More 'Camera bodies' and 'in-camera profiles' for color rendering!

webzeb · May 21, 2020, 9:04pm

Hello!

You may not know that, but DxO Photo Lab allows you to ‘mimick’ the color rendering of different camera bodies. It’s very simple:

Choose the ‘Color’ tab,
Expand ‘Color Rendering’,
In the first field, choose ‘Camera body’ from the list,
The, in the second field, choose the camera body you want DxO photo Lab to ‘mimick’.
Done!

This is an excellent feature!

You like your Sony body in-camera profile (or its DxO sibbling) for lanscape, but not so much for skin tones? Then, you can ‘mimick’ the color rendering of a Canon camera body.
You shot the same event with differents cameras and want a consistent look. Then, no problem!

The only issue is that this feature is limited to some camera bodies and, most of the time, to the ‘Standard’ in-camera profile. No ‘emulation’ of the Landscape, Portrait, Faitful […] in-camera profiles.

I would really like to see DxO proposing more.

What do you think?

sgospodarenko · May 22, 2020, 7:26am

Hello @webzeb,

Thank you for the suggestion. Please, do not forget to vote for it (top left corner).

Regards,
Svetlana G.

Corros · May 22, 2020, 12:42pm

Good idea, but there is already al somutiondoe load Adobe DNG converter. They ship with the profiles you want for different camera’s.

Than in Photolab select DCP profile.

You can find them here:

Mac Users:
Users>username>Library>Application Support>Adobe>Camera Raw>Camera Profiles>

PC Users: (If you cannot see this path, you may need to unhide these files)

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

webzeb · May 22, 2020, 1:39pm

Hello Corros!

Thanks for sharing…but unfortunately it will not properly!

Each profile is made for one specific camera.
Indeed, a DCP color can contain things like:

Color Matrices (for white balance)
Forward Matrices (for conversion of camera data to XYZd50)
Hue/Saturation/Value matrices for further color correction (matrix color calibration is linear, so you might need further color correction on top of it)
Those are camera-specific and ensure that camera data are correctly converted to colors.

You may also have other camera specifc stuff, like ExposureBaselineOffset…

On top of that, the profile can contain things like:

ProfileTable
Tone Curve

That’s what gives its ‘look’ to the color profile and contains subjective adjustments.

Regarding Adobe colors profiles, with ‘old’ (like '10-year old! ) color profiles, there was a workaround. Indeed, the profiles were built around:

Color Matrices (camera specific)
Forward Matrices (camera specific)
ProfileTable (in an ideal world, it should only be here to give a certain ‘look’, doing subjective color adjustments, but unofrtunately here it was also doing part of color correction…)
Tone curve

So what you could do is replace the Color Matrices and Forward Matrices with the ones of your camera (that you could retrive from a color profile made for it) and boom!
It was not perfect through and might require some tuning…

But Adobe has changed its strategy and is using ‘dummy’ Forward Matrices now. So you’re doomed, it doesn’t not work. There is a workaround, but it’s pretty complex (you have to do some matrix calculation) and far, far, from perfect…

Fred

webzeb · May 22, 2020, 2:20pm

Images speak better, so!

Here is DPReview studio scene photographed with a Canon EOS R:

RAW file was converted using Lightroom Classic, with default settings except lens correction ON, color profile ‘Adobe Camera Standard v2’ (mimicking Canon EOS R ‘Standard’ in-camera color rendering), precise white balance and exposure adjustments on the ‘DPReview’ grey card, then exported to sRGB.

Here is the very same DPReview studio scene photographed with a Sony a7R IV:

RAW file was converted using Lightroom Classic, with default settings except lens correction ON, color profile ‘Adobe Camera Standard v2’ (mimicking Sony a7R IV ‘Standard’ in-camera color rendering), precise white balance and exposure adjustments on the ‘DPReview’ grey card, then exported to sRGB.

If you look closely, you will notice that colors are quite different!
Look at the skin tones, greens, reds, etc.

Here is the what the Sony a7R IV photo looks with your trick (using the Canon EOS R Adobe Camera Standard v2):

Please note that I converted it using Lightroom to prevent any difference linked to the RAW converter. In order to do so, I had to manually edit the color profile ‘UniqueCameraModel’ tag. Color rendering may be slightly different with DxO Photo Labs (especially the blacks since DxO Photo Lab uses a quite ‘agressive’ black substraction…).

As your can see, white balance is completely upside-down!
Here is what it looks like after readjusting the white balance:

As you can see it’s still not matching the Canon EOS R color rendering at all!

platypus · May 22, 2020, 4:34pm

Did a comparison test in PhotoLab in order to see what the differences were when I use DxO’s profiles vs. Adobe’s profiles. I did the following:

Downloaded from DPREView (thanks a lot) a raw file each from a Sony, Canon and Panasonic camera
Applied DxO’s Camera profile for Nikon D850 to each raw and matched WB and brightness using the colour patch right of the “white” patch and exported the result as an sRGB jpeg.
Applied Adobe’s Camera profile for Nikon D850 (Standard) to each raw and matched WB and brightness using the colour patch right of the “white” patch and exported the result as an sRGB jpeg.

When I now compare the results, I see slight differences but they seem minute to my eyes. If I must, I’d say that Adobe’s greens have more punch.

Comparison A: Adobe vs. DxO camera emulation of Nikon D850 off of a Sony raw file

Comparison B: Adobe camera emulation of Nikon D850 off of Sony and Canon raw files respectively

Comparison C: Adobe profile applied to a Sony raw file vs. DxO profile applied to a Canon raw file

Notes:

All images customized in and processed by DxO PhotoLab
Screenshots taken off of Lightroom (DPL has no such compare mode)
Results with the Panasonic file look the same, no need for extra screenshots

webzeb · May 22, 2020, 6:19pm

Thanks for this comparison.

However, I think you fell in two traps!

The first trap is link to the D850 sensor.
Indeed, the Nikon D850 uses a Sony sensor.
It’s customized to Nikon specifications, but it’s likely to share a lot with Sony’s sensors. Maybe similar CFA?
Hence, it’s likely less harmful to colors to apply a D850 color profile to a Sony camera RAW file than let’s say a Panasonic S1R or a Canon EOS R one. That’s confirmed in your last picture for me. Give it a try with a picture with foliage !

The second trap is that what works wuite well in one direction may not work so well in the pother.
Try the other way around, like I did: Canon simulation from a Sony/Nikon/Fujifilm file.
Calibrating Sony cameras with Lumariver Profile Designer and a ColorChecker SG target I noticed a lot of color deviations in skin tones with matrix only profiles. It’s confirmed in the real world with strange hue shift of some skin tones, especially caucasian skin tones in the shadow. So when creating the profile, a LUT (HueSatMap) is created and get rid of (most) of these deviations.
When you apply the profile made for another camera you loose that benefit (worse, correctiosn that should not be done are applied). It’s obvious in my example (see the skin tones on the Sony file with Canon EOS R profile: horrible, with hue shift woard greenish brown in the shadows!).

platypus · May 22, 2020, 9:06pm

@webzeb, thanks for the feedback.

As I never really wanted my Canon Images to look like Nikon or Sony or Pentax or… but make them look how I want them, I simply tried a few conversions in order to see if a) results depended on the source file and b) whether results differed if I used DxO or Adobe Profiles.

My personal takeaways from the test are that a) profiles from Adobe and DxO delivered fairly similar results apart from a few differences that can be changed within DxO and b) that I can add interpretations, in PhotoLab, with Adobe’s profiles, which could help make my images look like I want them.

Please note that I did my tests in PhotoLab, not Lightroom. After all, we’re in a PhotoLab forum

webzeb · May 22, 2020, 9:22pm

I think you’re just not the target!

Think about people shooting with different cameras and who want some consistency.
Think about people who switched brand (or sometimes, just camera) and want to find their marks.

Plus, the fact that you want your pictures to look how you want them (so do I! ) does not exclude ‘a good starting point’. Whatever this ‘good starting point’ is.

As for your takeaway, let’s agree to disagree.
Some hue shift in skin tones in my Sony a7R IV mimicking Canon EOS R for example, following your method, you cannot correct them in DxO Photo Lab. The HSL tool is way too limited for that! You can only select colors by hue range, not chroma nor lightness.
You need something more advanced, like Capture One Pro (which is more advanced than DxO PL in this particular matter) or Photoshop. That’s another tool…and time!

platypus · May 23, 2020, 9:55am

…well, you did something and I did something else (processing in PL instead of Lr), so your takeaway can be different than mine. We could now also bring in Capture One and see what we’d get from it:

Upper line from left to right: Sony file emulates Canon and Sony
Lower line from left to right: Canon file emulates Canon and Sony

Treatment: Apply profile → normalise WB and exposure → Export as sRGB
Note: C1 has a normalise tool that can adjust both WB and exposure at the same time, a tool that PhotoLab should add to its toolbox too.

webzeb · May 23, 2020, 10:31am

That’s probably not the RAW converter.

That’s more likely the cameras choosen for input files and the cameras choosen as target color rendering.

platypus · May 23, 2020, 10:51am

What are you referring to?

webzeb · May 23, 2020, 11:27am

You tried to match the in-camera color rendering of a Nikon D850 from Sony and Canon RAW files using color profiles that are intended for Nikon D850.
My reservations are:

The Nikon D850 utilizes a Sony sensor, which is likely to be a cousin on the one found in the Sony a7R II and a7R III, tailored to Nikon specifications. It’s not the same, nor Sony sensors are all the same, but it may share similarities. That could be similar silicon spectral sensivitity, similar CFA and/or similar IR filter; only Sony and Nikon know. My point is that the risk of getting ‘upside-down’ color when applying a color profile to a camera it’s not intended for is probably less when the two cameras have ‘quite similar sensors’. This is backed up by recent experience I had, as modest it is: I made color profiles for Sony a7 III, Sony a7R III, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9 and Canon EOS R cameras. The Forward Matrices (used to convert camera data to colors) in the Canon profiles are much more different. They are pretty close between the Sony bodies (although not the same, but this could be due to differences between cameras, operator error, color target error…who knows). So dice are likely to be loaded when applying a D850 profile to a Sony RAW file.
What work in one direction does not necessarily works so welll in the other. You tried a Nikon D850 on a Canon file…try the other around and see!

It’s no problem that our examples show different level of discrepencies depending on the RAW files origin and the profile used.
It’s a problem to generalize saying "okay, it kinda worked for two cameras, so it should be OK for the others’. My example with the Canon EOS R profile applied to Sony a7R IV shows absolutely it does not…look at the skin tones…and PL HSL tool won’t save you here.

And there is a solution for people who want to ‘mimick’ other camera bodies in-camera rendering in a predictable way: DxO PL does propose a solution!
It’s just limited to certain bodies and camera profiles…

platypus · May 23, 2020, 11:50am

No, I did not try to match anything, I wanted to see what I’d get when I used “foreign” profiles, i.e. profiles that were not provided by DxO and were not meant for the raw files I threw at these profiles.

All in all, it was an interesting test and what it showed me (again) is, that I prefer getting a starting point by using a custom preset rather than by using a special profile.

I can agree to the original request “…The only issue is that this feature is limited to some camera bodies and, most of the time, to the ‘Standard’ in-camera profile. No ‘emulation’ of the Landscape, Portrait, Faitful […] in-camera profiles. I would really like to see DxO proposing more.” and say that it is rather not on the road that I’m walking but on yours.

Ayoul · May 24, 2020, 4:48pm

Theses profiles are very interesting indeed. I’ve done a few comparisons between jpegs from manufacturer and the raw with the profile given by DXO and it’s not always very accurate. (but miles better than the attemps of Adobe to mimic the picture control / picture style of the camera). I’ve done it with : a raw from camera X and jpeg from camera X, and even with the raw of camera X and jpeg of the same scene of camera Y (the famous dpreview studio scene for instance).

In both cases it’s not perfect, there are visible color differences between the rendition of DXO and the rendition of the jpeg from the orinal manufacturer. But the ability to mimic the rendition of a camera, even not in a perfect way, with another one is nice. I sometimes use the canon 90D or the Fuji 50R on my sony files and I like the color palette.

DXO should really push the R&D on filmpack and these profiles which are very interesting, instead of desperatly trying to sell us Nikcollection and its tiff conversion…

You have my vote.

mwsilvers · May 24, 2020, 5:20pm

I don’t believe this thread is referring to anything in FilmPack or the Nik Collection. It is about the limited available camera body emulations in Color rendering.

From the original request by @webzeb :

"You like your Sony body in-camera profile (or its DxO sibbling) for lanscape, but not so much for skin tones? Then, you can ‘mimick’ the color rendering of a Canon camera body.
You shot the same event with differents cameras and want a consistent look. Then, no problem!

The only issue is that this feature is limited to some camera bodies and, most of the time, to the ‘Standard’ in-camera profile. No ‘emulation’ of the Landscape, Portrait, Faitful […] in-camera profiles.

I would really like to see DxO proposing more."

As you can see from the above, the request is very specific.

Mark

Ayoul · May 24, 2020, 5:29pm

I upvoted the specific request, which is after all the only way to push it. We could all just vote and shut up then ? No one will prevent me from going a little bit further in my comment if I want to, especially if it’s just in my conclusion. Thanks.

Egregius · May 24, 2020, 5:58pm

My own comment on the original post: I don’t think particular body renderings work this way - though it might be reasonable to expect them to. In practice, I find I have to modify the renderings and save them as new presets in order to make one camera’s processed RAW truly look like another camera’s JPEG.

And the results don’t seem to be consistent to me. Sometimes, I have chosen a Sony A100 rendering for an Olympus E-M5 II RAW, for example, because I like the way terrain or water or sky was rendered. Or a Canon rendering. But I can’t say I like these renderings for all of my images: they don’t look that consistent from one image to another like the FilmPack film emulations do.

In my experience, even if comparing results with different model camera bodies within a single brand, using a particular body rendering in PhotoLab won’t give consistent results. For example, if I shoot a landscape with my Olympus E-M1 II, that body’s rendering will be the default for RAW processing and will look a certain way - similar to but not exactly like an E-M1 II out-of-camera JPEG. If I photograph a similar (or the same) landscape with the E-M5 II and bring that RAW file into PhotoLab, it won’t look similar to what comes out of an E-M1 II if I then choose the E-M1 II body rendering. Green will be oversaturated and other colors will shift slightly off. Even if I choose the E-M5 II body rendering for an E-M5 II RAW, it takes quite a bit of work to get the image to look like an E-M5 II JPEG.

There aren’t any body choices in PhotoLab’s color rendering palette for Panasonic micro four thirds cameras. And yet, for my GX85, keeping the generic rendering closely imitates the out-of-camera JPEGs. Not exactly, but more closely than Olympus renderings match Olympus JPEGs. If I choose an Olympus body rendering in PhotoLab for one of the GX85 RAW files, the colors are way off and don’t resemble an Olympus JPEG. Skies are too turquoise and saturated, for example. This doesn’t stop me from liking one of these renderings - but they are unique and need some adjustment to not look garish.

IMO, foliage represents the biggest challenge for Olympus body renderings even with Olympus RAWs. To more closely approximate the JPEG from the actual body, one of the “factory default” renderings must be chosen, and then yellow must be made a bit more red, green must be shifted away from yellow, and saturation and contrast must be lowered. Adobe DCP profiles are only slightly more accurate in some cases, but can blow highlights and can limit the range of adjustments you can make, especially if you like to use FilmPack within PhotoLab.

After all of this, I can’t guess what DxO intended by offering us the ability to choose different brand/body renderings. The case of Panasonic RW2 RAWs demonstrates that these selections aren’t necessary for native body renderings. However, since I’d like to have the ability to accurately emulate the rendering of other cameras besides the one I actually used, I will add my vote to this topic.

mwsilvers · May 24, 2020, 6:52pm

I am not trying to prevent you from doing or saying anything you wish. I was referring to the specific subject of this thread, which did not include a discussion of film emulations, to ensure you understood what you had voted for.

Mark

webzeb · May 24, 2020, 10:22pm

Maybe we could create another post for filmpack?

I would certainly upvote this one too.