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Hasselblad Phocus Integrated Color Calibration - Test & Result

modator

Member
Hi,
I wish to start this thread to discuss about Color Calibration using the new integrated functions of Phocus or the other system that permit to obtain as precise as possible colors.




The latest version of Phocus introduced this feature that I found very easy and friendly for the creation of a custom profile.

Why creating a custom profile ?
since the camera (in my case the H5D-50c) is already profiled trough the HNCS and the color correspondence is very good, sometime there is the need to improve the results, especially for difficult color such as Brown and some skin tone, especially with background and light that diffuses a tone that can degraded the color accuracy.

First I would like to introduce my flow of the works :

- Set preparation
- Color Checker shot
- White balance
- Color checker Profile (of the white balanced image)
- New made Profile applied to the image
- White balance check with the new profile created
- Image enhance trough Exposure / Saturation / High light Recovery
- Export to PS for finishing.

In this workflow I omit the scene calibration procedure.



I put the color checker angled to avoid the yellowish light from the table.

on the left there is the final image that I retain to be as much color precise as possible comparing the real color of the things with what i've see using a calibrated display (a NEC Spectra View Reference 271).

The difference is here:




The shot on the right is using the created profile....
Well, it's quite difficult to see large differences but the colors are truly more precise and is clear that there is more red and less Yellow in the right image, especially looking at the knife wood.

As told, brown color are really difficult to reproduce and for them sometime also a good white balance is not sufficient.

And now the questions:

- What do You think ?
- There are other ways to obtain a good calibration instead of this way ?
- I miss something ?

I include the final image after some resize and PS finishing...




Let me have Your opinions / suggestions.
Kindest regards, Domenico.
 

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi Domenico,

Thanks for sharing. Hopefully this will be a startin point of a good discussion with a great learning experience!

Best regards
Erik


Hi,
I wish to start this thread to discuss about Color Calibration using the new integrated functions of Phocus or the other system that permit to obtain as precise as possible colors.



Let me have Your opinions / suggestions.
Kindest regards, Domenico.
 

Dan Santoso

New member
Nice thank you.

Is it possible to create custom camera profile in capture one with color checker?

I have never done it but want to learn.

Thanks,
Dan
 

synn

New member
What I meant is to calibrated individual color in color checker so you get custom camera profile specific to the lighting in the studio to produce accurate colors.

The one you are showing is just tweaking the blue sky and save it in custom profile.
The process is the same, you use the color editor to calibrate and then save an ICC profile. The sky example is just one practical application.

I usually shoot the color checker in the desired light, then use the auto calibration first and then make smaller tweaks to taste and save an ICC profile. Has worked well so far.
 

torger

Active member
It would be interesting to know how it works in more detail, maybe I'll have a look later on.

The colorchecker SG is like all glossy targets extremely hard to shoot without getting the values distorted by large amounts of glare. The grayscale patches along the border is only of limited help to calibrate that.

However as they know their cameras they could have shot the supported targets in controlled situations and use the user-provided target image only as a guide to adjust the internal reference. That's probably how I would have done it. Another trick is simply to ignore the darkest and most saturated patches which are most prone to measurement/glare issues and is rarely in real images anyway.

It's in any case interesting that they have chosen this approach. Phase One concluded that profiling is too hard for photographers to do on their own and made the cultural heritage edition instead.
 

Dan Santoso

New member
Okay but how do you get the correct color each? of course i can adjust to my taste but i want the actual correct color from each patch which of course has a default value and neutral color. My eyes won't be able to perceive the correct color.

I want to be able to profile like a paper profile where each patch is compared to the default value and adjust accordingly.

The integrated Phocus seems automatic, I wish C1 will have this in the future.

The process is the same, you use the color editor to calibrate and then save an ICC profile. The sky example is just one practical application.

I usually shoot the color checker in the desired light, then use the auto calibration first and then make smaller tweaks to taste and save an ICC profile. Has worked well so far.
 

synn

New member
Torger, I don't know about the X-rite checkers, but I use the Spyderchekr, which is not glossy at all.
Sometimes I use it on location with the Spydercube, which helps me set black and white points easlily as well.
 

synn

New member
Okay but how do you get the correct color each? of course i can adjust to my taste but i want the actual correct color from each patch which of course has a default value and neutral color. My eyes won't be able to perceive the correct color.

I want to be able to profile like a paper profile where each patch is compared to the default value and adjust accordingly.

The integrated Phocus seems automatic, I wish C1 will have this in the future.
I cannot answer from a scientific PoV (Someone like Torger is better at it), but after setting WB and then using the auto calibration, I find that the patches are pretty true to original. Keep in mind, I do not shoot repro or anything that requires utmost precision of color values. But for portraiture and fine art landscape work that I do, this approach works quite well.

Perhaps, if you post in the Phase One support forums, you might get more guidance on the topic.


This, for example is a D800 file with a profile I have developed this way. Loads better than the standard Nikon profile and also LR's rendering of it.

Sandeep Murali | Photography | Best of portraits
 

torger

Active member
Torger, I don't know about the X-rite checkers, but I use the Spyderchekr, which is not glossy at all.
Sometimes I use it on location with the Spydercube, which helps me set black and white points easlily as well.
The smaller X-Rite colorchecker 24 is also a matte target. Matte targets are much more robust against glare (and small targets more robust against uneven light) and as such more user-friendly. So I'm a bit surprised that Hassy supports the "difficult" colorchecker SG. But as I said they probably do some trick to work around the glare. In my own software I've tried correcting using only the grayscale patches but then you can only correct lightness (and they're a bit too coarsely spaced on the SG for good/great results), and glare affects saturation too so you end up having to know the camera's response before you have measured it.

In a table top / product situation you could get away by ignoring all that. What will happen is that high saturation colors will get overly saturated and you get a more contrasty look than you should. If your image doesn't contain any of the high saturation colors you're probably fine. Most likely Hassy has however implemented some compensation tricks smarter than mine. My software focus on making general-purpose profiles and if you make a target shot for only one profile I concluded you can spend the time it takes to shoot the target with a minimum amount of glare so I haven't tried too hard to work around it.
 

jerome

Member
Perhaps, if you post in the Phase One support forums, you might get more guidance on the topic.


This, for example is a D800 file with a profile I have developed this way. Loads better than the standard Nikon profile and also LR's rendering of it.

Sandeep Murali | Photography | Best of portraits
This is not a thread on Phocus and Hasselblad ?

However, I use LR and Phocus and I must admit that the last version of LR is pretty good. I will download the last version of Phocus. It's good news Hassy keeps going to improve their soft, but is it still necessary ?

I will compare the two and compare if phocus has always a better rendering than previous version of LR.

Anybody has already compared the two workflow ?
 

Mike Z

Member
After seeing this thread I gave the Phocus color calibration a try and have to say I think it did an excellent job on test targets.
I am hoping to try it on some artwork we will be working on next week.
What I don't understand is what the purpose of the reproduction mode button is for.
It just seems to lighten the image. does anyone know more about what this setting is supposed to do?
Mike
 

modator

Member
After seeing this thread I gave the Phocus color calibration a try and have to say I think it did an excellent job on test targets.
I am hoping to try it on some artwork we will be working on next week.
What I don't understand is what the purpose of the reproduction mode button is for.
It just seems to lighten the image. does anyone know more about what this setting is supposed to do?
Mike

Hi Mike,
reading Phocus manual You can find this on page 50:

"Reproduction: Activating reproduction mode will switch to a linear lm-re- sponse curve and also ensure the best possible colorimetric colour handling. As the name implies this is a mode that is primarily intended for reproduction work."

In synthesis in the standard mode the image is pre processed with a contrast curve to obtain a relative improvement and a compression of the tones.
reproduction mode is without tone curve and specific for reproduction works.

Best regards, Domenico.
 
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