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262 funky color

Paratom

Well-known member
My new M 262 shows some really funky color in LR. (But also jpg). Red is totally oversaturated and colors are too warm.
I got some ideas how to change this in post in LR (at another forum) but I really wonder why it is not possible to provide a usable lightroom profile from Leica side.
I really love the M 262 for its simplcicity, but I didnt expect this color issue. M type 240 color with standard settings in LR seemd much much better to me. I even wonder it they maybe put the better sensors in the type240 and the selected not so good ones in the 262??? (J have the 262 WITH screen).

I really hope they fix it, also jpg color.
 

D&A

Well-known member
What you describe is what the early M240 colors looked like when that camera was first released and before a number of firmware updates tamed the color somewhat.

On the other hand, others have exclaimed that the M262 has somewhat better color than the current M240 although I'm not sure if this has been substantiated.

I doubt M262 got cheaper or lets just say not the cream of the crop in selecting sensors but sounds more like your M262 is a very early M240 underneith the top and bottom plates. (Yes I realize its not).

I'd be interested how this gets sorted out as operationally, the M240 & M262 are excellent cameras.

Dave (D&A)
 
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Vivek

Guest
My new M 262 shows some really funky color in LR. (But also jpg). Red is totally oversaturated and colors are too warm.
I got some ideas how to change this in post in LR (at another forum) but I really wonder why it is not possible to provide a usable lightroom profile from Leica side.
I really love the M 262 for its simplcicity, but I didnt expect this color issue. M type 240 color with standard settings in LR seemd much much better to me. I even wonder it they maybe put the better sensors in the type240 and the selected not so good ones in the 262??? (J have the 262 WITH screen).

I really hope they fix it, also jpg color.
Is that a post Brexit issue?
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
My new M 262 shows some really funky color in LR. (But also jpg). Red is totally oversaturated and colors are too warm.
I got some ideas how to change this in post in LR (at another forum) but I really wonder why it is not possible to provide a usable lightroom profile from Leica side.
I really love the M 262 for its simplcicity, but I didnt expect this color issue. M type 240 color with standard settings in LR seemd much much better to me. I even wonder it they maybe put the better sensors in the type240 and the selected not so good ones in the 262??? (J have the 262 WITH screen).

I really hope they fix it, also jpg color.
What version of LR are you using? and are you referring to the default colors produced with DNG files or to the JPEG file colors?

The M262 sensor is different from the M240 sensor, but the color issue I saw with the M-D 262 raw files was all a matter of the camera calibration profile the DNGs being off the mark compared to the Adobe profile. The M262 is supported first in LR 6.4 and the M-D262 is supported first in LR 6.6. Processed with LR 6.6, the default colors out of the M-D262 are almost identical to those out of the M-P240. (And are satisfactory to me... :)

G
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Hi Tom,

As you know I am very satisfied with the M-D color ... it may be a bit different than the 262.


If you have updated LR and are still a bit dissatisfied I would suggest you learn to do a custom WB in camera which might
cool your JPGS a bit. Still accurate color and pleasing color are somewhat subjective ... time of day overcast skin tones
all change our impressions of color.

I am a bit green challenged ... normally wait until fall to do much landscapes so that some of the green is gone.

I do feel that with a custom WB and taking 30 seconds to shoot a ColorChecker Passport goes a long way to
correct color that is imbalanced. When it is part of your workflow the small extra effort saves you a great amount of
time in post. Many times it is unnecessary but nice to have as a fall-back when certain pictures look off. The dual
illuminant profile is helpful but saves very little time from the consistent use of a CCP at each shoot.

This post is a start: http://blog.xritephoto.com/2015/07/seven-simple-steps-to-accurate-color-capture/

Xrite has a tremendous amount of information concerning color accuracy and profiling.

The other main issue is exposure ... closer you get to ideal exposure the better the color. With the M-D I have begun
to use a profiled L-478DR for those times when things are not straightforward ... backlighting, side lighting, partial shade.
Knowing when to move the midtone to preserve highlights and being able to see just how far on the meter is helpful.

The M-D tends to underemphasize blue and overemphasize reds ... the CC Passport helps with the blues but I occasionally need
to lower the red saturation slightly in LR. The WB is perhaps 200K warmer than the CC Passport WB from the camera natively ...
at times now I just drop the WB 200K and it usually is pretty well dialed in without checking the WB in morning daylight conditions
in Texas. Other lighting and times of day the WB from the CC Passport is very useful ... and there is a correction series of white patches
to adjust the warmth for portraits.

I assume that the specs for your sensor and associated electronics may vary a small amount from that of other 262s ... still within the pass
range at the factory. But that is where a standard like the CC Passport makes sense. Ideally you could profile three different cameras on a
shoot and they would pretty much match up.

It might be fun to take a couple of your cameras ... profile them on a shoot and compare color ... with and without the profile.

Regards,

Bob
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Thank you guys.
I am one step further. My LR was not the latest update so now I updated and the adobe profile seems to look better.
Regarding own profiles I tried that some years ago with colorchecker but found it difficult, because the profiles first looked fine but then didnt work that well in different light and not for all colors.
I wonder if this is better today and if one can really creae reliable good profiles with "comnsumer"-profiling tools like color checker?
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Regarding own profiles I tried that some years ago with colorchecker but found it difficult, because the profiles first looked fine but then didnt work that well in different light and not for all colors.
I wonder if this is better today and if one can really creae reliable good profiles with "comnsumer"-profiling tools like color checker?

I do think that the ideal is to create a profile in the light you are shooting ... and tweak it as needed. No profile is perfect but exposure, WB and custom profile at the
time of shooting will come closer many times than the canned profile in LR or one you made months before in "similar" light.

But I am glad that Godfrey's suggestion on LR update has been helpful.


Regards,


Bob
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Thank you guys.
I am one step further. My LR was not the latest update so now I updated and the adobe profile seems to look better.
Regarding own profiles I tried that some years ago with colorchecker but found it difficult, because the profiles first looked fine but then didnt work that well in different light and not for all colors.
I wonder if this is better today and if one can really creae reliable good profiles with "comnsumer"-profiling tools like color checker?
Glad that helped.

I understand there's a way to create a bi-illuminant profile with the Passport software, which is supposed to help in such situations. Worth checking out.

G
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Thank you guys, I will check it out.

I now also need to do some more shooting to see how color comes out in various situations/light.

I didnt expect a difference to my M type240. There must be something different in regards of sensor or software.
 
So to clarify a point above - I have the latest firmware on the M240, but I continue process the dng's in PS Elements 13.
(1) Does one need to update older Adobe software too, given a latest version likely renders improved and more accurate colours / saturation?
(2) when updated, do all the Adobe raw converters produce exactly the same output (i.e., it's identical on PS and on LR?)
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
So to clarify a point above - I have the latest firmware on the M240, but I continue process the dng's in PS Elements 13.
(1) Does one need to update older Adobe software too, given a latest version likely renders improved and more accurate colours / saturation?
(2) when updated, do all the Adobe raw converters produce exactly the same output (i.e., it's identical on PS and on LR?)
Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom all use the same Camera Raw engine and should produce identical results given corresponding releases. For both PS and PSE, the Camera Raw engine is provided via a plugin and is updated separately from the app; for Lightroom, the Camera Raw engine is embedded in the app and is updated by revisions to the entire app package.

'Corresponding releases' means that if you are using, say, the Camera Raw v8.3 plugin with Photoshop, you need Lightroom v5.3 to get the matching Camera Raw engine and its included camera calibration profiles.

There is also the fact that the Camera Raw plugin provides a different feature set depending upon whether you are using PS or PSE ... PSE does not have the same integration capabilities as PS does and only provides the Camera Raw plugin's "Basic" feature set. For this reason, major releases of PS come with a major release update for the Camera Raw plugin, and that plugin major release is not backwards compatible to the previous major release of PS, where PSE (using only the simpler, Basic feature set) might allow installation of Camera Raw plugins across a wider range of major releases.

So yes: if you have older Adobe PS/PSE software, you have to update the Camera Raw plugin to get the most current camera calibration profiles, etc. And which revision of the plugin to match with which revision of PS and PSE might require updating to a later revision of the apps as well.

The basic truth here is that to get the latest improvements and capabilities of the Camera Raw processing engine with either PS, PSE, or LR, and to keep all of them in sync, it is best to keep all three (and the plugins in the case of PS and PSE) up to date with the latest releases.

(For my own use, I've found I use Photoshop so rarely nowadays that I haven't upgraded past v5.1; Lightroom does everything I need for imaging processing. PS v5.1 needs a separate Java installation on macOS Sierra to launch, and I haven't even bothered to find out if there's a compatible version available. I haven't missed PS at all. Such it is ... :)

G
 
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