Argh, trying to setup x-rite color checker

[Betty LaRue]

I shot some photos outdoors today.  Took a couple of shots of the color checker.   Came home, downloaded the images to a folder on my desktop.  I opened LR and tried to import from the folder.   But first, let me tell you this.  I updated LR CC a couple of days ago.  Now my Interface is all changed and I couldn't access my desktop folders to import.  The desktop list used to be on the left panel. I messed around clicking this and that, and finally it appeared on the right .  I highlighted  the folder I wanted and the import button was blacked out.

Back to the drawing board.  I put the card back in the card reader, and the photos popped up and I imported that way.  I want to do it like before but can't figure out how to get there.  Sometimes I only want to import a select few images into LR, not the whole folder. And that's after I've reviewed them in Bridge.

 

Next, once uploaded, I opened into the Develop panel one of the color checker photos, and under "File" selected Export.

A window popped up and I clicked on the banner (as instructed) and chose "x-rite presets" from the list on the left.

 

Here's where things get bad.  There are some choices, such as "specific folder' "choose folder later" "same folder as original photo"

First I chose "choose folder later", named the preset and clicked export.  Never did see a progress bar.  Because it didn't import, I guess.

I opened another photo and went to where the presets are stored, and the profile wasn't there.

 

Did it all over again, this time choosing "same folder as original photo"  Same thing, no preset showed up.  I did relaunch LR several times, so that's not the problem.

Stuck.  Annoyed. Seems like I stay that way lately, as this kind of stuff is challenging for me.  I just want to work on my images, dammit.

 

Betty

[M.Chapman]

Try this (assuming you're using a PC not a Mac)

 

Open the image containing a photo of the Passport in the develop module of LR

 

Right click on the image and select Export > X-Rite Presets > ColorChecker Passport

 

A box should open asking for a DNG Profile name, enter something short you'll remember and then Click "Save"

 

Lightroom (top left) should show "Processing Profile" and a progress bar. After a short while, a pop-up message should appear "ColorChecker Passport - Profile generated successfully"

 

Close and reopen Lightroom

 

Your new camera profile should now be available under the "Camera Calibration" tab of the develop module.

[Duncan_Andison]

Try this (assuming you're using a PC not a Mac)

 

Open the image containing a photo of the Passport in the develop module of LR

 

Right click on the image and select Export > X-Rite Presets > ColorChecker Passport

 

A box should open asking for a DNG Profile name, enter something short you'll remember and then Click "Save"

 

Lightroom (top left) should show "Processing Profile" and a progress bar. After a short while, a pop-up message should appear "ColorChecker Passport - Profile generated successfully"

 

Close and reopen Lightroom

 

Your new camera profile should now be available under the "Camera Calibration" tab of the develop module.

 

2nd this. I too have just bought a Colorchecker Passport.... building some icc profiles for C1. Seems a really nice piece of kit!!

 

Tried it with LR and using the Adobe DNG Profiler.... good results.

[Betty LaRue]

I'm on an iMac, but will see if that works anyway.  Thanks.

[Betty LaRue]

Try this (assuming you're using a PC not a Mac)

 

Open the image containing a photo of the Passport in the develop module of LR

 

Right click on the image and select Export > X-Rite Presets > ColorChecker Passport

 

A box should open asking for a DNG Profile name, enter something short you'll remember and then Click "Save"

 

Lightroom (top left) should show "Processing Profile" and a progress bar. After a short while, a pop-up message should appear "ColorChecker Passport - Profile generated successfully"

 

Close and reopen Lightroom

 

Your new camera profile should now be available under the "Camera Calibration" tab of the develop module.

 

Oh, Mark, thank you.  Even though on a Mac your technique worked perfectly!  It took all of however long it took for the progress bar to finish...seconds!  And the profile is where it should be.  Blessings to you.

Too bad the person writing all those steps and instructions didn't just say to try this first, and then if it didn't work, go through all those other steps. (that didn't work for me).  A greenie for you.

[Betty LaRue]

Geoff, if you are around, I want you to know the colors are much improved, using the x-rite.  It was fun seeing how they looked the regular way I developed them and the difference with the passport.  Some colors just pop.  Thanks for the recommendation.

 

Betty

[Guest]

Morning Betty,

 

Not sure it was me who suggested it but glad to hear it's working out well....... don't forget to add the calibration to any presets you have, otherwise it reverts to camera picture styles (does with Canon but you're a Nikon girl I believe). 

[M.Chapman]

 

Oh, Mark, thank you.  Even though on a Mac your technique worked perfectly!  It took all of however long it took for the progress bar to finish...seconds!  And the profile is where it should be.  Blessings to you.

Too bad the person writing all those steps and instructions didn't just say to try this first, and then if it didn't work, go through all those other steps. (that didn't work for me).  A greenie for you.

 

 

Don't forget that, although the camera profile you've created "fixes" the colours, it leaves the white balance pretty much alone. So you may also need or want to adjust that too.

 

After selecting the camera profile, go back to the Basic tab in LR, click on the White Balance eyedropper and then click on one of the lighter grey patches on the passport colour target.

 

If your photo included the passport "creative targets" and you want a warmer or cooler WB, try clicking on the "creative" grey patches.

 

After doing all this I've found that I sometimes need to decrease saturation slightly to reduce the "pop".

 

Once you've got settings you're happy with, I suggest creating a preset so you can easily apply these settings to the other images in your photo-shoot.

 

Good luck. Hope it fixes the "purples".

[Betty LaRue]

 

 

Oh, Mark, thank you.  Even though on a Mac your technique worked perfectly!  It took all of however long it took for the progress bar to finish...seconds!  And the profile is where it should be.  Blessings to you.

Too bad the person writing all those steps and instructions didn't just say to try this first, and then if it didn't work, go through all those other steps. (that didn't work for me).  A greenie for you.

 

 

Don't forget that, although the camera profile you've created "fixes" the colours, it leaves the white balance pretty much alone. So you may also need or want to adjust that too.

 

After selecting the camera profile, go back to the Basic tab in LR, click on the White Balance eyedropper and then click on one of the lighter grey patches on the passport colour target.

 

If your photo included the passport "creative targets" and you want a warmer or cooler WB, try clicking on the "creative" grey patches.

 

After doing all this I've found that I sometimes need to decrease saturation slightly to reduce the "pop".

 

Once you've got settings you're happy with, I suggest creating a preset so you can easily apply these settings to the other images in your photo-shoot.

 

Good luck. Hope it fixes the "purples".

 

 

Oh, I assumed that fixed the white balance.  I will definitely go back and check that next shoot.  I've already developed these and am quite happy with the results!  

 

On 2nd thought, I'll pick one of those images just to satisfy my curiosity and see what picking one of the WB targets does.

[Betty LaRue]

Morning Betty,

 

Not sure it was me who suggested it but glad to hear it's working out well....... don't forget to add the calibration to any presets you have, otherwise it reverts to camera picture styles (does with Canon but you're a Nikon girl I believe). 

 

Something new to figure out.  Especially since I don't have any presets of my own.  Thanks!

[M.Chapman]

 

Oh, I assumed that fixed the white balance.  I will definitely go back and check that next shoot.  I've already developed these and am quite happy with the results!  

 

On 2nd thought, I'll pick one of those images just to satisfy my curiosity and see what picking one of the WB targets does.

 

In simplistic terms, I believe X-Rite generates the profile as follows.

 

The image of the X-Rite colour checker is first checked to determine the white balance of the illumination (using the grey patches).

 

The software than calculates what each coloured X-Rite passport patch should look like under this illumination (lets call them the "expected colours").

 

These "expected colours" are then compared with the actual colours produced by your camera's sensor raw output and the differences are used to create the camera correction profile.

 

In theory, the X-Rite camera correction profile shouldn't alter the white balance of the grey patches.

 

In reality nothing's perfect, and you may see some shift in WB when applying the camera correction profile. There's all sorts of fitting and conversion processes going on "behind the scenes" and the correction profile ends up being the best fit compromise to the data supplied.

 

Interestingly the Adobe DNG profile creator/editor tells you the WB setting required to produce a neutral image when using the profile it's generated. I think it's also possible to use the Adobe DNG profile editor to adjust WB when the profile is applied if you want. So if you know one camera produces warmer images than another you can adjust the profile to correct this.

 

Hope I've got the above correct. I'm sure someone will post a correction if I haven't.

[wiskerke]

Fitting and conversion processes only have to be going on when you use another light source than the one you used to make the profile. Like in the two light sources profiling.

If you use it to profile a camera for a given light source, there will be no conversion. (As long as you use that light source.) New light source: new profile. This is how you would work in a studio. Normally you don't do all this, just shoot the Munsell target at some point in the shoot and when you run into trouble at some point in post, make a profile. (Really anal good studio photographers may profile for every subject and every light though. Museum photographers certainly do it.)

 

Still, with product photography or paintings, there will be surprises: not all pigments act the same for the same light.

Another source of problems: optical brightening agents (OBAs FBAs and FWAs) in background paper and packaging or in fabrics. Those usually surprise you with color casts in the blue region. UV filters usually remedy this, but not always. And then there's infrared at the other end of the spectrum: google Leica M8 and purple polyester wedding suits ;-)

 

wim

[M.Chapman]

Fitting and conversion processes only have to be going on when you use another light source than the one you used to make the profile. Like in the two light sources profiling.

If you use it to profile a camera for a given light source, there will be no conversion. 

 

Wim

 

Are you sure there's no "fitting"? If the hue of one target is altered in the Adobe DNG profile editor, then the colour of some of the other targets is also altered. Given there are only 24 targets which are used to correct any RGB input to give a new RGB output suggests to me there must be some sort of conversion equations that are used. I imagine the coefficients in these equations will be derived by fitting? Maybe it doesn't happen in the profile generator (perhaps the profile is just a list of corrections) but it happens within LR?

 

Playing around this evening shows that the WB of the grey patches of the color checker are altered slightly when the camera dng profile (that has been calculated by X-Rite) is applied to the DNG image. (Same image same light source).

 

Anyway, whatever's going on "under the hood", the key point is that it's important to apply both the DNG profile and a WB correction (if needed). Applying a DNG profile alone (dervived under same lighting conditions) doesn't ensure a neutral WB in the final image.

 

I found the following document quite informative http://www.gapalmer.co.uk/_hostings/GWBC/downloads/userguide.pdf. Especially pages 23-32.

 

Interestingly Adobe and X-Rite produce slightly different camera corrections from the same image of a 24 colour target. Maybe they assume slightly different target values or X-Rite and Adobe each have their own target "look".

 

Mark

[Betty LaRue]

You guys make my brain hurt.  No, I'm not stupid, just ignorant.    All I can say about the landscapes I shot yesterday is that I saw a beautiful difference when I applied the profile. The proof is in the pudding to my eyes.

 

Now, I haven't tried it on the jewelry, yet.  I won't be getting anything to shoot for a week or more.  Next chapter, down the road.

[wiskerke]

 

Fitting and conversion processes only have to be going on when you use another light source than the one you used to make the profile. Like in the two light sources profiling.

If you use it to profile a camera for a given light source, there will be no conversion. 

 

Wim

 

Are you sure there's no "fitting"? If the hue of one target is altered in the Adobe DNG profile editor, then the colour of some of the other targets is also altered. Given there are only 24 targets which are used to correct any RGB input to give a new RGB output suggests to me there must be some sort of conversion equations that are used. I imagine the coefficients in these equations will be derived by fitting? Maybe it doesn't happen in the profile generator (perhaps the profile is just a list of corrections) but it happens within LR?

 

Playing around this evening shows that the WB of the grey patches of the color checker are altered slightly when the camera dng profile (that has been calculated by X-Rite) is applied to the DNG image. (Same image same light source).

 

Anyway, whatever's going on "under the hood", the key point is that it's important to apply both the DNG profile and a WB correction (if needed). Applying a DNG profile alone (dervived under same lighting conditions) doesn't ensure a neutral WB in the final image.

 

I found the following document quite informative http://www.gapalmer.co.uk/_hostings/GWBC/downloads/userguide.pdf. Especially pages 23-32.

 

Interestingly Adobe and X-Rite produce slightly different camera corrections from the same image of a 24 colour target. Maybe they assume slightly different target values or X-Rite and Adobe each have their own target "look".

 

Mark

 

 

That manual is pretty solid. I'm guessing it's for one of the non-official cards? Because he's avoiding the name Munsell target. One reason real ones are expensive is the way the are made. The original ones were screen printed AFAIK. All solid colors. Not sure if this is still the case. Mine certainly looks screen printed.

 

If you mean by fitting that colors that are not on the target are being computed, that seems obvious to me. Of course it is all computed, because there are only 3 colors in the Bayer array, but the colors in the target are being measured and corrected. If you shift one of the colors around by hand, then some others -near by- will shift with it. (If only a little bit.) That would be the same even for targets with more colors than the standard Munsell. The beauty of the Munsell is that it's so old. Which of course is also the drawback. So there are some other targets with their own calibrating and profiling software or plug-in. The good thing about the Munsell by X-Rite is that it's the same the world over. And everybody is using it. Except maybe the old greybeard who still uses the old Kodak strip. If you ever have to copy a painting or shoot a product: just include the target to the side of one image and everybody in the industry will know what it means and what to do.

 

Not sure how the X-Rite software does things differently from Adobe. I use the Adobe DNG editor. I may have the X-Rite somewhere as I have an X-Rite Munsell target and an X-Rite display calibrating device.

 

White balance is indeed something you choose yourself. White balance is different for each profile. Also to be expected I think, as that is one of the reasons to do it. 

When profiling different camera's and choosing the same white balance in post for the same subject, you'll notice there are differences. Not as bad as when using the default Adobe profiles, but still. So profiling is indeed not perfect. The differences are camera based, and brand based, which of course again was to be expected. My guess is that with targets with many more colors (and profilers that make use of those) the differences would diminish.

A good question is: is it hardware or software that cause these differences? Probably a bit of both. RAW is seldom or never really RAW.

 

If the balance shifts around when you use a different grey patch, it means the target is not perfect. Mixing grey cards and a Munsell target is always interesting. The QP 101 is really good.

What LR is doing under the hood, I'm not sure. I always thought the engine is completely the same for LR and Photoshop. This may not be the case any more.

AFAIK it's both a profile and a LUT look up table. The profile is not just a list of corrections; that's the LUT.

 

If the dng changes when you apply the profile, it means you've opened it with a different profile.

 

wim

[M.Chapman]

Wim,

 

Thanks for your detailed reply which all sounds sensible.

 

>>That manual is pretty solid. I'm guessing it's for one of the non-official cards? 

 

That's good news. Yes, it's for the www.greywhitebalancecolourcard.co.uk cards. I got 2 cards for £10. They seem to work quite well. Close inspection shows the target patches look like magazine (or even inkjet) printing. Not as good as X-Rite (you get what you pay for!).

 

>>If the dng changes when you apply the profile, it means you've opened it with a different profile.

 

Just to clarify what I meant. This is the sequence I'm following.

1. Take photo of Colorchecker target in daylight
2. Open image of target in Lightroom and create Camera profile from it
3. Close and reopen LR (so new profile becomes available)
4. Open image of target (currently with Adobe Standard camera profile)
5. Use eyedropper tool in LR to set WB based on light grey patch on target so becomes neutral
6. Change camera profile to the one I've just created.

At step 6 the colours of some of the coloured patches on the target change (as expected). However I also notice the WB of the light grey patch also shifts slightly.

 

If everything was perfect, then I guess this wouldn't happen (i.e applying this camera profile to this image shouldn't shift the WB). But as you say, there are small imperfections throughout the process. 

 

So it seems to me that it's best to apply the camera profile before making WB adjustments (i.e. steps 5 and 6 should be swapped over). Then saving the adjustment as a preset to be applied to other images in the shoot.

 

It's also worth reiterating that, if the WB of the illumination is "off" (i.e. grey patches not neutral), simply creating and applying a camera profile using X-Rite or Adobe Profile Editor will not make the greys neutral (it should have minimal effect on them).

 

WB adjustments need to be done as a separate operation.

 

Mark

[Guest]

When you make the profile from the X-rite passport, it automatically white balances the profile image....

 

"Open an image of the ColorChecker Classic in the Camera Raw plug-in. You do not need to perform a white balance; the ColorChecker Passport application will analyze the image and make adjustment automatically."....ColourChecker Passport manual....

[Betty LaRue]

When you make the profile from the X-rite passport, it automatically white balances the profile image....

 

"Open an image of the ColorChecker Classic in the Camera Raw plug-in. You do not need to perform a white balance; the ColorChecker Passport application will analyze the image and make adjustment automatically."....ColourChecker Passport manual....

 

That's what I discovered, Geoff.  I did try applying a WB to the already corrected images and could not improve the images at all.  In fact, clicking on some of the WB squares caused me not to like what happened.

 

I had about 3 quick images of two purple pieces and one clear white I shot (again) with the passport before returning the jewelry to the owner.  One profiled well, but that one was of the clear white piece on a neutral gray bust.

The other two (purple) were on silver satin background and black satin.  The profile could not be completed...stated "could not find the crop boundaries" or some such.  And yes, the images were well exposed.

The prompt suggests cropping the passport close and trying again, but nothing worked.  This is a very important issue, since about 90% of the jewelry is shot on the silver/black satin.  I can see maybe the passport's black edges being lost on the black satin, but don't understand about the light silver.  I did have it draped (with folds) and maybe that confused the automation. 

 

I will take some passport images again, but smooth out the satin and see if that works. I'll try it with some personal jewelry. May be a couple of days before I get to it, though.  Family stuff going on.

 

Betty

[M.Chapman]

When you make the profile from the X-rite passport, it automatically white balances the profile image....

 

"Open an image of the ColorChecker Classic in the Camera Raw plug-in. You do not need to perform a white balance; the ColorChecker Passport application will analyze the image and make adjustment automatically."....ColourChecker Passport manual....

 

Thanks Geoff, that's clarified how the profile is generated, I need to modify my simplified description (see above) so it now reads:-

 

In simplistic terms, I believe X-Rite generates the profile as follows.

 

The image of the X-Rite colour checker is first checked to determine the white balance of the illumination (using the grey patches) and the white balance if the image is adjusted accordingly, so the grey patches are nominally neutral. 

 

The software then calculates the difference between the colour of each of the coloured patches and the expected value. These differences are then used to create the camera correction profile.

 

In theory, the X-Rite camera correction profile shouldn't alter the white balance of the grey patches when it is applied to an image..

 

In reality nothing's perfect, and you may see some shift in WB when applying the camera correction profile. There's all sorts of fitting and conversion processes going on "behind the scenes" and the correction profile ends up being the best fit compromise to the data supplied.

 

However, there seems to be an opportunity for confusion here. Although the X-Rite software carries out a WB adjustment before creating the profile, I still believe that the resulting profile (when applied to images) does not significantly alter the WB.

 

Here's a simple test that seems to demonstrate this (maybe I'm doing something wrong)?

 

If I take a photo of the Colorchecker under artificial (halogen) light. I open it in LR with daylight WB and Adobe standard camera profile. At this point I can see that the whole image is way too yellow and the colours are wrong. However, as instructed, I can generate a DNG profile from this image using the LR X-Rite Export preset without bothering to adjust the WB (X-Rite takes this into account).

 

I then exit LR, restart and reload the image. At this stage the camera profile is Adobe standard and the WB is still set to daylight. The image looks just like before (no surprises there).

 

Now I apply the camera profile I just generated. The colours improve but the WB hardly changes, the image is still way too yellow. To my mind this proves that the applying the camera profile alone does not fix the WB.

 

If I subsequently click the WB eyedropper on one of the grey patches, bingo, everything looks perfect.

 

I feel this hypothesis is also supported by the behaviour of Adobe Profile Editor which actually tells you the WB (top of screen) which you need to apply in LR to get a neural greys when using the profile that you've just created.

 

Mark

[wiskerke]

 

When you make the profile from the X-rite passport, it automatically white balances the profile image....

 

"Open an image of the ColorChecker Classic in the Camera Raw plug-in. You do not need to perform a white balance; the ColorChecker Passport application will analyze the image and make adjustment automatically."....ColourChecker Passport manual....

 

That's what I discovered, Geoff.  I did try applying a WB to the already corrected images and could not improve the images at all.  In fact, clicking on some of the WB squares caused me not to like what happened.

 

I had about 3 quick images of two purple pieces and one clear white I shot (again) with the passport before returning the jewelry to the owner.  One profiled well, but that one was of the clear white piece on a neutral gray bust.

The other two (purple) were on silver satin background and black satin.  The profile could not be completed...stated "could not find the crop boundaries" or some such.  And yes, the images were well exposed.

The prompt suggests cropping the passport close and trying again, but nothing worked.  This is a very important issue, since about 90% of the jewelry is shot on the silver/black satin.  I can see maybe the passport's black edges being lost on the black satin, but don't understand about the light silver.  I did have it draped (with folds) and maybe that confused the automation. 

 

I will take some passport images again, but smooth out the satin and see if that works. I'll try it with some personal jewelry. May be a couple of days before I get to it, though.  Family stuff going on.

 

Betty

 

 

The Adobe software lets you click on the four corner patches. That may solve it.

 

wim

[Betty LaRue]

Where do I go in the adobe software to find that ability?  

[M.Chapman]

>>Where do I go in the adobe software to find that ability?  

 

Download a copy of Adobe Profile Editor from here http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5494

 

You'll need to make a DNG file of you're photo which contains the X-Rite Passport target.

Then run the Adobe profile editor (it's just an .exe file that runs without needing installation)

In the profile editor open your DNG file (File>Open DNG file...)

Once the file has opened, click on the "Chart" tab (on the top right hand side of the screen).

Use mouse left click and drag to move the coloured spots onto the centre of the 4 corner target patches

Select "Both color tables"

Click "Create Color Table..."

If this works OK you'll get a message "Success - Color table built successfully". Click "OK".

 

If you get an error message about "Non-neutral grey patches"  try repositioning the spots slightly and click "Create color table..." again.

 

Make a note of the White balance settings shown above your DNG image (if you use this in LR you'll get neutral greys)

Now you need to export the color table so LR can find it.

 

Click File>Export profile.... Hopefully the save folder will have defaulted to the correct location (I don't know where this is on a Mac).

Type a name for your profile in the File_name: box and click "Save"

 

Adobe suggest you include the WB settings you noted above in the filename so you can refer to them in LR.

 

Hope that helps.

 

If not the manual can be found here http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/photoshop/pdfs/cs6/DNGProfile_EditorDocumentation.pdf

 

Mark

[Betty LaRue]

Thanks, Mark. After posting, I went to my "Applications" folder and opened Color Checker.  There was a place to slide a DNG image into it.  So I went to ACR, created a DNG file, and slid that into the Color Checker box.  From there, I clicked on the corners and then I think there was a "Create Profile" button which I pressed.  It was successful, and simple. I can't believe I figured that out on my own, lol!

[M.Chapman]

>>Where do I go in the adobe software to find that ability?  

 

Alternatively, run X-Rite color checker passport software that came with your Passport (i.e. not the LR plugin). This also allows you to manually locate the targets if needed. This is probably easier for you and will create a profile which is the same as the LR plugin. (The Adobe profile colours aren't quite the same).

[M.Chapman]

Looks like our postings crossed over. Glad you got it sorted.

 

Just found an excellent video tutorial on using the Passport system at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZRUNUbOB7U

 

This video indicates that for most accurate WB, the lecturer clicks on the WB targets after the camera profile has been applied.