HELP NEEDED: Reinventing the wheel...

antonroland

antonroland

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Anton
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Hello all

I am battling to get my colour management workflow down to a breeze and I would appreciate your inputs in a few things...

To start off with my home PC is down and at the point of possibly needing complete replacement rather than upgrading. This leaves me with only my rather very aged LG laptop and it's not-so-nice screen with a white point of 6500 Kelvin.

I have just had a bit of a play with a mate who shoots Nikon...yes, I have mates on the dark side:D...and he is a bit of a whiz kid with PC's and Photoshop and all that even though he does not have any photography experience before digital. The conclusion of a long discussion was that, for one, I will probably start shooting in sRGB from now as opposed to Adobe RGB as I have been doing up to now

To add insult to injury, my DPP won't work either and I am thinking of trashing it in favour of a fresh reinstall.

So, I am open to any advice in redesigning my methods from the ground up.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers.
 
I came in here to escape the headache I'm getting shooting dozens of high chrome taps and stuff. You've come up with the one subject that'll give you a bigger headache than anything else. :bonk::lol:

It is great to have a system that holds colours from camera right through to final print but it does take time and money. Lots of time as both monitor and print calibration will start to wander the second you've finished profiling.

I hardly do any printing so for me, the only really crucial bit is that my monitor is bang on. All that takes is a decent monitor spyder or the like and the time to run the program every couple of weeks.

I still shoot adobe RGB and only tend to convert "down" if I'm preparing shots for web use. Even then, if the monitor is correct, you can see the change at the time and adjust if you feel its needed.
 
Thanx Dazz and sorry to worsen your headache...

I have tried to calibrate my lappie with a Spyder 3 and that didn't work too well

As I do a few weddings and some sport it is mainly the weddings that give me a colour management headache...

What to do what to do what to do...
 
Well if your stuck with the lappy for now, can you at least use a real monitor and get that right?

Are the colour issues actually in your system or do they arrive when you send out to print or give disks to clients?
 
I would like to believe that they start with my laptop screen...as I am on leave from the main grind for this week I think I will experiment a bit and make a few tweaks and test prints just to be sure...
 
Let's take this to the next level...

Is DPP of any value...my alternative is Photoshop CS 2...no money for Lightroom etc...maybe later.

My DPP just won't work. When I try to view an image (CR2) full screen it tells me "... has encountered a problem and needs to close..."

Then it sends the error report, closes the full screen view but not the folder view or the program.

Does anyone else think I should trash it and do a fresh install?
 
Does anyone else think I should trash it and do a fresh install?
Click to expand...

Without doubt. :D

If this lappy is about to become your work horse, perhaps a good spring clean is in order. Get shot of all the old software that's bound to be there that you don't use. Run a defrag and re-install anything that's not working as it should.
 
Excellent idea and I am already busy doing just that.

I am just a bit bewildered at all the twain drivers and eos utilities and who knows what else...

What of those do I need and what is junk?

Thanks for your patience Dazz:thumbs::thumbs:
 
It's not patience matey, it's escapism. ;);)

My way, and certainly not the clever way, is to remove ruthlessly and see what the PC moans about not having afterwards. My thinking is that as long as I'm not taking away vital widoze files, anything can be re-instated if needed. :lol:
 
Sorry to say but a laptop screen is about the worst place you can start with colour management :(

What target are you selecting for the spyder3? Most laptops don't have a colour temp of 6500k, they're normally much nearer 9300k which is very blue and don't cope too well with the extreme change to 6500k. Try again with the white point set to native and see if that improve the results - I've found it best for my laptop.
 
pxl8 said:
Sorry to say but a laptop screen is about the worst place you can start with colour management :(

What target are you selecting for the spyder3? Most laptops don't have a colour temp of 6500k, they're normally much nearer 9300k which is very blue and don't cope too well with the extreme change to 6500k. Try again with the white point set to native and see if that improve the results - I've found it best for my laptop.
Click to expand...

I agree, not the best to start off with...I don't have the spyder with me now...Adobe Gamma Wizard any good...SERIOUSLY the best tool at my disposal right now...
 
Adobe Gamma Wizard any good
Click to expand...

To be frank, I've had better results sticking one finger in my ear, the other in the air and while spinning round, repeating 3 times, "you will show true colours". ;);)
 
dazzajl said:
To be frank, I've had better results sticking one finger in my ear, the other in the air and while spinning round, repeating 3 times, "you will show true colours". ;);)
Click to expand...

:lol:

It was just a question...apparently not a very good one
 
Can you not use your laptop to drive your normal PC monitor? My boss plugs his monitor and keyboard into his laptop, saves him buying another PC.
 
Kev M said:
Can you not use your laptop to drive your normal PC monitor? My boss plugs his monitor and keyboard into his laptop, saves him buying another PC.
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That's exactly the way I use mine, when I am out and about its a laptop and when i get to the office, I plug in a 22" monitor and a USB hub with mouse, keyboard and external drive and it works a treat! :)
 
OK, did some serious gutting and a defrag and restart and at least now got DPP to work...the latest version off the canon europe site...3.4.1.

Anyone using it seriously or know where I can read some tutorials?

I really need to get my head around this...I have 3 bodies to get to do consistent colour....

Oh the joys!!:bang::bonk:
 
Kev M said:
Can you not use your laptop to drive your normal PC monitor? My boss plugs his monitor and keyboard into his laptop, saves him buying another PC.
Click to expand...

I thought about this...my PC monitor is a fairly good one but a CRT...19" Crystalview flatscreen...cost me quite a bit at the time but the wothwhile LCD screens were way outside my budget...

Any votes for or against making the CRT work?

Or shall I rather buy a kick-ass (calibrated) LCD screen and run it off my laptop?
 
CRT is king my good man. Get it going, get it calibrated and enjoy. :)

That is unless it's past it's best. I have a LaCie that's about 6 years old now but it still holds up a treat. Eventually, it will lose the ability to produce the required contrast/brightness for true representation but so far...... so good.
 
Found tutorials on DPP on the Canon USA site:thumbs:

Does nothing for bandwidth...but I have 1Gb of data to use by midnight Thursday or I lose it anyway...

Can kick myself for never having used it before...thought Photoshop was the be all and end all...

Oh well...
 
From my reading, Adobe RGB actually contains more colours than sRGB.

Another vote from me to hook up the CRT and calibrate that. Once the monitor is calibrated, can you create a custom picture style to match the cameras to one another?
 
Welsh Dan said:
From my reading, Adobe RGB actually contains more colours than sRGB.

Another vote from me to hook up the CRT and calibrate that. Once the monitor is calibrated, can you create a custom picture style to match the cameras to one another?
Click to expand...

Traditionally, it was my belief that sRGB was for screen-based applications and Adobe RGB for anything else.

Yes, the Adobe RGB has a wider colour gamut but this is apparently not always a good thing...it would seem that contrast is lost in the larger gamut so I am going to be doing some serious test shots and prints to see what I can come up with.

The CRT is todays project and calibrating tomorrow.

The cameras will be easy as, for option 1, the 1DMkIIN has a picture styles menu identical to the 5D and the picture styles menu can be applied to the 1DsMkII in DPP
 
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