[Class A]

If you look at the 645 photo forums, what is striking is the beautiful colors. We have very subtle colors in the winter here; mauve and pinks, with the subtle light blue of the snow covered hills. It is very difficult to capture that subtlety with what I have, yet it is strikingly beautiful. I have tried with the K3 unsuccessfully, probably could do it justice with the 645Z.

Are you using ACR (Lightroom or Photoshop)?

That may be your problem.

Try Capture One 9; I'm much happier with its colours compared to what I got from ACR.

[wkraus]

Try Capture One 9; I'm much happier with its colours compared to what I got from ACR.

In how far? Could you describe what makes you happier with the Capture One output? Thanks!

[Winder]

In how far? Could you describe what makes you happier with the Capture One output? Thanks!

Capture One does a better job with skin tones when using Pentax RAW files. If the light and WB are perfect then Adobe seems to be decent. If the light is just slightly off then Adobe has problems with Pentax RAW files. I don't have these problems with RAW files from the Sony A7II or Fuji X-T1. Both DxO and C1 do a better job with reds and pinks that can cause problems with lighter skin tones.

Class A's answer might be different than mine, but that is my experience.

[fromunderthebridge]

Reminds me of a mountain backpack trip I was on several years ago. A couple of days travel from the road end we came across a pair of travelers taking some photos using an 8x10" view camera mounted on an industrial strength tripod. We chatted for a bit and I mentioned the weight and bulk of setup. The guy at the camera indicated that the results were absolutely worth it and the other guy mumbled that he was carrying all the camping gear and food


Steve

Yea. Well sometimes not all of us can afford a 'sherpa' .

I will play the devil's advocate here and say that there are some times where getting the composition requires working hand held. The tripod sort of quenches spontaneity and vision at times.


Steve

Horses for courses! Seconded.

[Class A]

Could you describe what makes you happier with the Capture One output?

With Capture One I don't see the unnatural hue shifts that are quite common with ACR.

Winder is right that ACR hue problems can most easily be spotted with skin colours but I see unnatural and unpleasant hue shifts from ACR in other areas as well.

I suspect the reason for ACR's hue inaccuracies with Pentax cameras is twofold:

1. Most ACR camera profiles are so-called "twisted" profiles, i.e., they deliberately change hues based on luminance information. This is supposed to create more pleasant colours (sacrificing accuracy). I have a suspicion that a good tuning of the hue twisting to the camera's primary colours is required to actually achieve the desired "more pleasant"-effect and that Adobe does not give Pentax the attention that it gives to Canon or Nikon.
2. Creating a good profile is not that trivial as it should work well for many different illuminants (such as daylight, cloudy day, Tungsten, etc.). Again, the sensor's characteristics (what are the RGB primaries?, how much of a (e.g., magenta) tint is there at low-light levels?, etc.) matter and again I don't think Adobe has spent much effort on Pentax cameras. Canon and Nikon camera models come with multiple camera profiles, each dedicated to a particular purpose, but for Pentax there is only "Adobe Standard".

I tried to improve the situation for my K-5 II (I was reasonably happy with the K100D when I still used Lightroom) by generating my own Color-checker-based camera profiles and even manually tweaking them with the DNG profile editor, but I was never really happy with the outcomes. Again, I don't think the DNG profile editor is a good fit to Pentax. When you select a patch in the color checker and tweak it, you'll notice that changing the source hue will make the target changes much more specific, i.e., affect the patch much more and affect adjacent colours much less. In other words, Adobe's determination of the source colour is off, at least for the K-5 II.

Only for very bright daylight and flash light, the dedicated Color-checker profiles seemed to be pretty accurate. For other lighting scenarios, they did not help to overcome the ACR colour problems.

With Capture One 9, colours for the K-5 II look much better out of the box and -- this is ironic but true -- Capture One has much more refined means to correct colour problems. Instead of ACR's crude "eight colour"-tuner, you get a full-blown colour editor where you can fine-tune colours you want to target and control how many other adjacent colours should be affected (both in terms of hue and lightness). For skin tones there is even a way to homogenise skin colours so that faces look more even. Again, all these features are much less needed for CO which produces natural looking images out of the box.

Summarising, while a lot of tweaking can get ACR output to match CO's standard output, it is

• quite a bit of work and I don't think the tweaking required is the same for all images.
• with some images you'll never get there, even when resorting to the DNG profile editor which is not easy to use as it does not seemed to be geared towards Pentax camera characteristics and lacks features that allow fine-control over which colour ranges are affected by a tweak.

P.S.: Capture One only shines in the way I described above with an accurate camera profile. I think the current K-5 II profile is excellent, but the K-3 profile was originally just a sloppily adjusted K-5 profile. I understand that in the meantime the K-3 profile has been updated and is very good as well, but I don't have any first-hand experience.

It may take a while for the K-1 to be properly supported by Capture One, but when the proper support is there, it should be great. In the meantime, one can use the colour editor to create own's own camera profiles as the colour editor cannot only be used to tweak individual images, but also to export a camera profile to be applied to all images per default. I haven't tried that yet because I did not have the need but as I said the control over colour modifications is much finer compared to what Adobe provides.

[wkraus]

Winder and Class A: Thank you both for the detailed replies! I must try Capture One.

[Winder]

Winder and Class A: Thank you both for the detailed replies! I must try Capture One.

The learning curve with C1 is a little steeper than LR, but once you get a workflow established and you understand all of the controls that you have it is a great program. I still end up doing somethings in LR.

The K-3 has the Embedded and Adobe Standard Profile in Lightroom. The Embedded is typically better. X-rite color passport is the best option if you only want to work in LR.

As Class A has said. Adobe hasn't spent much time developing profiles for Pentax. If you download VSCO film presets and use their Adobe standard profile you will find the colors are not very good with Pentax. VSCO creates color profiles for all the cameras they support, but unsupported cameras have to use the Adobe Standard. I accidentally applied a Sony VSCO film preset to a K-3 file it it looked a lot better than the Adobe Standard version.

My single biggest complaint about my K-3 is the magenta lips I get in portraits.

[wkraus]

The learning curve with C1 is a little steeper than LR, but once you get a workflow established and you understand all of the controls that you have it is a great program. I still end up doing somethings in LR.

The K-3 has the Embedded and Adobe Standard Profile in Lightroom. The Embedded is typically better. X-rite color passport is the best option if you only want to work in LR.

As Class A has said. Adobe hasn't spent much time developing profiles for Pentax. If you download VSCO film presets and use their Adobe standard profile you will find the colors are not very good with Pentax. VSCO creates color profiles for all the cameras they support, but unsupported cameras have to use the Adobe Standard. I accidentally applied a Sony VSCO film preset to a K-3 file it it looked a lot better than the Adobe Standard version.

My single biggest complaint about my K-3 is the magenta lips I get in portraits.

Thanks again for sharing your experience. I'm afraid I'm falling into the (mainstream) habit of taking the thread OT, but: I hate LR, much as any software that tries to sort my files according to its own logic. I'm using Photoshop/ACR and like it on the whole (perhaps because I'm so used to its workflow). My biggest complaint is with skin colour under tungsten or worse kinds of artificial lighting, where it's sometimes easier to get nice colours with the PS Hue/Saturation controls than in ACR. I will definitely try these difficult files with C1.

[RockvilleBob]

With Capture One I don't see the unnatural hue shifts that are quite common with ACR.


P.S.: Capture One only shines in the way I described above with an accurate camera profile. I think the current K-5 II profile is excellent, but the K-3 profile was originally just a sloppily adjusted K-5 profile. I understand that in the meantime the K-3 profile has been updated and is very good as well, but I don't have any first-hand experience.

It may take a while for the K-1 to be properly supported by Capture One, but when the proper support is there, it should be great. In the meantime, one can use the colour editor to create own's own camera profiles as the colour editor cannot only be used to tweak individual images, but also to export a camera profile to be applied to all images per default. I haven't tried that yet because I did not have the need but as I said the control over colour modifications is much finer compared to what Adobe provides.

Does Capture One have a capability similar to the camera profile in ACR? I use camera profiles to calibrate the camera and lens in different lighting conditions. A couple of examples: making HDR Fusion 360x180 panormas using existing light for a virtual tours using the K3 and Samyang Fisheye; another example is using vintage glass (for example the Vivitar Series 1 Bokina Macro) for some shots. It is my understanding that different lens/camera/lighting conditions can impact color rendition.

I am up for trying something new and possibly better but would like to keep the ability to have the equivalent of camera profiles in ACR to make changes for a given camera/lens/lighting condition.

[Class A]

Does Capture One have a capability similar to the camera profile in ACR?

Yes, it supports multiple profiles per camera and you can create your own with the ColorEditor.

CO also has a lens correction tool and you can create your own lens profiles as well.

It is my understanding that different lens/camera/lighting conditions can impact color rendition.

Yes, but only camera profiles influence colour rendition (in both ACR and CO).

By creating a profile specific to a lens you can counteract the effect of coatings, for instance, but to best of my knowledge neither ACR nor CO will select a camera profile based on information on the lens in the image metadata. You'll have to apply such changes manually but both support batch processing so it isn't a big inconvenience.

[RockvilleBob]

Yes, it supports multiple profiles per camera and you can create your own with the ColorEditor.

CO also has a lens correction tool and you can create your own lens profiles as well.


Yes, but only camera profiles influence colour rendition (in both ACR and CO).

By creating a profile specific to a lens you can counteract the effect of coatings, for instance, but to best of my knowledge neither ACR nor CO will select a camera profile based on information on the lens in the image metadata. You'll have to apply such changes manually but both support batch processing so it isn't a big inconvenience.

I am not technical in the workings of ColorChecker camera profile software but my understanding is that the profile generated from a Macbeth color chart is specific for the camera and lens in the specific light of the calibration picture. If so then the camera profile is really a camera/lens/light profile for that particular environment. For that reason I take a ColorChecker sequence for every panorama I shoot, especially interiors where light conditions vary by time of day, weather conditions, etc.
If this is the case then ACR includes a camera correction that accounts for camera, lens and specific lighting conditions.

[stevebrot]

but my understanding is that the profile generated from a Macbeth color chart is specific for the camera and lens in the specific light of the calibration picture.

Yep.


Steve