K50 and Lightroom white balance issues

jphil2 · 12-02-2014, 04:44 PM

Hi all,

I've been lurking on the pentax forums for months now waiting until I received my k50. I've been enjoying the camera so far but have run into some unexpected issues which are really putting a damper on my shooting. When I edit RAW files I've taken with the K50 in Lightroom the white balance just seems wrong. I originally used the adobe standard profile for calibration which I have done for years with my Nikon 1 without any issues. The adobe standard doesn't quite look right with the k50 files (too magenta) so I switched it to embedded which makes all the shadows very green tinted. I can fix it somewhat by tweaking white balance but the settings that come with lightroom (cloudy, daylight, flash) etc. are all useless and don't seem to correspond to the k50's white balance settings at all. I have been using auto WB since I always just change it in LR. I tried switching to adobe RGB ...again not really relating to RAW but I figured it didn't hurt to try. At this point my photos are coming out OK but they lack the colors and pop of the RAW files from my prior camera which has a sensor 1/3 the size of my k50. I'm considering returning it and going back to nikon because I can't figure this out. I asked pentax and they said "we don't test with lightroom". I asked adobe and they didn't answer so now I ask you all! What are the ideal settings for my k50 to work in lightroom or better yet do you have a camera calibration profile that works well for you?

Thanks in advance.

Miguel · 12-02-2014, 05:07 PM

I'd suggest you take a few shots in different lighting environments that would be similar to places you would normally shoot. Include a grey card in the scene.
In LR, use the white balance dropper on that grey card in each scene. Tweak each scene to your favor and then save the settings as a LR preset you can use from there on out. You can purchase more complicated camera profiling tools, but this should get you close enough.
LR is a great tool that works well with 98% of all camera systems. I don't have a K50, but I have 160,000 images in my LR database representing a couple of dozen camera models. Judging from my K-3 files, I don't see a major difference in rendering of either the embedded or Adobe standard profiles. I've not had to throw up my hands at any white balance issues yet.
Color is fairly malleable with software these days, so to me it is a matter of learning how LR works with your new camera and then creating customized presets.
BTW, is your monitor calibrated with a hardware device?
Perhaps you can attach a couple of problematic images and one of your Nikon 1 that you think is great. Moderately high jpegs will do, or you can put up the Raw files on a service somewhere for downloading.

M

jphil2 · 12-02-2014, 05:21 PM

Thanks, I am planning on asking for a color calibrator for my monitor for christmass so I'm hoping that will help. I will try to get some pics on later. At the moment I don't own a grey card but I am planning on getting one or the xrite maybe. I think the biggest change I see between the embedded and adobe standard is a significant shift from blue to purple and the white balance shifts everything greenish. I also see the oranges go more towards yellowy green than red. Not sure if this is how the pentax coloration is supposed to be but I will keep playing with it. I did try to shoow some RAW + files yesterday to see if that made any difference but it was a rainy day so it was hard to tell. I will try again with better light

dcshooter · 12-02-2014, 05:51 PM

This thread should help you. K-30 and K-50 are essentially the same camera.

Originally posted by jphil2

Hi all,

I've been lurking on the pentax forums for months now waiting until I received my k50. I've been enjoying the camera so far but have run into some unexpected issues which are really putting a damper on my shooting. When I edit RAW files I've taken with the K50 in Lightroom the white balance just seems wrong. I originally used the adobe standard profile for calibration which I have done for years with my Nikon 1 without any issues. The adobe standard doesn't quite look right with the k50 files (too magenta) so I switched it to embedded which makes all the shadows very green tinted. I can fix it somewhat by tweaking white balance but the settings that come with lightroom (cloudy, daylight, flash) etc. are all useless and don't seem to correspond to the k50's white balance settings at all. I have been using auto WB since I always just change it in LR. I tried switching to adobe RGB ...again not really relating to RAW but I figured it didn't hurt to try. At this point my photos are coming out OK but they lack the colors and pop of the RAW files from my prior camera which has a sensor 1/3 the size of my k50. I'm considering returning it and going back to nikon because I can't figure this out. I asked pentax and they said "we don't test with lightroom". I asked adobe and they didn't answer so now I ask you all! What are the ideal settings for my k50 to work in lightroom or better yet do you have a camera calibration profile that works well for you?

Thanks in advance.

**stevebrot** · 12-02-2014, 06:05 PM

I had similar problems when I updated my computer and moved to LR 5. The auto WB from the camera was being applied properly, but the default monitor profile used by the OS was having trouble with the wide gamut color spaces (Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB (Melissa)) used by LR. The solution was a monitor calibration. You can use a calibration tool (e.g. Spider) or just use the calibration utility that is included with Windows.

BTW...the capture color space set on the camera only applies to JPEGs. As for the LR camera profiles, the Adobe standard and Pentax embedded are not a whole lot different and treat white balance essentially the same.

One thing you might want to try is to shoot JPEG and import those files into LR. I bet you will see the same sort of off colors, even without the RAW conversion. That would be evidence that your monitor calibration could be improved.

Steve

ABel · 12-02-2014, 07:40 PM

I have the similar problem with my K-30.
Most of the shots look more or less Ok in LR. Not the same colors as in the camera JPEG, but I'd say they are acceptable.

But for the RAWs taken in some "non-standard" conditions, especially during sunsets and sunrises, LR shifts the dominating color into purple, so the clouds and the sky start to look dull. The most disappointing thing is during the import you first see the normal colors (ones stored in the JPEG preview inside RAW files), and then LR applies its color profile, and all the beauty is gone.

I've tried a lot of different color fine-adjustments in LR, but I cannot repeat the colors I want (please note I haven't calibrated my monitor, but the camera JPEGs look just fine, so I expect to see the same from RAWs).

Ok, here's a solution - when I see the LR trashes the colors that I don't want to sacrifice, I open these pictures in Digital Camera Utility v5, immediately export them into 16-bit TIFFs, and then process these TIFFs in LR. In this case, colors are 99% close to ones in the camera JPEGs

jphil2 · 12-03-2014, 02:54 PM

Originally posted by dcshooter

This thread should help you. K-30 and K-50 are essentially the same camera.

thanks for that. I did see that post earlier and I found the k50 rawstudio camera profiles but they look realllly bad. I definitely will try to calibrate my monitor as well.

jphil2 · 12-03-2014, 02:55 PM

Originally posted by ABel

I have the similar problem with my K-30.
Most of the shots look more or less Ok in LR. Not the same colors as in the camera JPEG, but I'd say they are acceptable.

But for the RAWs taken in some "non-standard" conditions, especially during sunsets and sunrises, LR shifts the dominating color into purple, so the clouds and the sky start to look dull. The most disappointing thing is during the import you first see the normal colors (ones stored in the JPEG preview inside RAW files), and then LR applies its color profile, and all the beauty is gone.

I've tried a lot of different color fine-adjustments in LR, but I cannot repeat the colors I want (please note I haven't calibrated my monitor, but the camera JPEGs look just fine, so I expect to see the same from RAWs).

Ok, here's a solution - when I see the LR trashes the colors that I don't want to sacrifice, I open these pictures in Digital Camera Utility v5, immediately export them into 16-bit TIFFs, and then process these TIFFs in LR. In this case, colors are 99% close to ones in the camera JPEGs

Thanks for the tip, thats sort of what I was thinking of doing as well. I was going to export the tiffs from silkypix but guess what.... it won't read the dng's from the pentax even though it is the pentax edition of silkypix. not sure if its because I imported the files into lightroom but silkypix just says it can't read those files.... I will try DCU5 and see if the pics are any better.

jphil2 · 12-03-2014, 02:57 PM

Originally posted by stevebrot

I had similar problems when I updated my computer and moved to LR 5. The auto WB from the camera was being applied properly, but the default monitor profile used by the OS was having trouble with the wide gamut color spaces (Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB (Melissa)) used by LR. The solution was a monitor calibration. You can use a calibration tool (e.g. Spider) or just use the calibration utility that is included with Windows.

BTW...the capture color space set on the camera only applies to JPEGs. As for the LR camera profiles, the Adobe standard and Pentax embedded are not a whole lot different and treat white balance essentially the same.

One thing you might want to try is to shoot JPEG and import those files into LR. I bet you will see the same sort of off colors, even without the RAW conversion. That would be evidence that your monitor calibration could be improved.

Steve

thanks steve. I will check that out. I need a nice sunny day so that I can test both the old camera and new one and then also use the jpeg /raw files to see if I can get them to look the same or not.

jphil2 · 12-06-2014, 11:12 AM

gold (48 of 80).jpg gold (67 of 80).jpg

these are some pics that might show what I mean. Not a horrible cast... just to my eye it doesn't seem right. The bridge picture is dull and flat and I feel it looks orangey/ yellowish green. Not what the scene actually looked like that day. If I changed the white balance any more than this it comes out way too magenta..

jphil2 · 12-06-2014, 06:05 PM

so I think I found a workaround to this issue.... I saw a post about it on another forum and this is what seems to work-

open adobe's DNG profile editor
navigate to the adobe camera raw profiles and load a profile ( I chose the 5d mk3 because I like the colors)
open a dng from the pentax in the editor
export the profile as a new name
Change the profile under camera calibration in lightroom

Hopefully this did the trick. I will report back if it doesn't work in the long run

jstillion · 12-07-2014, 08:36 AM

What versions of light room are you using? There was a big change in ver 4 and latter with auto white balance.

dcshooter · 12-07-2014, 10:54 AM

I'm looking at these on a calibrated monitor right now, and I agree that they don't seem to have a bad color cast to them, so white balance actually seems pretty good. It seems like it's more a saturation issue; the yellow to red portion of the spectrum seems to be boosted quite a bit more than does the blue in the sky. If you look at standard out of camera jpgs from a Canon or Nikon, you'll tend to see the blues boosted as well, giving a very saturated overall but more balanced tone profile. Since those are the images that we most often see, that's the kind of color balance we are conditioned to expect. So if you are creating a custom profile, I'd either suggest boosting the blue saturation, or if you prefer a more muted image, bring the reds, oranges and yellows down some.

Also, it appears that the images, particularly #2, were shot in the "golden hour" when the sun is low in the sky, which tneds to result in very strong colors in the red to yellow range, so that might be part of it as well.

Originally posted by jphil2

gold (48 of 80).jpg gold (67 of 80).jpg

these are some pics that might show what I mean. Not a horrible cast... just to my eye it doesn't seem right. The bridge picture is dull and flat and I feel it looks orangey/ yellowish green. Not what the scene actually looked like that day. If I changed the white balance any more than this it comes out way too magenta..

**stevebrot** · 12-07-2014, 02:19 PM

Originally posted by jphil2

gold (48 of 80).jpg gold (67 of 80).jpg

these are some pics that might show what I mean. Not a horrible cast... just to my eye it doesn't seem right. The bridge picture is dull and flat and I feel it looks orangey/ yellowish green. Not what the scene actually looked like that day. If I changed the white balance any more than this it comes out way too magenta..

Both look fine on my monitor and system.

I noticed you are using a Mac. Monitor Gamma issue perhaps?

Steve

jphil2 · 12-14-2014, 07:35 AM

Originally posted by stevebrot

Both look fine on my monitor and system.

I noticed you are using a Mac. Monitor Gamma issue perhaps?

Steve

I am on mac, I put a spyder calibrator on my list this year so maybe the wife will feel generous !

12-02-2014, 04:44 PM	#1
jphil2 New Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 9	K50 and Lightroom white balance issues Hi all, I've been lurking on the pentax forums for months now waiting until I received my k50. I've been enjoying the camera so far but have run into some unexpected issues which are really putting a damper on my shooting. When I edit RAW files I've taken with the K50 in Lightroom the white balance just seems wrong. I originally used the adobe standard profile for calibration which I have done for years with my Nikon 1 without any issues. The adobe standard doesn't quite look right with the k50 files (too magenta) so I switched it to embedded which makes all the shadows very green tinted. I can fix it somewhat by tweaking white balance but the settings that come with lightroom (cloudy, daylight, flash) etc. are all useless and don't seem to correspond to the k50's white balance settings at all. I have been using auto WB since I always just change it in LR. I tried switching to adobe RGB ...again not really relating to RAW but I figured it didn't hurt to try. At this point my photos are coming out OK but they lack the colors and pop of the RAW files from my prior camera which has a sensor 1/3 the size of my k50. I'm considering returning it and going back to nikon because I can't figure this out. I asked pentax and they said "we don't test with lightroom". I asked adobe and they didn't answer so now I ask you all! What are the ideal settings for my k50 to work in lightroom or better yet do you have a camera calibration profile that works well for you? Thanks in advance.

12-02-2014, 06:05 PM	#5
stevebrot Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver (USA) Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,635	I had similar problems when I updated my computer and moved to LR 5. The auto WB from the camera was being applied properly, but the default monitor profile used by the OS was having trouble with the wide gamut color spaces (Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB (Melissa)) used by LR. The solution was a monitor calibration. You can use a calibration tool (e.g. Spider) or just use the calibration utility that is included with Windows. BTW...the capture color space set on the camera only applies to JPEGs. As for the LR camera profiles, the Adobe standard and Pentax embedded are not a whole lot different and treat white balance essentially the same. One thing you might want to try is to shoot JPEG and import those files into LR. I bet you will see the same sort of off colors, even without the RAW conversion. That would be evidence that your monitor calibration could be improved. Steve Last edited by stevebrot; 12-02-2014 at 06:12 PM.

12-07-2014, 10:54 AM	#13
dcshooter Pentaxian Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Washington DC Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,338	I'm looking at these on a calibrated monitor right now, and I agree that they don't seem to have a bad color cast to them, so white balance actually seems pretty good. It seems like it's more a saturation issue; the yellow to red portion of the spectrum seems to be boosted quite a bit more than does the blue in the sky. If you look at standard out of camera jpgs from a Canon or Nikon, you'll tend to see the blues boosted as well, giving a very saturated overall but more balanced tone profile. Since those are the images that we most often see, that's the kind of color balance we are conditioned to expect. So if you are creating a custom profile, I'd either suggest boosting the blue saturation, or if you prefer a more muted image, bring the reds, oranges and yellows down some. Also, it appears that the images, particularly #2, were shot in the "golden hour" when the sun is low in the sky, which tneds to result in very strong colors in the red to yellow range, so that might be part of it as well. Originally posted by jphil2 gold (48 of 80).jpg gold (67 of 80).jpg these are some pics that might show what I mean. Not a horrible cast... just to my eye it doesn't seem right. The bridge picture is dull and flat and I feel it looks orangey/ yellowish green. Not what the scene actually looked like that day. If I changed the white balance any more than this it comes out way too magenta.. Last edited by dcshooter; 12-07-2014 at 02:42 PM.

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12-02-2014, 05:07 PM	#2
Miguel Pentaxian Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Near Seattle Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,716	I'd suggest you take a few shots in different lighting environments that would be similar to places you would normally shoot. Include a grey card in the scene. In LR, use the white balance dropper on that grey card in each scene. Tweak each scene to your favor and then save the settings as a LR preset you can use from there on out. You can purchase more complicated camera profiling tools, but this should get you close enough. LR is a great tool that works well with 98% of all camera systems. I don't have a K50, but I have 160,000 images in my LR database representing a couple of dozen camera models. Judging from my K-3 files, I don't see a major difference in rendering of either the embedded or Adobe standard profiles. I've not had to throw up my hands at any white balance issues yet. Color is fairly malleable with software these days, so to me it is a matter of learning how LR works with your new camera and then creating customized presets. BTW, is your monitor calibrated with a hardware device? Perhaps you can attach a couple of problematic images and one of your Nikon 1 that you think is great. Moderately high jpegs will do, or you can put up the Raw files on a service somewhere for downloading. M

12-02-2014, 05:21 PM	#3
jphil2 New Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 9 Original Poster	Thanks, I am planning on asking for a color calibrator for my monitor for christmass so I'm hoping that will help. I will try to get some pics on later. At the moment I don't own a grey card but I am planning on getting one or the xrite maybe. I think the biggest change I see between the embedded and adobe standard is a significant shift from blue to purple and the white balance shifts everything greenish. I also see the oranges go more towards yellowy green than red. Not sure if this is how the pentax coloration is supposed to be but I will keep playing with it. I did try to shoow some RAW + files yesterday to see if that made any difference but it was a rainy day so it was hard to tell. I will try again with better light

12-02-2014, 05:51 PM	#4
dcshooter Pentaxian Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Washington DC Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,338	This thread should help you. K-30 and K-50 are essentially the same camera. Originally posted by jphil2 Hi all, I've been lurking on the pentax forums for months now waiting until I received my k50. I've been enjoying the camera so far but have run into some unexpected issues which are really putting a damper on my shooting. When I edit RAW files I've taken with the K50 in Lightroom the white balance just seems wrong. I originally used the adobe standard profile for calibration which I have done for years with my Nikon 1 without any issues. The adobe standard doesn't quite look right with the k50 files (too magenta) so I switched it to embedded which makes all the shadows very green tinted. I can fix it somewhat by tweaking white balance but the settings that come with lightroom (cloudy, daylight, flash) etc. are all useless and don't seem to correspond to the k50's white balance settings at all. I have been using auto WB since I always just change it in LR. I tried switching to adobe RGB ...again not really relating to RAW but I figured it didn't hurt to try. At this point my photos are coming out OK but they lack the colors and pop of the RAW files from my prior camera which has a sensor 1/3 the size of my k50. I'm considering returning it and going back to nikon because I can't figure this out. I asked pentax and they said "we don't test with lightroom". I asked adobe and they didn't answer so now I ask you all! What are the ideal settings for my k50 to work in lightroom or better yet do you have a camera calibration profile that works well for you? Thanks in advance.

12-02-2014, 07:40 PM	#6
ABel Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: Middle of Siberia Photos: Gallery Posts: 144	I have the similar problem with my K-30. Most of the shots look more or less Ok in LR. Not the same colors as in the camera JPEG, but I'd say they are acceptable. But for the RAWs taken in some "non-standard" conditions, especially during sunsets and sunrises, LR shifts the dominating color into purple, so the clouds and the sky start to look dull. The most disappointing thing is during the import you first see the normal colors (ones stored in the JPEG preview inside RAW files), and then LR applies its color profile, and all the beauty is gone. I've tried a lot of different color fine-adjustments in LR, but I cannot repeat the colors I want (please note I haven't calibrated my monitor, but the camera JPEGs look just fine, so I expect to see the same from RAWs). Ok, here's a solution - when I see the LR trashes the colors that I don't want to sacrifice, I open these pictures in Digital Camera Utility v5, immediately export them into 16-bit TIFFs, and then process these TIFFs in LR. In this case, colors are 99% close to ones in the camera JPEGs

12-03-2014, 02:54 PM	#7
jphil2 New Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 9 Original Poster	Originally posted by dcshooter This thread should help you. K-30 and K-50 are essentially the same camera. thanks for that. I did see that post earlier and I found the k50 rawstudio camera profiles but they look realllly bad. I definitely will try to calibrate my monitor as well.

12-03-2014, 02:55 PM	#8
jphil2 New Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 9 Original Poster	Originally posted by ABel I have the similar problem with my K-30. Most of the shots look more or less Ok in LR. Not the same colors as in the camera JPEG, but I'd say they are acceptable. But for the RAWs taken in some "non-standard" conditions, especially during sunsets and sunrises, LR shifts the dominating color into purple, so the clouds and the sky start to look dull. The most disappointing thing is during the import you first see the normal colors (ones stored in the JPEG preview inside RAW files), and then LR applies its color profile, and all the beauty is gone. I've tried a lot of different color fine-adjustments in LR, but I cannot repeat the colors I want (please note I haven't calibrated my monitor, but the camera JPEGs look just fine, so I expect to see the same from RAWs). Ok, here's a solution - when I see the LR trashes the colors that I don't want to sacrifice, I open these pictures in Digital Camera Utility v5, immediately export them into 16-bit TIFFs, and then process these TIFFs in LR. In this case, colors are 99% close to ones in the camera JPEGs Thanks for the tip, thats sort of what I was thinking of doing as well. I was going to export the tiffs from silkypix but guess what.... it won't read the dng's from the pentax even though it is the pentax edition of silkypix. not sure if its because I imported the files into lightroom but silkypix just says it can't read those files.... I will try DCU5 and see if the pics are any better.

12-03-2014, 02:57 PM	#9
jphil2 New Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 9 Original Poster	Originally posted by stevebrot I had similar problems when I updated my computer and moved to LR 5. The auto WB from the camera was being applied properly, but the default monitor profile used by the OS was having trouble with the wide gamut color spaces (Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB (Melissa)) used by LR. The solution was a monitor calibration. You can use a calibration tool (e.g. Spider) or just use the calibration utility that is included with Windows. BTW...the capture color space set on the camera only applies to JPEGs. As for the LR camera profiles, the Adobe standard and Pentax embedded are not a whole lot different and treat white balance essentially the same. One thing you might want to try is to shoot JPEG and import those files into LR. I bet you will see the same sort of off colors, even without the RAW conversion. That would be evidence that your monitor calibration could be improved. Steve thanks steve. I will check that out. I need a nice sunny day so that I can test both the old camera and new one and then also use the jpeg /raw files to see if I can get them to look the same or not.

12-06-2014, 06:05 PM	#11
jphil2 New Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 9 Original Poster	so I think I found a workaround to this issue.... I saw a post about it on another forum and this is what seems to work- open adobe's DNG profile editor navigate to the adobe camera raw profiles and load a profile ( I chose the 5d mk3 because I like the colors) open a dng from the pentax in the editor export the profile as a new name Change the profile under camera calibration in lightroom Hopefully this did the trick. I will report back if it doesn't work in the long run

12-07-2014, 08:36 AM	#12
jstillion New Member Join Date: Jul 2013 Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 20	What versions of light room are you using? There was a big change in ver 4 and latter with auto white balance.

12-07-2014, 02:19 PM	#14
stevebrot Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver (USA) Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,635	Originally posted by jphil2 gold (48 of 80).jpg gold (67 of 80).jpg these are some pics that might show what I mean. Not a horrible cast... just to my eye it doesn't seem right. The bridge picture is dull and flat and I feel it looks orangey/ yellowish green. Not what the scene actually looked like that day. If I changed the white balance any more than this it comes out way too magenta.. Both look fine on my monitor and system. I noticed you are using a Mac. Monitor Gamma issue perhaps? Steve

12-14-2014, 07:35 AM	#15
jphil2 New Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 9 Original Poster	Originally posted by stevebrot Both look fine on my monitor and system. I noticed you are using a Mac. Monitor Gamma issue perhaps? Steve I am on mac, I put a spyder calibrator on my list this year so maybe the wife will feel generous !