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Support for the Pentax K3 (re-opened)

ChrisM
Drew closed this topic, but after having downloaded the latest release 7.2.1, I would like to re-open it.
I browsed through quite a few K3 images, and to be honest, I don't like at all what I am seeing. Colors are flat dull and lifeless. This look is one that I am only familiar with when Raw images are viewed without a proper profile. Blues are particularly lifeless, greyish, downright deadish looking, lacking any true vibrance. Reds look as if they have been artificially boosted, but lack depth in the same way all colors lack depth with this K3 profile. It is a far cry from the excellent colors that CO1 normally produces.
So I embedded the camera profile and opened the image in Photoshop. It reads: "Pentax K5v2 generic", that actually featured a TOTALLY different Sony 16mp sensor, while the K3 features a brandnew 24mp Sony sensor. Not enough reason to re-profile a Pentax camera for Phase one, it seems. They seem to think it is sufficient to just rework the K5 profile and enhance the red response a bit. Now, if I am wrong I'll eat my camera and apologize to Phase one, but I véry much doubt it.

So Drew, if you are reading: let's be honest, Pentax not worth the effort? After five months of waiting for support, I'm not going to buy this incredibly bad implementation of K3 support.

Chris
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Comments

22 comments

Date Votes
  • Peter Jones
    Hi Chris

    Yes, suddenly I am reading that v7.2.1 is out. Astonishing! No announcement on the official PO Board and no information on what is new. What a waste of Brownie points.

    I see that one forum user claims that the D4S is now supported by Cap1. But it's still not on the PO supported list, and neither is the K-3. So officially, at the moment, neither camera is supported. Or are they? Perhaps only the inner circle in PO knows.

    The PO website claims that there are nearly 400,000 registered users. At (say) £50 or so each per annum to keep their Cap1 up to date, that is £20,000,000 p.a. However you do the calculation you get a big figure. So why does PO struggle to keep on top of the latest cameras, claiming lack of resources (as I understand it)?

    Also, with this many users why aren't the Forums buzzing? Why aren't more people getting involved and pushing PO to get its act together? I have no idea. It is such a shame because technically the Cap1 Pro raw processing engine is very good; and the Support Case procedure works well, and the Prof's Blog is excellent. Also the way a Crew Member deals with a Forum query is always informative reading - they need a lot of patience, I think! But customer-related servicing and marketing??

    Of course there is other software out there, with periodic updates and improvements all the time. In my experience one or two are now more than a match for Cap1. Worth a look, I suggest. New software is always cheaper than a new camera!

    Best wishes and good luck.

    Peter
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  • Christian Gruner
    [quote="ChrisM" wrote:
    Drew closed this topic, but after having downloaded the latest release 7.2.1, I would like to re-open it.
    I browsed through quite a few K3 images, and to be honest, I don't like at all what I am seeing. Colors are flat dull and lifeless. This look is one that I am only familiar with when Raw images are viewed without a proper profile. Blues are particularly lifeless, greyish, downright deadish looking, lacking any true vibrance. Reds look as if they have been artificially boosted, but lack depth in the same way all colors lack depth with this K3 profile. It is a far cry from the excellent colors that CO1 normally produces.
    So I embedded the camera profile and opened the image in Photoshop. It reads: "Pentax K5v2 generic", that actually featured a TOTALLY different Sony 16mp sensor, while the K3 features a brandnew 24mp Sony sensor. Not enough reason to re-profile a Pentax camera for Phase one, it seems. They seem to think it is sufficient to just rework the K5 profile and enhance the red response a bit. Now, if I am wrong I'll eat my camera and apologize to Phase one, but I véry much doubt it.

    So Drew, if you are reading: let's be honest, Pentax not worth the effort? After five months of waiting for support, I'm not going to buy this incredibly bad implementation of K3 support.

    Chris


    I'll take a look tomorrow, but please, double-posts are really not necessary.
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  • ChrisM
    [quote="Christian Gruner" wrote:
    [quote="ChrisM" wrote:
    Drew closed this topic, but after having downloaded the latest release 7.2.1, I would like to re-open it.
    I browsed through quite a few K3 images, and to be honest, I don't like at all what I am seeing. Colors are flat dull and lifeless. This look is one that I am only familiar with when Raw images are viewed without a proper profile. Blues are particularly lifeless, greyish, downright deadish looking, lacking any true vibrance. Reds look as if they have been artificially boosted, but lack depth in the same way all colors lack depth with this K3 profile. It is a far cry from the excellent colors that CO1 normally produces.
    So I embedded the camera profile and opened the image in Photoshop. It reads: "Pentax K5v2 generic", that actually featured a TOTALLY different Sony 16mp sensor, while the K3 features a brandnew 24mp Sony sensor. Not enough reason to re-profile a Pentax camera for Phase one, it seems. They seem to think it is sufficient to just rework the K5 profile and enhance the red response a bit. Now, if I am wrong I'll eat my camera and apologize to Phase one, but I véry much doubt it.

    So Drew, if you are reading: let's be honest, Pentax not worth the effort? After five months of waiting for support, I'm not going to buy this incredibly bad implementation of K3 support.

    Chris


    I'll take a look tomorrow, but please, double-posts are really not necessary.


    Sorry for this kind of posting. You should know that I am not normally prone to negative posting like this, but this time I really feel cheated.
    Did Phase one even have a K3 in house at all?
    Look at this screenshot from Colorthink profile inspector and please look at the internal name and creation date.
    I've always been constructive and positive towards Phase one and the simply best Raw converter that you have, but this time I'm truly considering permanently switching to an alternative. This is not worth waiting five months for.

    Chris

    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/K3_Phaseone.tiff
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  • Peter Jones
    Hello Christian and Chris

    I am happy to report that having searched round the PO website I have discovered the v7.2.1 release notes.

    So it is all there provided you know an update is available and where to look for support information.

    But this doesn't alter that fact that PO seems to want to hide its light under a bushel. For me (and perhaps for many others) a short announcement that is immediately obvious when accessing the main Board Index would be much appreciated, and help us all to see that PO does respond in an open and user-friendly manner.

    Peter
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  • Christian Gruner
    [quote="Peter" wrote:
    Hi Chris

    Yes, suddenly I am reading that v7.2.1 is out. Astonishing! No announcement on the official PO Board and no information on what is new. What a waste of Brownie points.

    I see that one forum user claims that the D4S is now supported by Cap1. But it's still not on the PO supported list, and neither is the K-3. So officially, at the moment, neither camera is supported. Or are they? Perhaps only the inner circle in PO knows.

    The PO website claims that there are nearly 400,000 registered users. At (say) £50 or so each per annum to keep their Cap1 up to date, that is £20,000,000 p.a. However you do the calculation you get a big figure. So why does PO struggle to keep on top of the latest cameras, claiming lack of resources (as I understand it)?

    Also, with this many users why aren't the Forums buzzing? Why aren't more people getting involved and pushing PO to get its act together? I have no idea. It is such a shame because technically the Cap1 Pro raw processing engine is very good; and the Support Case procedure works well, and the Prof's Blog is excellent. Also the way a Crew Member deals with a Forum query is always informative reading - they need a lot of patience, I think! But customer-related servicing and marketing??

    Of course there is other software out there, with periodic updates and improvements all the time. In my experience one or two are now more than a match for Cap1. Worth a look, I suggest. New software is always cheaper than a new camera!

    Best wishes and good luck.

    Peter

    Please refer to the release notes. You find them under the Documentation tab, on the same place as you download Capture One ( http://www.phaseone.com/en/Downloads/Ca ... Pro-7.aspx ).

    Updates of the web-page will happen very soon. Starting Capture One <7.2.0 will tell you that a new version is available.
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  • ChrisM
    To give you an idea of this profile. Look at the "blue" sky in the image below. The sky here was not vivid blue, but I can assure you it was actually blue, and not this greyish attempt at blue. Default settings, no color edits.

    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/sampleK3.jpg
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  • SFA
    [quote="Christian Gruner" wrote:


    ........



    Starting Capture One <7.2.0 will tell you that a new version is available.


    Christian,

    Presumably this would not be the case if the "Check for Update" preference was set to "Never"?

    It may be worth making a point of suggesting to people who are seeking updates that they expect will resolve any problems they are experiencing that setting the check interval default to 1 day probably makes sense.

    In those situations I think the automatic check will, for most people, be more useful than checking the forum or web site or waiting for an emailed newsletter or information update on the web site or forum.

    (This would be less helpful in a corporate situation of course - there would be little point in advising multiple users who have not individual control over the software they can install. I assume Phase have other means of communicating at that level.)


    Grant
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  • Peter Jones
    Thank you Christian and Grant for your considered responses, which I appreciate.

    I may come across as a bit stroppy at times (but never to any one individual) but I try to make my posts constructive and encourage other users to contribute - especially the latter. The theme I am trying to develop is that we Cap1 users/stakeholders (we have all paid our money and signed up!) should be allowed a say in the way PO keeps us up to date. The present system is convoluted and seems to be designed to hide rather than reveal.

    This is why I wish PO would make more use of the Announcements Board to let us know about new developments - upgrades, technical posts, imminent releases, etc. I think the current PO stance leads to an inward-looking psyche at HQ that is not helpful in presenting a positive marketing face; and it can create needless frustration for some users as witnessed in some recent posts.

    I am hopeful that someone in PO HQ will consider these points.

    Regards, Peter

    P.S I have downloaded 7.2.1 - good boy!
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  • Peter Jones
    Chris

    A shot in the dark: Are you using a polariser? I ask this because I am putting together some observations when using Cap1 pro 7.2.0 with a Canon 7D 15-85mm. These observations show some kind of (reddish) colour shift in Cap1 (with the polariser in place) that is not replicated in another raw converter; and which is absent without the polariser in place.

    Just a thought. Possibly of some interest to you.

    Peter
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  • ChrisM
    [quote="Peter" wrote:
    Chris

    A shot in the dark: Are you using a polariser? I ask this because I am putting together some observations when using Cap1 pro 7.2.0 with a Canon 7D 15-85mm. These observations show some kind of (reddish) colour shift in Cap1 (with the polariser in place) that is not replicated in another raw converter; and which is absent without the polariser in place.

    Just a thought. Possibly of some interest to you.

    Peter

    Peter,
    No, I never use a polariser.
    It's not really relevant, the profile is the issue.
    Of course you can copy/paste any Pentax profile, shift the red primary a bit, and re-save it as "Pentax k3 generic". I could do the same with any Nikon or Canon profile, and save it as "Pentax K3 generic", with more or less the same result I can imagine.
    You cannot however expect such a ill-called "generic" profile to be accurate at all, and it will show mostly in colors that are sensitive to shifting, like a sky that is not vividly blue, but only just blue, like in the posted image. The CO1 "Pentax k3 generic profile" drains the little blue that is in there and turns it almost gray. If the color is deep vivid blue, sure, than even with the improper profile it will be rendered as blue.
    A good profile however shows in its ability to render subtleties in images. Bad profiles make images look flat and lifeless, and that is just what this copy/paste profile is doing.

    Chris
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  • Christian Gruner
    Please reference my answer in viewtopic.php?f=46&t=16089
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  • SFA
    Strangely, it seems, we have a post from a K3 user who seems very satisfied with the results here:

    viewtopic.php?f=46&t=16088&sid=d4b17cb4d7bfd0f64c9223ffa3e127fb#p75880


    I note that is on the Mac forum. Could there be some sort of problem with Windows that does not appear with Macs?


    Grant

    (Chris - just reading your posts I have assumed that you are using windows since you have posted sample images here rather than in the Mac section - but I could be wrong, in which case the suggestion above would, of course, be spurious.)
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  • SFA
    Chris,

    Having read Mogens' comments on the other thread about his test on a sample image I started to wonder if, perhaps some months ago, you had experimented with the K5 profile and had inadvertently managed to set that as the default profile for K3 files. (Or that in some way C1 was using a non K3 profile because some settings suggested that the standard default had been overridden.)

    It's a long shot but I guess it ought to be checked. You may already have done so but it would still be worth checking the Base Characteristics settings just to be sure about how they are set up. To get seemingly very different results suggests that either something obvious but unnoticed is happening or that the problem arises from installation or system software compatibility issues of some sort. Anything else must surely be really obscure.



    Grant
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  • NN634893591576431410UL
    Delighted to find that there is now support for K3. I checked it out with a couple of my DNG files and also found that blue skies could be a bit grey but I also found that changing the white balance from shot to daylight helped this somewhat. I have been using ACDSee Pro 7 and comparing the raw conversion in that and Capture One Express, it is chalk and cheese. The Capture one conversion is crisper and shows more detail as well as dealing with CA extremely well and producing less noise so I am quite happy but the previous poster does seem to have a point that delicate shades of blue and maybe even green may need a little tweaking to get right.
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  • ChrisM
    [quote="NN634893591576431410UL" wrote:
    Delighted to find that there is now support for K3. I checked it out with a couple of my DNG files and also found that blue skies could be a bit grey but I also found that changing the white balance from shot to daylight helped this somewhat. I have been using ACDSee Pro 7 and comparing the raw conversion in that and Capture One Express, it is chalk and cheese. The Capture one conversion is crisper and shows more detail as well as dealing with CA extremely well and producing less noise so I am quite happy but the previous poster does seem to have a point that delicate shades of blue and maybe even green may need a little tweaking to get right.

    Hello,

    This weekend I decided to get deeper into this, because even if Phase one puts effort in a better profile, time goes on, and I have got images to process. What I did is very unscientific, but I have good eyes and have developed my eyesight for colors over the years. I took a X-rite color checker and grey card and shot them in the same image in bright neutral daylight.
    I then loaded the image into CO1 and set the white balance with the picker off the grey card. In my room, near the large windows, but with the monitor shielded, I set the brightness of the image such, that the image matched the real card, or approached it. With the advanced mode of the color editor I started editing the patches, after picking the color and leaving the selection at default. After getting it right globally, I then started narrowing the selection after picking a color that was not entirely right yet, to avoid edits having too much influence on neighboring colors. I used mostly hue shift and saturation, and in a few edits also brightness.
    I took hours, but there came a point where the image on screen made a near perfect match with the actual colorchecker card.
    Then I saved the profile and used it on some images of a shoot yesterday.
    This taught me the following:
    -the Phase one K3 generic profile is no good, there is no other way to put it. There is some serious shifting in the blue areas (that needed the most editing with a hue shift), and also saturation imbalances, with red being far too much saturated, green and blue being undersaturated. Also some particular colors just don't look right, e.g. colors of clothes don't match reality.
    -My own (in two hours) cooked up profile is actually very good. The grey shift in blue skies was gone, the clothes of a group portrait actually matched my memory from the shoot yesterday.
    - I have lost my awe (or what was left of it) for "professional" color profiling. If I can cook up (purely going on my own eyesight) a much, much better profile than Phase one can with all their pro-grade equipment, then why ever rely on their generic profiles again? It's just a whole lot of work and takes good eyes to get it right, but if the results are so much better....
    -the color editor (advanced mode) is the single best item in CO1.
    -I can use CO1 again, although I still hope that Phase one raises the level of Pentax support and gets a Pentax K3 to do some proper profiling with.

    If you trust your eyes, get a colorchecker and try it! The results of the generic profile don't do justice to the K3. Otherwise (that is of course if you don't like the generic profile either), perhaps raise a support case like I did.

    Regards and enjoy CO1 and your K3!
    Chris
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  • mli20
    It would be really illuminating if you were to post raw images of what you did with the Colorchecker.

    Cheers,
    Mogens
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  • ChrisM
    [quote="mli20" wrote:
    It would be really illuminating if you were to post raw images of what you did with the Colorchecker.

    Cheers,
    Mogens

    Hello Mogens,
    Here is an example of the same image twice. First the image with the profile that I created myself as described in the post above. Second the image with the generic K3 profile, which looks a bit like Fuji superia film, but is far from accurate. This is only one image, but I good post numerous images with color deviations that simply make the profile unusable as far as I am concerned. Colors shift in ways sometimes, that make the color unrecognizable. Purple can turn out bluish washed out purple-like, etc., etc. This is no surprise if a camera is not profiled, let alone properly profiled, but supplied with a guess-work profile.
    I won't say my profile is perfect, ad I am sure that Phase one can do a lot better if they would take the effort. But at least I know recognize colors as they really were again when using CO1 with my K3.
    The image is of a greenfinch, the olive like greenish tint is correct. Also the blue sky is exactly as I remember, and that is certainly not the case with the generic Phase one profile. Also notice the fresh leaves in the generic image, they have a strange brownish tint, far from fresh spring leaves. Lastly, notice how the aggressive red over-saturation leads to a color cast in an image that has no noticeable red colors in it.
    All settings were identical in CO1, at default. Only selected the different input camera profiles.
    regards
    Chris

    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/K3IMGP2876_Groenling_generic.jpg

    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/K3IMGP2876_Groenling.jpg
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  • mli20
    Hi Chris

    I was hoping that you would post some of your own raw files, to allow your fellow users to try their hand at converting,

    The raws should preferably include the Colorchecker in view, to give us all the same absolute colour reference.

    Do to get the same results irrespective of which lens you use?

    Cheers,
    Mogens
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  • Peter Jones
    Hi Chris

    I have followed this saga with interest. I was under the impression that you found the Cap1 profile for K3 was significantly awry. But however I look at your two example images I can see/measure no observable difference?

    So I am scratching my head - which is easy with my lack of hair!

    I will be interested to see PO's reaction to your posts.

    I am left wondering why you didn't just use X-rite with the standard software to create your camera colour profile. I have read that different camera profiling software gives different results. I have tried QP Card in the past, with indifferent results - i.e. no significant outcome. It all seems good in theory but in practice the subtle changes in colour tone pale into insignificance when compared with adjustments for white balance, etc.

    Incidentally, can you see differences in image printouts - i.e. by-passing what is on the screen?

    Thank you.

    Peter
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  • ChrisM
    [quote="Peter" wrote:
    Hi Chris

    I have followed this saga with interest. I was under the impression that you found the Cap1 profile for K3 was significantly awry. But however I look at your two example images I can see/measure no observable difference?

    So I am scratching my head - which is easy with my lack of hair!

    Peter

    Hi Peter,
    Thanks for your response, but seriously, you don't see the color cast in the first image? It reminds me most of Fuji superia in the old film days. The blue not being truly clear blue.
    Are you on a calibrated monitor? I use a calibrated Eizo screen and the difference is clear to me.
    But regardless, Fuji Superia could create some wonderful images, that is not the issue. Color accuracy up to a certain extent is. Small deviations can have unpredictable results, that is how digital color works.
    Here are two more specific examples of the color deviations that this improper generic profile can lead to. Again only compared at all default settings between the generic profile and the self created profile.
    Let me repeat that I wasn't creating the profile by tweaking images to look realistically color wise, but was stumped that with my own created profile the clothes in the samples suddenly looked exactly like the clothes in reality, while the generic profile supplied by Phase one gave me colors that simply were not how the clothes really looked. And that is my reason for calling the generic profile (that like I stated is no real profile of the K3), a very bad profile. A good profile should first in all, give accurate colors to a degree that you can trust the profile. Otherwise in all your images unpredictable shifts can occur in colors. Sure: individual images may and should be tweaked to taste, and sometimes beyond merely being realistic color wise, but the generic profile should be accurate over the large color spectrum.

    Here are two small crops off a group portrait

    generic profile sample 1:
    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/K3IMGP2732_generic.jpg

    self created profile sample 1:
    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/K3IMGP2732_editedProfile.jpg

    generic profile sample 2:
    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/K3IMGP2732_generic_2.jpg

    self created profile sample 2:
    http://www.vogelsenhunleefwereld.nl/K3IMGP2732_editedProfile_2.jpg

    Now first, the colors of my self created profile are correct, or near correct, the colors of the generic profile are not. The red is super saturated and wrong with a yellowish cast, the purple is washed out and blue-ish (also, notice the shifting: the scarf and sleeve don't fully match in color anymore!!). This may not come across fully due to sRGB for web, but take my word for it: the red is on fire.
    Now, starting with the first sample: you might think that it is just an issue of white balance: the grey is less neutrally grey, so just up the white balance on the first sample and you get there? No, that is just the complicated matter of a good or bad profile, because look at the second sample: there the generic image seems to have a warmer white balance, the other way round, yet these are crops from the same image at the same settings. That is why the remark of a poster that it could be mostly a white balance issue, is not addressing the problem of the profile. Besides: if you do turn up the white balance with the generic profile to try and make the purple turn to the true purple of the clothing, all people start to look as if they were in warm sunlight, which was not the case!

    So in short, the problems with the bad profile can not be solved by white balancing. Both first samples belong together and both second samples belong together, purple is washed out and blueish, but red is on fire and yellowish. With my own profile, the purple is correct and the red could be better, but is almost correct, far more correct than the generic image.
    There were many more clothes in the group portrait, which was in fairly neutral daylight with a slight hint of sunlight. Almost NONE of the colors were correct with the generic profile.
    Imagine sending the image to the people, and them seeing themselves dressed in clothes that don't fit the color they really are....?

    Phase one is proud of the color quality of CO1, they state on their website advert for CO1 pro:

    Tailor-made camera profiles
    Each camera is tested by our image quality experts to create a tailor-made and optimized profile to bring out the VERY BEST IN YOUR CAMERA.
    Now, I would like to know, based on these few samples alone: the very best?! Colors of clothes shifting all over the place in a neutral daylight scene?!
    Like you I am very interested to see PO's reaction to my petition for them to supply what it says on the package of CO1.
    That is what I paid for.

    N.B. Although I have very good eyesight and developed my sense of color through the years, and just know that the colors of my tweaked profile make a near exact match with reality, I also decide to test against another Raw converter, that I bought for the K3 while waiting for CO1 support. DxO agrees almost 100% with the colors of my tweaked profile!!
    Which means that DxO has really made strides in color accuracy in the latest v9.

    regards
    Chris
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  • Peter Jones
    Hi Chris

    Now you're talking! Yes, I can see clearly the different reds in the second comparison. And presumably you can see comparable differences in other colours.

    My screen is calibrated but it does not have a wide gamut like yours. Also, although I pass the usual eye colour response tests I know that my eyes are not 'good' with some colours.

    So I am still very interested to see the results of your tests. I am used to different raw converters producing slightly different colours in tif outputs. I have used all the main ones. At the moment (i.e. in the current generation class) I find Silkypix is at least as good as Cap1 for colour (despite not having Prophoto), but poorer in resolution issues. ACDSee is also good on colour (and will output in Prophoto colour space) and although the tif outputs are softer than Cap1 they sharpen up well. DxO is catching up on colour but I still find tif outputs are too garish.

    At the moment, and following a tip in AP magazine, I am very impressed with using DxO to pre-process raw files and output a dng which is automatically transferred to LR5 or Adobe CC for fine-tuning. The final outputs have very realistic colours (to my eyes and taste).

    I suspect I have plateau'd with Cap1. It can produce superbly toned coloured tif outputs but more often than not I feel as if I am always fighting it in some way. Whereas ACDsee and Adobe CC just run very smoothly and predictably, and produce very acceptable outputs. The raw converter in CC has a fabulous brush adjustment tool that reclaims blown highlights better than anything else I have seen. I think PO should look into this for the next generation Cap1. However, for me it is the Cap1 user interface that still grates with me, to the point that I may well call it a day with v7 and await future developments.

    Sorry to seem a bit negative and somewhat off-piste, but there it is. I have learned a lot from PO and Cap1 but it is time to move on - until the next generation of raw converters appears!

    Best wishes.

    Peter
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  • Class A
    [quote="ChrisM" wrote:
    I took hours, but there came a point where the image on screen made a near perfect match with the actual colorchecker card.

    It is encouraging that you have made progress and cool to learn that one can use CO itself to create/tweak a camera profile.

    Having been unhappy with both the Adobe Standard and the "Embedded" camera profiles for the K-5 II in Lightroom, I used an X-Rite color passport to create a camera profile. I still wasn't happy with the latter and then tweaked it using your method.

    In this process I found out that the "original" colours generated by the X-rite software -- let's call them "from"-colours because they are mapped to "to" colours (the target colours) -- did not really target the patches well.

    Whenever I changed a "to"-colour, the patch on the passport that corresponds to the "from"-colour changed but with it many others and I found out that if I tweaked the "from"-colour, the patch would respond a lot more to changes to the "to"-colour (and other patches would respond less). That suggests to me that the X-rite software did a poor job of creating the correct "from"-colours. Perhaps it is optimised for a different CFA characteristic.

    I understand that a colour transformation of a certain hue will always affect a range of colours and that it makes sense for other patches on the passport to be affected as well, but I feel that the centre of the the "from" colour should have been on the patch colour and not somewhere close to it.

    These observations led me to believe that the poor "from"-colour generation was the reason why I was still unhappy with the generated camera profiles.

    FYI, I started with a K100D and never had any issues with its colours (shooting RAW, of course). When I got the K-5 II, I wasn't bowled over by its colour rendition (in Lightroom) and some of the colours are just plain wrong (Adobe plays tricks with "twisted profiles" as well).

    I'm still trying to get a good camera profile for my K-5 II and if that means switching to CO, I'll be OK with that. CO seems very competent in many areas. In other areas, I have my doubts/questions.

    In any event, I sympathise with your dissatisfaction about the incorrect colours coming from the default K-3 profile. These "mauve" to "blue" shifts and reds that are way too yellow are unfortunately rather common among converters. Sometimes wrong colours are even intended to yield more pleasing skies, lush foliage, healthy skin tones, and spectacular sunsets. That's all fine if you want it, but there should be at least one "natural" profile without any intentional hue shifts (including twisting).

    I sincerely hope that PO will provide a better K-3 profile. An "by eye" calibration that you performed is better than nothing, but I'm rather sure that a more scientific approach will lead to an overall better result. In principle it should be possible to measure the CFA characteristics of a sensor and then synthesise the correct profile from the measurement data.
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