Profiling Digital Cameras
Profiling Digital Cameras
- Subject: Profiling Digital Cameras
- From: Gerry Yaeger <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:05:02 -0700
I have been following the long running discussion on profiling raw
camera images. Over the 18 years I have sold digital imaging equipment
and worked as a color management consultant to many companies, 3
different attempts to profile digital cameras come to mind. These 3
companies had need of faithful reproduction of color.
Case #1 occurred about 1992. The camera involved though long before
the term raw capture had been coined used a proprietary software to
process the "raw" data from the camera CCD and allowed for the
application of an ICC profile and conversion to a working space of
your choice as the resultant tiff file was created. It was very easy
to improve on the factory supplied profile by creating a custom
profile using either of the 2 available color management softwares
available at the time. You could create a profile that allowed you to
shoot very faithful reproductions of the Color Checker. The client was
a carpet manufacturer who desired to photograph carpet samples and
make prints that he could send to dealers instead of having to send
actual samples of the carpet to show the different patterns available.
You guessed it. While we could make faithful reproductions of CC
Charts the fibers and dyes of the carpet reacted differently to the
light source that the CC Chart and could not be faithfully reproduced.
Case #2 was a similar situation with a manufacturer of clay roofing
tiles. It was very expensive to ship samples of all the different
tiles to all their dealers around the country. We ran into the same
problem with the pigments in the tiles reacting differently to the
light. The manufacturer had 2" x 2" samples of all their tiles so I
read them all with a spectrometer and created a custom "chart" with
the 100 samples and created a profile based on that "Chart." What a
strange color space that was. However, it didn't have a sufficient
gamut to be useful.
Case #3 was a company that wanted to reproduce oil paintings. I
equipped them with a 3-shot medium format camera, we also tested
scanning backs, the best strobes available and the latest at the time
version of Profilemaker. After much refining of light angles,
polarization etc. we could produce awesome files of the Color Checker.
However, no amount of effort could faithfully reproduce the colors of
the pigments in the oil paintings coming from around the world. They
finally had to edit the files by hand to get the best result. Again
the proprietary capture software used the raw data from the chip and
applied the ICC profile.
I know there are many on this list who have the daily challenge of
faithfully reproducing an original subject. I have had the pleasure of
working with many artists and photographers as well as manufacturers
over the years and I believe most of them would tell you that the
current crop of cameras, printers and software tools are great
improvements over the systems we had in years past. But, all colorants
do not react the same to the same light source. Until some magic light
is invented, faithful reproduction will remain a high mountain to climb.
However, I am very grateful to have raw processors and the ability to
capture the raw data even from the current crop of point and shoot
cameras and save many poorly exposed pictures from family outings.
Thanks to all who create this wonderful software.
Regards,
Gerry Yaeger
www.TheDigitalCoach.com
Now offering web based training.
619-889-6113
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