It's Frank's fault !!

[armando_m]

Actually a few more members as well

Recently Andrew gave away a spyder display calibration, so now I have a calibrated display, after getting it  I considered I needed to learn more about color management and calibration ... still work in progress

On a recent thread Frank mentioned LAB color and videos by Dan Margulis - so I went and watched a few
I've playing with L-A-B color (or sometimes just luminosity )  and I'm liking what I can do

DXO was mentioned as a good option , I'm trying it  and liking what I can accomplish , plus it has a 50% discount until Christmas, but have not purchased it

Here are some experiment results after playing with LAB

1. all done within LR and PS

Left an image I posted before / right reworked with LAB


2. bring DXO into the mix
I'll also compare it to LR and NX2 (which I still like because it shows me an image exactly as I saw it on the camera display)

Left is the LR raw conversion / NX2 on the right
 

DXO conversion below (plus some skin blemishes removed, I did not saved the original output from DXO)


PS  result, removed some shadows around the mouth, skin work, and played with LAB


... and all of this is still subjective because I do not have a color checker but still fun to do

[Bjørn Rørslett]

I think investing a small sum for a Color Checker or Color Passport would be a very good idea. Although the (re-)processed images look much better, there still is a feeling of colour imbalance and for example, overly reddish skin tones. Such details will be brought under immediate control with a 'session profile' such as those delivered by PhotoNinja.

[Almass]

Have you tried CaptureOne Pro

You can download and test free for a month.

C1P is the standard for high end work.

[charlie]

Photoshop offers several paths to any one end result, LAB being one of them. I agree that your LAB processed images look better but I wonder what processing in LAB achieved that doing similar post work in RGB could not achieve. I have a LAB book by Mr. Margulis and found it to be insightful and interesting though I found that sometimes when switching from LAB back into RGB mode the colors would shift a bit, almost like LAB edits took some colors out of gamut. Because of that I slowly stopped using LAB and now do most everything in RGB. That said I'm curious, what benefits do you find working in LAB over RGB?

 

[Lars Hansen]

Armando - it's an obvious improvement!

I'm using a Colormunki myself to calibrate. I've found using a grey card can improve colors - it can also lead to boring images...

Have you tried CaptureOne Pro

You can download and test free for a month.

C1P is the standard for high end work.

Almass - I have C1 Pro 7.x but found it to be lacking wrt. color management. Unless I've overlooked something, I haven't been able to find out how I create my own color profiles using e.g. Color Checker or Color Passport that Bjørn mention. 

[afx]

Almass - I have C1 Pro 7.x but found it to be lacking wrt. color management. Unless I've overlooked something, I haven't been able to find out how I create my own color profiles using e.g. Color Checker or Color Passport that Bjørn mention.

A bit of googling reveals this:
http://www.colourspace.xyz/creating-camera-profiles-for-capture-one/
http://ninedegreesbelow.com/photography/well-behaved-camera-profile.html

I've used this process in the past for Bibble/AfterShot:
https://encrypted.pcode.nl/blog/2010/06/28/darktable-camera-color-profiling/

If you are still on C1 v7, I strongly suggest to upgrade. V8 was a significant step forward in terms of highlight recovery, noise reduction and local tools.
v9 is even more interesting, but right now a bit fresh....

cheers
afx

[Frank Fremerey]

Dan Margulis was a turning point in my life as an editor, which is still in its infant phase.

The first time I learned to see a picture in its ten channels and learned to set a desired end point to my effort, everything changed.

[Frank Fremerey]

PS: In the first example the difference is clearly visible.

The 100 US$ for the color checker passport is well invested. There are cheap bundles with the i1Display Pro too!

[Lars Hansen]

A bit of googling reveals this:
http://www.colourspace.xyz/creating-camera-profiles-for-capture-one/
http://ninedegreesbelow.com/photography/well-behaved-camera-profile.html

I've used this process in the past for Bibble/AfterShot:
https://encrypted.pcode.nl/blog/2010/06/28/darktable-camera-color-profiling/

If you are still on C1 v7, I strongly suggest to upgrade. V8 was a significant step forward in terms of highlight recovery, noise reduction and local tools.
v9 is even more interesting, but right now a bit fresh....

cheers
afx

Thanks Andreas!

I did Google a bit when I was looking for these options in C1 7 Pro - I finally found this conversation on C1's site and then I just accepted it was not an option:

"Is or will there be a possibility to create icc profiles with the use of a full IT8 or colorchecker target?"

"Not at the moment unfortunately. We will take that into consideration for future releases. "

It did spawn some frustrated comments from pro phtographers...

Looking at your first link - this is version 8. 
Second and third link is not based on creating profiles within C1 - correct?  I did consider alternatives but wouldn't accept that I had to purchase additional software to make it work .. like others I was surprised that C1 didn't support this. But now they do, it seems.

I'm somewhat reluctant wrt. upgrade - there are still features that is not supported for Fuji raw files in C1 that they've argued they will fix. But they don't. And I have to pay around EUR 100 for each upgrade. So I've decided to take a look at alternatives before I consider yet another upgrade.   

[Frank Fremerey]

I like Photo Ninja & Photoshop & PT Lens & Nik Collection. That is all I need.

[Lars Hansen]

I like Photo Ninja & Photoshop & PT Lens & Nik Collection. That is all I need.

Many seems to use Photo Ninja and that is number one on my list to look at. As for the other tools you list - you are in a different league than I am and probably need those to do your job. I'm an amateur and as far as possible i want a single piece of software that covers the basics as well as some common advanced features.
As for creating color profiles using a color card, I expected a (professional) piece of software like C1 Pro would have such a feature as part of its advanced features. But not until version 8. Maybe I should just stick to being an amateur and use amateur software ..      
       

[Frank Fremerey]

@Lars. Not expensive at all:

PhotoNinja (full use of camera & light profiles) = 129€ / year but you can stay with an older version until they very slowly innovate.

Photoshop costs me 8.99€/monthly ... steep learning curve but great tool. And you get Bridge and Lightroom on top which I never use.

PTLens is a one time license. I simply forgot what I paid for it a Million Yeras ago.

Google NikCollection is 149€ once. And what I can do with that suite is

A M A Z IN G

do not underestimate configurable filters!

[afx]

"Is or will there be a possibility to create icc profiles with the use of a full IT8 or colorchecker target?"

"Not at the moment unfortunately. We will take that into consideration for future releases. "

It did spawn some frustrated comments from pro phtographers...

There is a difference between native support for profiling which is still missing in C1 and the ability to produce files that can be used for profiling and then the ability to apply them.
So what if C1 does not profile natively, one can still create and apply custom profiles.
And that has been available in C1 for many years as far as I know.
It used to be that Canon shooters where buying custom profiles from some guy as the native ones where not too good...

Looking at your first link - this is version 8. 
Second and third link is not based on creating profiles within C1 - correct?  I did consider alternatives but wouldn't accept that I had to purchase additional software to make it work .. like others I was surprised that C1 didn't support this. But now they do, it seems.

The first link needs additional Xrite software which might be pricey. The other two links do work with ArgyllCMS which is free.
The trick is now to us the method of generating the right input files for profiling from the first link and then applying the methods in the other two links if you do not want to shell out the money for iProfiler.

Quality wise, ArgyllCMS is easily on par with the Xrite software (a shown by many comments on LuLa), but the usage is quite different.

I'm somewhat reluctant wrt. upgrade - there are still features that is not supported for Fuji raw files in C1 that they've argued they will fix. But they don't. And I have to pay around EUR 100 for each upgrade. So I've decided to take a look at alternatives before I consider yet another upgrade.

According to forum entries from a phase one guy, it looks like some of those features are anchored very early in the pipeline, so they do have to be re-written for the xtrans sensor. Which of course always leads to the question, where are scarce development resources best spent for a small shop.

cheers
afx

[afx]

I like Photo Ninja

But you don't come home from a concert or other event with 500+ shots, do you?
PN is just too much of a PITA for that...
And the guys at Picturecode seem to lack the mindset to get what is needed for an efficient workflow. Been hoping for that change way too long now.

cheers
afx

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Rest assured you are not the only one complaining about a lack of workflow and file management in PhotoNinja. I think the guys at PictureCode still don't "get it". A few hundred images are usually the maximum I have to deal with from a shoot though, and provided you can distribute the load over a few computers, this is doable although not convenient. (reason for distributing is I do say concurrent processing of UV images on one machine, visible or IR or another).