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Orange tint in hair

NNN636486924024613897
In an attempt to move away from Lightroom I have been trialling Cap One 11 (2 days left).
Generally, I see the C1 RAW rendering far superior to LR (no more squiggly worms)
The one aspect that disappoints is the rendering of my children's hair. In Lightroom the hair is shown as a very accurate darkish brown. However, in C1 the hair has a very strong orange/red tint to it. All other colours appear accurate, so adjusting W/B to correct is not the solution.
The correct icc profile (Nikon D610) is selected.
I've tried playing with the Color Balance which can solve the orange hair problem, but not sure that applying a color balance preset to all images is really the way to go - feels like using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut!
I see that Cap One 11 doesn't support X-Rite Colour Checker profiles ☹️

Any thoughts or suggestions much appreciated
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Comments

11 comments

Date Votes
  • SFA
    It's a matter of personal preferences in terms of the base settings.

    Find some values that prefer for the base settings you most commonly use and save them as the default for the camera so that they are used every time you import an image or, when saved as a preset/style of your choosing, can be deployed on demand without importing (if using sessions).

    You could even consider make "Linear" you default setting and add you preferred adjustments to it completely bypassing the C1 provided curves in Base Characteristics.


    HTH.


    Grant
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  • NNN636486924024613897
    Thanks Grant,

    I appreciate your suggestions, and having Googled for a solution it seems that tinkering with settings until I find something that I'm happy with is the only way to go.
    It's a little disappointing to know that my scientific approach, ie calibrating monitor, shooting with gray card for portraits, creating X-Rite camera profiles (Lightroom) etc fails at C1.
    Knowing that C1 is used by many professionals, and only being able to find one other instance of orange hair in C1 on the net, I figured there must be something wrong in my C1 settings. Oh well!

    Last day of trial - think I'll pass on C1 for the time being.
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  • Luke Miller
    Was your shot taken in mixed lighting? I see this regularly in mixed lighting situations where the face is illuminated by one light source, but the highlights in the hair are from another light source of different color temperature. In this situation there is no single balance setting that will produce both correct skin tones and hair color. I've experienced this with both C1 and Lightroom. When this occurs I do selective color editing of the hair.
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  • NNN636486924024613897
    Thanks Luke,
    The "orange" hair appears in all photos (flash and natural lighting).
    I've just done a comparison with some old shots taken with a Nikon D70 - they don't have the same issue.
    Looks to me that the C1 Nikon D610 profile may be the problem. Perhaps the D610s requires a different profile.
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN636486924024613897" wrote:
    Thanks Luke,
    The "orange" hair appears in all photos (flash and natural lighting).
    I've just done a comparison with some old shots taken with a Nikon D70 - they don't have the same issue.
    Looks to me that the C1 Nikon D610 profile may be the problem. Perhaps the D610s requires a different profile.


    Most camaera require individual profiles (even if they use the same sensor) for full attempts at accuracy.

    The D70 uses a completely different type of sensor as I recall. So a totally different colour response.

    The key here though is a matter of taste.

    There is a basic "make the raw data into something that can be built into what looks like an image to a human" step and then a "tune the image to offer something that people actually might like" stage - which is the bit that users add to during their own editing.

    There is no real "truth" - just a process that allows mapping of colours and, in terms of hardware being in agreement and making what appears on screen reasonably similar looking once it is on "paper", adjusting the colours for balance and prefence - not the same thing as accuracy although for fashion and samples and art repro work that entire area of complexity can come into play.

    Captue One, not unlike the camera manufacturers and their in camera settings and styles that can be applied to jpg images (e.g. the RAW file thumbnails) set a base line (in several options) and then allow you to tweak it somewhat to your own preferences.

    RAW converters/editors do the same and there's no guarantee the everyone will like the default settings as offered.

    That said if the differences you see are quite obvious there may be some other reason for it. Subtle differences might be understandable. Significant differences less so.

    Be sure to check what you are seeing at 100% zoom as well. Anything less and the application is having to throw away pixels in order to fit the display and on certain critical colour boundaries that can produce slightly odd perceived colour imbalances at the point of display that do not appear at 100% or on printed output.

    In the end the current fashion in photography seems to involve moving an image away from accurate colours into stylised concepts - no matter how mild the effect might be - and that gives you the opportunity to make your children's hair colour choice whatever you want it to be. More or less.


    HTH.


    Grant
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  • NNN636486924024613897
    Thanks Grant,
    I would say that the colour issue is quite significant.
    I don't really want to use an image of my kids (they'd me mortified 😉 ), but I've found this image of an out of focus fence with gray card which shows the problem well enough.
    The only adjustments to images: Lens profiles, Nikon D610 profile (C1), X-rite custom D610 profile (LR), W/B has been corrected in both according to gray card.
    The LR colour is waaay more accurate.

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  • HansB
    [quote="NNN636486924024613897" wrote:
    ...
    I see that Cap One 11 doesn't support X-Rite Colour Checker profiles ☹️
    ...


    You cannot create icc color profiles for CO with X-Rite's software. But others can, like Lumariver Profile Designer. And it does a great job. It's based on DCamProf, a free open source command line tool for camera profiling. There's more information in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=71&t=27438

    [quote="NNN636486924024613897" wrote:
    ...
    The only adjustments to images: Lens profiles, Nikon D610 profile (C1), X-rite custom D610 profile (LR), W/B has been corrected in both according to gray card.
    ...

    You are using a custom camera profile in LR? Why? How does it look with the standard Profile? What if you use a custom profile in CO?

    [quote="NNN636486924024613897" wrote:
    ...
    The LR colour is waaay more accurate.
    ...

    With a custom profile, the colors should be spot on. What's wrong/missing?


    Regards,
    Hans
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  • SFA
    Interesting comparison.

    I dropped some colour pins on you jpg and the grey card readings on both parts of the image are quite similar.

    Obviously getting a precise match of position is not at all likely but one can get close.

    The black and the white areas of the card are further apart than the grey but they are trickier to pin.

    Fence and skin tones surprised me. More red on the LR side by relatively small amounts but quite a bit more blue and more often than not a lot more green and on the while higher luma values.

    Also the white values for LR are a bit lower and the blacks a bit higher.

    I'm not sure what to make of it.

    So me, viewing side by side, C1 looks a bit on the magenta side for the fence and arm whereas LR looks rather green.

    It might be interesting to go back to the NEF in C1, set the base characteristics curve to "Linear" and in Preferences under the Exposure Tab set the Levels tool to "Red, Green and Blue channels" rather than RGB. This will then balance each channel separately if you Auto Balance using the Levels tool.

    You may also, as a quick adjustment, want to add a little saturation and remove some Contrast with the exposure tool. To taste of course.

    When you find what you like you can save it as a style and make that style a default for the start point for processing you D610 NEF images.

    HTH.


    Grant
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  • NNN636486924024613897
    Thanks Hans and Grant,

    Hans - Your question seems an odd one, so I'm probably misunderstanding... The reason for the LR custom profile is so LR can display images from my camera accurately - and a pretty good job it does too (no red/orange hair 😉 )! Changing profiles changes things... but not for the better.

    Sadly, my 30 day trial of C1 is now over ☹️

    So, to conclude: The only solution to my kids (and fence) red/orange hair is to create an icc profile using C1's Color Editor(?) This does seem a rather unscientific solution, and is one of those things that I think I would forever be neurotically tinkering with.

    Many thanks for your help.
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  • HansB
    So if I understand you right, LR 's colors are completely wrong without a custom profile, too.

    [quote="NNN636486924024613897" wrote:
    ...
    So, to conclude: The only solution to my kids (and fence) red/orange hair is to create an icc profile using C1's Color Editor(?) This does seem a rather unscientific solution, and is one of those things that I think I would forever be neurotically tinkering with.
    ...

    You can shoot an X-Rite- or other available calibrating target and create an icc profile for CO. Scientific, accurate, and nothing to neurotically tinker with. I do so, too, if I need to. See above:

    [quote="HansB" wrote:
    ...
    You cannot create icc color profiles for CO with X-Rite's software. But others can, like Lumariver Profile Designer. And it does a great job. It's based on DCamProf, a free open source command line tool for camera profiling. There's more information in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=71&t=27438
    ...


    Regards,
    Hans
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN636486924024613897" wrote:
    Thanks Hans and Grant,

    Hans - Your question seems an odd one, so I'm probably misunderstanding... The reason for the LR custom profile is so LR can display images from my camera accurately - and a pretty good job it does too (no red/orange hair 😉 )! Changing profiles changes things... but not for the better.

    Sadly, my 30 day trial of C1 is now over ☹️

    So, to conclude: The only solution to my kids (and fence) red/orange hair is to create an icc profile using C1's Color Editor(?) This does seem a rather unscientific solution, and is one of those things that I think I would forever be neurotically tinkering with.

    Many thanks for your help.


    Actually it's a very practical solution.

    The "curves" provided are the basis for certain settings that relate to how the image is interpreted from the RAW data plus some visual "enhancement" to deliver a "look" as a starting point for editing and adjusting.

    Camera manufacturers do the same thing in camera to produce their jpgs, including the preview jpgs embedded in the RAW files.

    They may well not always look right for every image - just get to a reasonable starting point. White Balance in camera will have similar issues.

    Then you have to consider all of the other factors that affect what people see when they look at is through their software or when it is printed (or projected) onto something the is more ore less a white-ish colour.

    So for C1, just as you have done for LR, you would shoot a colour chart, adjust until you are happy with it and then save that as the default curve for the camera, ignoring the built-in C1 curve(s) that are provided. (Or using one a the starting point an modifying it.) The various colour adjustment tools in C1 are provided for that purpose although the colour editor, advanced facilities, are the most likely best options for the purpose.

    Given your two versions of the file I suspect to get to a point where you are pretty much only dealing with colour differences you may need to adjust White Balance and equalise the exposure settings for the comparison, eliminate any other tools that might be affecting the way the images are displayed (sharpening, clarity, lens colour cast correction, etc.) and then you should have nothing much interfering with colour representation. That should make the task easier - perhaps even pleasurable.


    HTH.


    Grant
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