Spyder v X-rite

Hi all,

I am new to DXO and have found a video on Datacolour Spyder. Will DXO do everything as shown in this video? Is there one more compatible with DXO (spyder v x-rite) or are they both similar.

Thanks Brenden

PhotoLab can’t be used to create profiles.

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I am lost. How do we use colour checkers with DXO if we cannot create profiles?

Having watched the video, possibly.

Using PL you will be able to set the colour temp, white and black points from a shot of the colour checker card and then export that image (but maybe not seamlessly) to the Spyder software. Assuming the profile that the Spyder software then creates is a DCP profile then there is an option in PL5 to use such a profile. However I think PL6 has a problem with DCP profiles.

I hope someone else with real world experience can clarify / add more details.

Hi there, found this video on you tube using PL and x-rite colorchecker without any Adobe SW.
No testing on PL6, I don’t own the colorchecker passport chart. Hope this will help.

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I get the impression that we have to approach the topic more precisely…

  • Datacolor Spyder is a device that is used for monitor calibration.
    This requires specific software like the one that comes with the device or e.g. DisplayCal.

  • A Color Checker (X-Rite and Calibrite) is used for camera calibration.
    To create profiles that can improve colour rendition in applications that support the use of .dcp profiles like DxO PhotoLab, another specific software is needed: Color Checker Camera Calibration, which is available here.

  • For end-to-end custom profiling, we’d also need something that allows printer calibration.
    Both Calibrite and X-Rite offer respective products, often bundled with the items mentioned above.

Splitting hairs: Profiles created by the calibration solutions don’t actually calibrate monitors, cameras or printers themselves, but provide profiles that the OS uses to correct the differences that might exist between those devices’ output and the expected output that we should get when we shoot and display or print references like a color checker.

Again: DxO PhotoLab can’t create .dcp or .icc profiles, but it can use them - depending on edition (elite only) and selected working colour space.

Hint: Use profiles as an early step when you customize images.

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Calibrite also do a solution for screen calibration alone as well as one for screen and printer calibration.

To reinforce what @platypus says, PhotoLab can only use dcp or icc profiles that have already been created with external solutions like X-Rite and Calibrite.

In order to create a DCP profile for your camera, you will need something like the X-Rite ColorChecker software and something like the Gretag Macbeth colour target. Once created, PhotoLab can then use that profile.

Or you can download the Adobe DNG Converter, which includes DCP profiles for a wide range of cameras, already made.

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The various Calibrite ColorChecker targets are powerful tools. The concept of camera calibration is a bit off, because how we use these is basically for scene calibration/reference. It would be great if DXO chose to implement a convenient way to quickly apply shots of color targets to a series of images. I’m sure DXO would get a fair number of professional photographers exicted about such a feature. This is still the single feature I have been hoping for since I started using DXO Optics Pro years ago.

BTW, such a feature would make the Filmpack render profiles more useful and predictable.

They do. All you do is select the DCP profile created from an image of the target in the location.

How? you either select a DCP profile for rendering or a FilmPack rendering. You can’t have both.

Well, the obvious way to handle this would hopefully be to assign the shot with the target as a scene profile, then connect this to a series of images. Auto-recognising targets from a defined list is also possible. The light and thus the spectral components may change during a shoot, in some cases due to moving and adjusting the strength of certain lights and strobes. It is therefore not uncommon to use the targets several times during a session. Several times? Hm… many times is more like it. Having support for color targets in PL would save a lot of time and simplify the workflow a lot.

As for a reference for images to be processed by Filmpack rendering profiles, well obviously the use of a target for setting the base color structure in the original image before being transmogrified by FP makes sense.

So, the suggestion is to get DCP profile creation from shots of color targets handled within Photolab, with no need for extra external workflows. I am perfectly aware that such a feature only makes sense for certain breeds of photographers. Having such a feature in Photolab would be very helpful.

In the first video the profile is created by Datacolor software and in the second by XRite/Calibrite,
each of them providing the necessary targets !

As said, PL 5 / 6 then can import ICC and DCP-profiles.

So, what you are suggesting is that DxO employs more people to write the colour calibration software? Something which is not their speciality and that, based on the lack of number of requests for it, is unlikely to sell more copies of PhotoLab, especially since most people will be quite happy to use a tool that has already been written and tried and tested.

The Photolab suite as it is now is pretty brilliant . For many photographers it allows for a very good and efficient workflow. In order to expand its use into certain professional segments adding such a proposed color target functionality within the Photolab suite seems to me to be fairly obvious. That being said, the DXO team have already added a wider color workspace and working on further advances in color management.

I don’t get this obsession with having to have everything in one piece of software.

For hardware I have:

  • a Nikon camera
  • SanDisk memory cards
  • Lee Filter holders
  • Formatt Filters
  • a Gitzo tripod
  • a Manfrotto tripod head
  • a Konic Minolta exposure meter
  • a Mac computer
  • a Canon printer
  • Fotospeed paper
  • Canson paper

Why? because each “component” in my workflow was chosen for being the best. Since other companies have already proven they are the best in their field, why demand that DxO tries to share an already small market?

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:roll_eyes: That’s because you don’t appreciate the simplicity of something that does everything in one, like this:

:person_shrugging: I mean, who needs a toolbox full of stuff when something like that does everything?
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

A list of all your gear seems kinda irrelevant in this context. I have simply proposed integration of color target handling and camera/scene calibration within Photolab. For those of us who often must handle a zillion of color target shots in high volume settings with changing light conditions such an integration would be revolutionizing. This is about improving the workflow and saving hours of fiddling.

From Calibrite’s marketing material regarding the DUO target: " An essential tool for any user that requires accurate color control when working in mixed lighting conditions when capturing still or moving images"
–Which is absolutely correct. Clearly many photographers will never feel the need for using color targets and implementing scene calibration, but for some this is indeed important stuff.

How much colour variance is there between individual camera sensors? Since PL already ships with a camera profile for my camera, I’m wondering if there’s any benefit to a custom camera calibration.

Probably high enough to make e.g. Hasselblad create a custom profile for each camera they make.

No matter if we use custom profiles or not, we’d better see initial images as a starting point for whatever interpretation we want to create…