[Digikam-users] Digikam - Darktable workflow - Color profile

[Martin (KDE)]

Am 03.01.2012 13:10, schrieb Wolfgang Mader:
> Hallo,
> 
> are you guys who do RAW development using calibrated work stations and color 
> profiles. If so, how do you obtain the color profile for your camera. I am using 
> a Canon 40D and have no clue on how to get the Canon color profile. Or is color 
> profiling not important when working with RAW files?

Yes, I do raw development in a colour calibrated environment. I have
calibrated my monitor, scanner and I tried to calibrate my camera as well.

First: forget about Canon colour profiles for your EOS40D. Even if you
can get one it is useless. Canon use some internal maths after/before
using the profiles so unless you know the maths you will get no pleasing
results. I tried it several times without success.

If you take profiling/calibrating serious you have to calibrate every
combination of light and lens with your camera. If you don't want to do
this, you don't need profiles.

Profiling is mandatory if you do product photos where exact colour
reproduction is needed. In all other cases, especially if you change
something in the postprocessing (saturation, white balance ...) you will
not benefit from a profile (why should I make sure the camera reproduce
a special type of blue if I change it afterwards?).

I don't know what digikam does on raw processing, but darktable uses
some generic profiles (Pascal de Bruijn is doing a great job here) for
(almost) every camera. Afaik the EOS40D is build in. My 30D for sure is.

For monitors and printers it is a different beast. If I fix some colour
cast to a value I am pleased with the printed photo have to match this
(within a given range and the physical colour gamut).

Btw: generating a valid and high quality profile for a camera is not
that easy.

Martin

Wolgang, as you are from germany, read
http://foto.beitinger.de/index.html
it is very informative.

> 
> Thank you very much and a happy new year.
> Wolfgang
> 
> On Tuesday 03 January 2012 08:42:06 Marie-Noëlle Augendre wrote:
>> I'm a Linux/Fedora 16 user, and have been using Digikam since I switched
>> from Windows to Linux 2 years ago. I have about 30.000 pictures in my
>> Digikam database, about half of them having been migrated from the
>> Photoshop Elements I had used when running Windows.
>>
>> About one year ago, I gave up shooting JPEG, and I now use RAW files only,
>> produced by Canon EOS 450D at the beginning, and EOS7D currently.
>> I began to treat RAW pictures with Digikam, then RawTherapee, and
>> 'upgraded' to Darktable some weeks ago.
>> I'm very satisfied with both programs - Digikam and Darktable - and intend
>> to use them consistently in the foreseeable future
>>
>> My workflow is usually the following:
>>
>> 1) in Digikam:
>> - import pictures straight from memory cards to a 'buffer' folder (I've
>> named it 'A trier')
>> - first selection/rating: the pictures I want to keep are moved to their
>> final folder. Some that I'm not yet sure about will remain in the 'A trier'
>> folder till I take time to have another look; they will be moved to the
>> same album as their 'sister' pictures in the case I decide to keep them
>> For this step, I mainly use the rating function; as I upgraded to version 2
>> quite recently, I've not yet decided how/when (at what stage) I will use
>> pick and color labels.
>> I roughly maintain two main albums trees, one for 'events' when I produce
>> between 30 and 500 or more pictures, the other for pictures taken at any
>> moment, that I regroup in a monthly album. The events tree is organized by
>> year (level 1) and event (level 2) named 'NN - this specific event' so they
>> remain sorted in their own year. The 'day to day' tree is classically
>> organized by year (level 1) and month (level 2)
>> So, whatever I'm looking, I always know in which folder I can find the
>> picture I'm looking for.
>> - I might do some commenting and/or tagging at this stage, when I still
>> have a lone CR2 file; but I have no strict rule on the matter: I can add
>> information any time to any picture when I browse and work on the whole
>> collection.
>>
>> 2) in Darktable:
>> - I use Darktable to produce TIFF files that will serve as 'master' full
>> size pictures for whatever publication/export I'll need.
>> - I usually don't treat all the pictures of an event at the same time; I'm
>> more or less in a hurry to publish a couple of the best ones, and take
>> time, days or weeks later, to derawtize the remaining pictures
>> - I would like to be able to find easily the RAW files that have been
>> previously selected in Digikam, but the information is not passed on to
>> Darktable ... In the beginning, I created sub-sub-folders in Digikam, in
>> order to select them easily in Darktable, but that is not convenient as I
>> never know from the beginning, which pictures I will treat - or not - in
>> the future ... and I want/need to keep in the same folder all the files
>> (CR2, TIFF, JPEG, XMP) related to the same pictures and some of them (XMP
>> for example) are not displayed.
>> - if I want different treatments for the same picture (color treatment,
>> effects, etc.), I will clone the RAW file and produce a different TIFF. To
>> make things easier, I've defined in Darktable an 'export Digikam' style
>> that always save the TIFF in the folder the RAW file comes from.
>> - as there is currently no information transferred from Digikam to
>> Darktable, when I want to treat just a couple of pictures, I find it easier
>> to use the 'open in Darktable' function in Digikam, rather than the 'import
>> folder' or 'import image' in Darktable.
>>
>> 3) in Digikam:
>> - from Digikam I export pictures regularly to a FB page, and several Piwigo
>> and Picasa galleries.
>> - I usually open each picture in the editor in order to resize, then adjust
>> the sharpening it before saving it as a new JPEG version. If sharpening is
>> not so critical, I might use the batch queue treatment, or the resizing
>> option of the Piwigo export to quicken the process.
>>
>> I'd like very much to read from others about their own DK-DT workflow.
>>
>> Marie-Noëlle
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-users mailing list
> Digikam-users at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users