Are you mostly using the Generic or Pro Standard profile?
I am a bit unsure about when to use the new Pro Standard color profile, in my case with a Sony a7iii, and I would like to hear other peoples opinion.
First of all, I'd like to clarify what the Generic profile is. Does that profile aim to reproduce as accurately as possible the standard JPG rendition of a given camera? At least with the Sony a7iii the Generic profile comes very close to OOC JPGs in terms of color.
I think I more or less understand what the aim of the Pro Standard profiles is. I watched this video on Youtube where Niels V. Knudsen from C1 explains it. If I get it right the aim is not only to faithfully reproduce the real-life colors but also to prevent changes in saturation and hue as you tweak contrast. So that sounds good and I am asking myself if the Pro Standard profiles are meant to replace the Generic ones because they are simply better.
But then the PS profile often doesn't look better to my eye. And this has to do mostly with the two main differences in color that I see with the Sony camera between the Generic and the PS profile. The most obvious difference is in the blue tones - basically the sky in most images. As you can see in the first two images below, the sky in the PS image tends more towards cyan and looks way more saturated than the sky in the Generic image. Is this a common phenomenon or Sony-specific? Are camera manufacturers tweaking the blue tones in their JPG engines so that the skies look less saturated because this is more pleasing to the eye?
The second main difference is in the green tones which are more yellow-ish in the Generic profile. I also like this better than the greens in the PS profile.
Would it in my case be a good option to use to Pro Standard profile but to adjust the blues and greens to my liking? Or would this somehow interfere with the workings of the PS profile?
Above: Generic profile
Above: Pro Standard profile
Above: Generic profile
Above: Pro Standard profile
-
There seem to be both Generic and Pro Standard profiles for some newish cameras and only Pro Standard for others. For my Nikon Z6ii, there seems to be only the Pro Standard, but for my Z8 (which is in fact a newer model of camera) there are both.
On a Z8 shot I have just compared, with some blue sky and green-yellow grass, I can see no difference in the blue sky between the two profiles, but the grass is a bit more yellow in Generic than it is in PS. (Or is it that it is just a little more saturated? - not sure!) Which is more true to life, I am not quite sure, but I think probably the PS one is preferable.
Above: Pro Standard.
Above: Generic
(The only difference between these two is the profile - all the other adjustments are the same.)
And I'm not convinced that the aim of either profile is to emulate as closely as possible what the SOOC JPG would look like. (I haven't shot in raw + JPG so I can't readily compare in this case.) I assume that by shooting raw I am preferring to decide for myself how saturated or contrasty I want the image to be and I may or may not want it to be like the camera would have done - because of course the camera has added things like contrast, saturation, sharpening and so on when it creates the JPG.
For what it's worth, I suspect that of your two versions of the gentleman in the snow, the PS one has truer-to-life colours, but I wasn't there!
Ultimately it comes down to which makes it easier for you to get the final image you want.
Ian
0 -
SFA Yes, Pro Standard seems to be the standard profile now. I've read that too. But I didn't know that Generic profiles don't even exist for newer cameras anymore. So Pro Standard really seems to be designed as successor to Generic, not as an alternative. Well, with the Sony a7 the difference especially in the blue tones is not subtle, I would say, even in a compressed small image like the one above.
Ian Wilson Thanks for sharing these images. You are right, in this case the difference is extremely subtle. I guess I just like how the skies look in the Sony OOC JPGs and the Generic profile. PS is probably more true to life but since this is not product photography I am not necessarily looking for the most accurate colors.
0 -
I have made ProStandard the default for all my Nikon cameras. This article on ProStandard profiles might be informative.
https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015331377-ProStandard-camera-profiles
0 -
For my old Sony a6000, the difference between Generic and ProStandard is quite noticeable, and I like the blue sky and greenery much better with the Generic profile, in most cases.
For my Nikon Z7 the differences between G, G2 and PS are very subtle and only sometimes I prefer one over the other.
In a series of images, when I want consist colors, I choose one profile for all of the series. Otherwise, I choose what I like best on an image per image basis.
0 -
Walter Rowe: Thanks, I've read that article before. But I find it doesn't really clarify things when they write: "The ProStandard profiles (...) are particularly suitable for portrait photography and product photography of objects with saturated or very bright colors."
This statement implies that the PS profiles are an alternative to the Generic profiles for certain applications. But in reality it seems the PS profiles are simply the new standard to be used for everything.
BeO: Interesting. You could of course create a custom PS profile for your a6000 by adjusting the greens and blues in the PS profile to your liking. I've done that for the a7iii.
0 -
But in reality it seems the PS profiles are simply the new standard to be used for everything.
I'm not sure that's true. As I noted above my Z6ii has no "generic" profile, only ProStandard, but my Z8 has both, although it is a more recent model. But I was surprised by that, I admit, as I thought that the ProStandard was the new standard too.
Ian
0 -
One point I remember is the camera-agnostic colors, and I found it in the release notes
ProStandard camera profiles
Capture One 21 introduces a new type of camera profiles that render colors more naturally. The profiles have multiple purposes:- Better preservation of color across contrast gradients, resulting in more natural colors from shadows to highlights.
- Better transition between colors of different hues.
- More standardized colors across different camera models.
The new profiles are particularly suitable for portrait photography and product photography of products with saturated or otherwise challenging colors, such as orange and neon colors.
Capture One 21 provides ProStandard camera profiles for the following cameras:
- Sony: a7 III, a7R II, a7R III, a7R IV, a7C, a6000, a6300
- Nikon: D810, D850, Z6, Z7
- Canon: 5D II, 5D III, 5D IV, 5DS R, R5, R6
- Phase One: IQ3 100MP, IQ4 150MP
- Leica: S3, SL2
Additional ProStandard camera profiles will be added in future releases.
[https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014168598-Capture-One-21-14-0-0-release-notes]
0 -
@BeO: "More standardized colors across different camera models" - that's actually an important point. It's particularly helpful for creators and buyers of custom styles such as analog film emulations. It means those emulations will actually produce very similar results across different camera models. With the Generic profiles the problem is that colors sometimes look quite different across camera models and so will the emulations.
0 -
Yes. And it can be helpful for every photographer who is using more than one camera brand to get a similar color rendering. Or an additional smart phone camera. However, I did not see iPhone profiles (in version 15.2).
And I did not test if the colors are really harmonized between cameras. After all, I found it only mentioned it in the releases notes.
0 -
I can't test it either. I have a Sony a7iii and a Fuji X100F but for the latter there is no PS profile. But I guess if this was one of the aims in creating these profiles then colors will certainly be more similar than with the Generic profiles.
0
Post is closed for comments.
Comments
10 comments