Gear Talk > Processing & Publication

Advice or recommendations on using color checker

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Jack Dahlgren:
I’ve got some architectural photography to do where color matching is important so I need to get a bit more serious about it. Primarily I process my photos in captureNX and use the eye dropper to set white balance, but am interested is how others manage color accuracy.

I’ve noticed use of the colorchecker passport in several photos here, so would appreciate opinions on how effective it is and how to best use it, particularly if you have advice beyond the instructions which come with it.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help out.

Frank Fremerey:
Nikon NX are color managged but do not support color checker.

Lightroom supports Color Checker and Photo Ninja supports color checker too. You can build camera and lens profiles, let the EXIF be detected and corrections applied on import, ... yet ... I still think the results are best for Nikon software with Nikon cameras ...

charlie:
You'll need to use software that supports creating profiles with the color checker to fully utilize it. In addition to the programs Frank mentioned Capture One and Photoshop (ACR) also support color checker profiles.
 
Besides Capture NX, what other software are you using?

As far as effectiveness in the profiles it creates I have found that profiling does not make colors 100% accurate, that's with both Nikon and Canon cameras. Particularly with pinks & reds the hue is shifted both before and after profiling, though it does get better. Often I find the built in profiles of NX, Capture One, and Lightroom are more pleasing compared to the color checker created profiles so I'll only use it when the color needs to be as true as possible, even then some manual correction is sometimes needed.   

I find the color checker to consistently give warmer white balance than I prefer, even when using the "cool" WB patches.

MFloyd:
I’m using the Swiss Datacolor system for several years. I just upgraded to their new Spyder X probe. Only on very rare occasion I need to calibrate (though Spydercheckr) a scene (reproduction). The provided software works with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and Hasselblad Phocus.

pluton:
As I understand it, calibrating with a color checker is intended for one specific lighting setup....one specific color quality of light. 
Additionally, the use of the color checker calibration assumes that the photographer wishes the light to appear to be absolutely neutral in color.  This is essentially what you'd get if you included a white card in every setup and used the eyedropper white balance tool in post.
When shooting under the total control of studio lighting, the color checker calibration should deliver a good result.
When documentary shooting in the world of existing light, you'd have to calibrate every time you change location or the the color of the light changes.  Also, the color of the scene lighting would always be dead neutral, even if you were photographing by the light of a red sunset or cool blue rainy day. For fast moving documentary work, it would obviously be impractical to shoot the color checker in every setup.
For slower-moving architectural work, it might be more practical to insert a color checker into each major setup.
I shoot 98% documentary shots, but experimentally tried the Lightroom color checker calibration for my Nikon and Fujifilm cameras.  I liked the general look of the color checker calibration, and still use it knowing that I'll be fine-tuning the color rendition for many or most shots.
In the end, it may be more important that the finished set of photos match each other, rather than match a real world material sample.

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