, for the castle landscape my guess would be:

# 1 Xrite profile

# 2 Camera Neutral

# 3 Camera Landscape

# 4 Camera Vivid

# 5 Camera Standard
 
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