[Na Horuk]

My view would be that a camera should produce an accurate image. No more and no less.

Cameras have no concept of images, though. They capture data, and that data is useless to the human eye. It is always interpreted in a certain way, given a white balance, processed (noise, sharpness) and so on.
Cameras record only one aspect of reality (certain light wavelengths hitting the sensor through the lens), and that data then gets interpreted, encoded, recorded and later it is decoded, post processed, and rendered. (the chain is roughly like that, there are many steps throughout if you want to get really technical)
For example, our eyes/brain adjust WB automatically. We just don't notice it. In reality, some rooms are horribly orange, and some are very very blue. But after a moment we adjust unconsciously. Cameras have some algorithms to try to mimic that. But they don't "know" what is correct. So they need things like color profiles and white balance adjustment. The second part is that photography is not just documenting reality, but rather is is creating an image with specific intent. Often this intent is to make a beautiful image

[peterh337]

"The second part is that photography is not just documenting reality, but rather is is creating an image with specific intent. Often this intent is to make a beautiful image"

That bit I see of course, but isn't it just easier to do in Lightroom or Photoshop?

As regards getting colours to come out right, white balance is by far the biggest issue but is fairly trivial to fix manually in Lightroom, e.g. with the colour picker.

Calibrating a monitor is also easy, though ensuring the light is always the same is not trivial, short of always using the same artificial light.

After that it is going to get a lot more difficult.

I can see that a lens will apply its own attenuation spectrum. Is there a way of calibrating the camera+lens?

Then there is the client device. Many (most?) images today end up on websites - either picture sites (trying to sell the pics) or commercial advertising and other applications where stuff needs to look attractive. Then you have to deal with the colour profiles of target devices. For example a Samsung S6 is rather saturated, and the S7 (I have both) is even more saturated. But the saturation isn't just a straight +20% on the saturation slider in LR They seem to look at the image... if there is a lot of sky you will get a very (very) blue sky, which most people (especially young people) think looks real cool. But a smaller area (or a different shade) of blue may not be that saturated. So if you did some fantastically good colour correction, you have wasted a lot of your time, unless you prepare different images and present them according to the data which the web browser sends up. It a standard thing these days, for "mobile friendly" sites which google ranks preferentially (!) to present different code and formatting according to the client (device and browser), but presenting different versions of jpegs? You definitely need a different image for each different Samsung and again for various Iphones, if you want a really good result.

[DeadJohn]

I see only the Embedded profile...

You don't see any other options when you click the arrows to the right of the word "Embedded"??? You're using a K-1 and raw?

[stevebrot]

I see only the Embedded profile

Update your Lightroom version.


Steve

[stevebrot]

my view would be that a camera should produce an accurate image. No more and no less.

rofl...

(would have typed something constructive, but could not stop laughing...)


Steve

[stevebrot]

Is there a way of calibrating the camera+lens?

ColorChecker

There are some users on this site that do per-session profile creation and embed the profile into the DNG from LR. I consider that to be a little excessive. It is usually enough to include a gray card in the scene for white balance reference in a test exposure.


Steve

[peterh337]

I can't see why a camera cannot produce a DNG (or a JPG) which is colour accurate, in the sense of matching say a Pantone or a Chromatech colour chart - for a given light source colour temperature.

There will always be geometric distortion and vignetting - that is what the lens profiles in LR are for.

I looked up Colorchecker
http://xritephoto.com/colorchecker-classic
Many thanks! I can see how that works. It calibrates the camera for the actual colour temperature etc.

---

Last edited by peterh337; 01-10-2017 at 11:23 AM.

[following.eric]

I recently noticed that I no longer have the embedded option in lightroom.

I used to have it on the k50 shooting raw dng. Since switching the the k70 and shooting raw pef, I dont seem ot see it anymore.

Is it because I am shooting with PEF? I thought this was the better raw file as I would get more colour bits, 14 bit color where as dng was less?

should I shoot in dng and would this bring back different camera calibration settings in lightroom?

[enoeske]

I recently noticed that I no longer have the embedded option in lightroom.

I used to have it on the k50 shooting raw dng. Since switching the the k70 and shooting raw pef, I dont seem ot see it anymore.

Is it because I am shooting with PEF? I thought this was the better raw file as I would get more colour bits, 14 bit color where as dng was less?

should I shoot in dng and would this bring back different camera calibration settings in lightroom?

We don't know what version of photoshop you are using, but if its older, the camera might be newer than the software and be unsupported.

PEF is Pentax proprietary format (like Canon CR2 and Nikon NEF) while DNG is a standard created by Adobe. They both contain the same information. There is, functionally, no difference. However, edits to DNG files get embedded in the DNG file, whereas PEF must create a sidecar xmp file.

This also doesn't seem to have anything to do with this thread. So further discussion probably warrants its own thread.

[DeadJohn]

Is it because I am shooting with PEF? I thought this was the better raw file as I would get more colour bits, 14 bit color where as dng was less? should I shoot in dng and would this bring back different camera calibration settings in lightroom?

I don't know if your problem is PEF, but...

DNG and PEF have the same bit depth and use lossless compression. DNG is a more common standard and has wider support by non-Pentax software; I have yet to see software that supports PEF but not DNG. I suggest always using DNG.

[stevebrot]

I used to have it on the k50 shooting raw dng. Since switching the the k70 and shooting raw pef, I dont seem ot see it anymore.

LR supports the DNG embedded profile, when available, but does not support any such from PEF and other non-Adobe RAW file types.


Steve

[bulloughphotography]

Hello. This is a related question that I hope you can help me out with. The color profiles for my K-1 were visible in Lightroom. However I upgraded recently to a K1 MarkII and there are no profiles, only embedded. Can somebody help me out with getting the profiles back in Lightroom? Thank you