abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

I finally bit the bullet and bought this. Its use is pretty straight forward except for one thing and I would appreciate help on this. You start off by making the calibration standard DNG. Restart LR and pull up that standard. Fine. Got that. Then you have the calibration shot from you shoot. Use the eyedropper on the appropriate gray patch. Easy enough.

Here comes my question. Or questions. What do you do next? Do you make another DNG and restart LR? What if the original DNG was shot under different lighting? Do you have DNG's for each shot? Synching the rest of the shots is easy but what is really the standard for the shoot? Unconfuse me please.

williejoha

When you take the initial shot of the passport make sure to follow the instructions to the T. With a correctly lit shot ( whites are not clipped and black still has value other then 0 ) you have all you will need. This is now your standard. Hope this helps.
WJH

Rongnongno Loc: FL

In reality you will not use the stuff. I have one sitting in the closet for the last six/seven years.

It looked good on paper and video. I was a sucker.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I agree. If you shoot Raw it is not needed as you can adjust white balance to your heart's content in post. However, if you shoot Jpegs then it is a different story.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Contrary to some other suggestions you already got, I do use my ColorChecker. Whenever I need accurate color, like when I'm shooting art work, or other samples, simply "playing" with the raw files is not going to get you there. If you're just after pleasing color, the Color Checker is not really needed, though since you already have one, it's a great starting point and not all that hard to use.

I could explain how to use it but the best bet is to go to the X-Rite YouTube tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vpuDg0abH8.
Don't miss the part starting at about 2':30" of making a profile to apply to your shots.

For those who are interested, more HERE on it's features.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I agree, but a grey card works just as well in those cases.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

I appreciate the help so far. I never considered the gray card as good enough for digital color. I have used the ExpoDisc for years. In general, it is very good but colors do not always reproduced close enough to the original for my liking. I hope CCP will do better once I figure it out properly.

Lenses and cameras have their idiosyncrasies when it comes to color reproduction and want to overcome those issues.

sloscheider Loc: Minnesota

Not completely, the passport system goes beyond white balance and tunes the color based on the quirks of the camera. Technically two identical model camera bodies can produce different colors and if you're shooting products for a clothing catalog, paint company or, as mentioned above, reproduction of art, getting the color right as well as the white balance matters.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Yes, in the reality of RAW photography, you can accomplish the same with the WB dropper in Lightroom. But, since you've got one, yes, you take one shot with the color checker in the image and then back in lightroom, you click on the appropriate grey block with the WB dropper, then sync setting to the rest of the images in the group.

MichaelH Loc: NorCal via Lansing, MI

One takes a photograph of the color chip panel that has the most colors - the other panels can be used for other purposes like finding a gray point or warming and cooling skin tones. You crop the image of the many colored panel in Lightroom. You then Export it using the export menu and choose ColorChecker Passport. If the panel is correctly exposed you should get a confirmation that the Camera Calibration Profile is ready - you give it a name that makes sense, like "Jane's Wedding", and this Camera Profile will be available in Lightroom and Photoshop after restarting the application. It will be available in the Develop module under Camera Calibration in the bottom the the right side tools. It will be in the Profile dropdown in that tool. It "should" more correctly color correct than just a straight White Balance. And I will add that the panel should be in the light that the rest of the images are taken in. And take a few sightly under and over exposed shots of the panel. I have had the Profile maker tell me the profile could not be created as some of the colors were "clipped".

MichaelH Loc: NorCal via Lansing, MI

I believe, though I do not know, that the ColorChecker Passport attempts to "color correct" for a given light source and it's limitations by raising certain colors and lowering other colors. Many man-made light sources do not have all of the wavelengths and even more have more of some wavelenths than others. The color chips on the ColorChecker Passport have "expected" values and the Profile that is made returns these colors to their "expected" values in both the color patch and in the images captured under the same light. If you change light sources you need a new Profile for that lighting. If you think about it - a White point would do nothing to tell your editing software what a "red" or "blue" should look like under any particular light source so this in theory should be a more effective solution than just changing the White Point. And it gives at a minimum a very good starting point for color correcting - all images from a particular shoot can have the Profile applied.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

It’s not just correcting for the light source, it’s attempting to reproduce colors that match the colors in the calibrated target. It’s not just a white balance issue. Different brands and even models within the same brand reproduce color differently. Theoretically, with the ColorChecker, you can shoot with Nikon, Fuji or Canon etc. and not see any color reproduction differences between any of them.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

More HERE on what the Color Checker does.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I'll stand corrected on what it does.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Shoot a properly exposed target
Open the image in Lightroom, use the dropper on the middle gray patch to get the white balance correct
export to dng to profile the rest of the color spectrum - so you have proper color AND white balance.
restart LR
Now you have a color neutral color profile for your camera/lens/filter/light condition - any picture that you take in tat same light will be able to use the profile.
You select the dng, along with all the other images that were taken in the same light, then use Lr's Sync button in the Develop Module to select the Camera Calibration field, and no others. Finish by pressing Synchronize . . .

You are now done and all of the image will have the exact, neutral color and white balance.

This is a great video that explains, in thorough detail, how it works and why it is the best tool to do proper white and color balance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDtebpvATzc

In 51 yrs of doing photography, including Minolta and Spectracolor color balance and color temperature meters - I have yet to see a system work as consistently and accurately as this.

My surprise was when I did this for an event I was shooting where I was using 2 different cameras and my second shooter was using another camera from a different manufacturer. When all three cameras were properly calibrated, it looked like all the images were taken by one camera.

While you can twiddle the sliders in your raw converter, that is the most inefficient way I know of to get proper color and white balance. Better to calibrate to a common, recognized standard. It eliminates all the guesswork.

As far as multiple lighting situations are concerned, yes - you shoot a new target when the light changes - if color accuracy is important. If you are doing artistic or interpretive editorial work, it probably is overkill. But if you are shooting product or models for advert work, you had better get it 110% on the money - and the Colorchecker passport is the only dependable tool I know of that can do this. If you've got one that has been opened and unused, it is likely that the colors have drifted and it will no longer be accurate, and shouldn't be used.

The video is very informative - watch it.