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Move your custom-made ICC profiles to other computers

NOTE: This article discusses an outdated version of Capture One. To learn more about our latest version, click here.

You are not restricted to working on a single computer when using ICC profiles. In this post I will show how easy it is to share these custom-made profiles with other computers.

Viewing your image with the right colors on another computer

When working with Sessions, the ICC profile will be included in the settings files located within the image folder. This ensures that you can move the image folder to another computer – and still have all the necessary components available for viewing the images exactly the same way on the other computer.

If you want to use a custom ICC profile on another computer running Capture One, you can simply import the profile.

How to import a Custom ICC profile from an image into Capture One

When viewing an image with a custom ICC profile on a different computer than where it was generated, you will see the image with the right colors, as the ICC profile is included in the settings folder inside the image folder.

But if you want to use the profile on other images, you need to import the profile. You find the camera ICC Profile selector in the Color Tool Tab’s Base Characteristics Tool. In the bottom of this selector, you find the Import option as shown in the image below. Select the images with the custom ICC profile and choose Import.

The ICC selector dropdown menu with Import as the last option

On a Mac system the custom ICC profile will be located in:

Users/UserX/Library/Colorsync/Profiles

The Library folder is hidden. To open it, make sure you are in the Finder, hold down the Option key, and then choose Go > Library.

On a Windows system the profiles will be located in:

Users/UserX/AppData/CaptureOne/Color Profiles

How to install a custom ICC profile on a computer:

If you want to use one of your custom ICC profile on a different computer, you need to copy it manually to the above locations depending on the system.

If Capture One is already running you will need to restart it in order to see the profiles in the ICC selector in Base Characteristics Tool.

If you do not follow the naming convention, the ICC profile will still be available but you will need to select it from “Other” rather than under the camera name.

For more information on the naming convention see my previous tip Tweak the default color look of your camera.

All the best,

Niels

Get smart about color with “Smart Saturation”

Naturally, Capture One 7 has a Saturation slider to control this amount and it can be found in the Exposure Tool.

In Capture One 7, when adding a positive value to the Saturation slider, the amount of saturation increase is applied in a non-linear way. This means that areas of the image that are relatively saturated have less of an increase compared to those that do not.

The benefit of this implementation is that it prevents the “over-cooking” of images, which results in an overly saturated and unnatural look.

When applying negative saturation, the effect is actually applied in a linear way, effecting all colors by the same amount.

Examples

In the following image we have plenty of saturation in some areas of the image, even with the Saturation slider set to zero. Take a look at the RGB values for both of the areas.

Now, if I increase the Saturation slider to +20, let’s see what happens to those same values.

Notice that the already saturated central part of the flower doesn’t change much in terms of the RGB values, but the outer leaf, which was less saturated, has had a greater increase.

If we apply a negative value to the slider, all saturation ranges are affected the same.

I hope you can see that the Saturation slider is more than just a simple ‘Add’ or ‘Remove’ tool and that it is yet another one of Capture One’s sophisticated tools.

Best regards,

David

Tweak the default color look of your camera

The default colors for a supported camera in Capture One are made by analyzing a large number of images including images of color targets as well as real world images.

The default colors in Capture One are designed to be a compromise between precise but yet pleasing colors. The colors of the real world have a very large dynamic range. The default colors in Capture One takes this large dynamic range into account to ensure that colors look natural from the deep shadows all the way up to when data starts clipping in the highlight.

Create a new default color profile

In the days of analog photography people had different preferences for what film they would use for their cameras. Also today photographers have different preferences for the default color rendition. Some, for instance, prefer the colors to be vivid and saturated, others prefer the colors to be natural or others like a warm overall tone.

With the Color Editor in Capture One you have a powerful tool, which allows you to tweak and optimize the colors in an image. But you can also use the Color Editor to tweak the general color look of your camera and create a new default color ICC profile.

Getting the White Balance right to begin with

Before you start tweaking the default colors for your camera make sure that your White Balance is right. All colors are depending on the White Balance, so this is essentially the foundation for creating a good color profile.

If you are using Auto WB (White Balance) on your camera, make a test shot of a quality White Balance card at noon to make sure that your auto WB works well. Some cameras have the option to fine-tune the Auto WB. At noon on a sunny day the WB chart should give a neutral reading, which means same value in R, G and B channel +/- 1 or 2 values. If you mostly work with Flash or in daylight, it can be a good idea to generate a custom WB for your camera. This will guarantee that the WB is perfect for your specific camera and not based on an average camera, something many camera manufactures do.

Making a new default color ICC profile

In the example below I will make a new default color ICC profile for a camera, resulting in a profile that gives me a deeper blue sky.

I have taken an image of the Phase One headquarters and the typical blue sky I would like to change for the camera. I made sure to include an image of a quality White Balance card. I don’t have to use the same image, but it needs be shot under the same lighting conditions.

As I will be doing visual adjustments to the image, and these adjustments later will be used as a new default look for my camera, it is important that my monitor is working well and is well calibrated.

These are the steps I take to create a new default camera ICC profile:

I start by setting the White Balance by pointing at the neutral patch on my WB card with the White balance picker. The most neutral patch on the Color Checker Chart is the second brightest patch. If the WB card is not part of the image with the blue sky then copy and paste the WB setting from the image with the WB card to the image with the blue sky.
In the Color Editor I select the Advanced Tool tab in the Color Editor Tool and use the color picker to pick the color of the blue sky.
In the Color Editor I use the “Full Slice” icon to expand the color selection to cover all blue tones from natural to full saturation. In the image below the “Full Slice” icon is indicated by the circle on the right-hand side.
I check the “View selected color range” box (indicated by the circle on the left-hand side) to make sure that my selection actually covers the whole blue color range of the sky. The “View selected color range” will show the selected color in color but all other colors will be shown in black and white. Once I am satisfied with the selected color range, I uncheck it again.
Now I use the Hue, Saturation and Lightness slider to achieve the kind of blue sky I prefer. In this case I need to change the hue +7, add a little extra saturation +7.6 and lover the lightness a bit by -5. It is not a huge change I make, but enough to give me my preferred blue sky color.
In the Color Editor’s toolbar I select the Action Menu, the last item shown with the “arrow down” icon, to get to the “Save as ICC Profile… ” option (marked with a circle in the image below)
When saving the ICC profile the tool gives you a default name for the ICC profile that includes the name of the camera used. Capture One uses this name including the dash to make sure that the new profile will show up in the ICC selector for files made with this camera. I make sure to keep the first part of the suggested name and change the last part of the name to Landscape, as I will be using this profile for landscape images.
I select another image from the same camera and select the Base Characteristics Tool. When I open the ICC Profile dropdown menu I can now choose the brand new ICC profile “ Landscape”.
From the tool menu in the base characteristics tool I select the “Save as default”. The “Landscape” profile will be used as the new default profile for all new images I bring in to Capture One from this camera.

I have now changed my default colors for my camera. If I at any time later decide to go back to the original default color profile I can from the Action menu in the Base Characteristics Tool and just select “ Reset Defaults for …”

All the best,

Niels

Work magic on your movies in Capture One 7

The great news is that you can now use Capture One to color correct or “grade” these files in an application that makes sense to you as a photographer and that you are already familiar with.

Better image quality in your movies

Additionally, using Capture One will open up the use for image quality tools not available in any current video editor. For example, bayer level noise reduction and significantly better highlight and shadow recovery.

The corrected images can then be compiled as a master clip in your chosen video editor.

Video cameras that are capable of recording in the Cinema DNG format simply capture individual frames as Cinema DNG files and store this as a sequence of images on the camera’s storage media. For example, a camera recording at 24 fps (frames per second) will write 24 Cinema DNG files for one second of footage.

Which cameras support Cinema DNG?

Cameras that support this format are abundant, as an example there are the products from Black Magic Design, including the relatively new Pocket Cinema Camera and the Magic Lantern adapted Canon DSLR’s.

Now you can use Capture One for producing the creative look you want for your movies and leave the editing tasks to your chosen movie editing application.

Working with Cinema DNG files

Capture One treats a Cinema DNG file exactly the same as a RAW image file with the ability to change or perhaps fix exposure, color and contrast. If you want to try out the workflow below, you can download some sample Cinema DNG files from here, courtesy of Black Magic Design.

Further sets of Cinema DNG files are available by changing the link to Shot_1, Shot_2 etc.

Try out the workflow

I started by creating a new Catalog (you could also use a Session workflow) and imported the Cinema DNG files. This gave me a sequence of 110 images, which will eventually go to form a clip of just over 4 seconds.

The unadjusted file in Capture One looks like this alongside a file with a few changes I made.

Using the tools in Capture One, I could increase the exposure, improve the shadow detail and I also change the density of the red jacket a little.

Note, I only needed to do this on one image for the sequence. After the first file is adjusted I used the Copy Adjustments icon in the toolbar (upward facing arrow) to copy my adjustments to the clipboard.

and then selected the rest of the images in the sequence and clicked on the Apply Adjustments icon, the downward facing arrow in the previous image.

I now have a complete sequence of corrected images.

To bring them into my chosen video editor I then need to export them as a 16bit TIFF file. I used the following settings for my process recipe.

This of course gives me a folder of one 16 Bit TIFF file for every processed Cinema DNG file. Now, I need to get these into my chosen video editor as a single clip.

You could use a simple package like Quicktime Pro 7 or your chosen video editing package. I haven’t had much time to experiment with Quicktime Pro7 but it is likely that the best quality will be achieved by using a full editing package like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere.

Quicktime Pro 7 was superseded by Quicktime Pro X but the newer version is unable to compile a sequence of images into a video file. There go with Quicktime Pro 7 that can be downloaded from here. You will need to buy a licence for Quicktime Pro, from Apple.

Unfortunately it is not possible to compile a sequence of images in Quicktime Pro X, which is the replacement version of Quicktime Pro 7.

Alternatively, search for many freeware applications that are available on Mac and Windows for the compilation of single images to a video sequence.

Open Quicktime Pro 7 and choose File>Open Image Sequence.

…you will then asked to set the frame rate. In this case, the footage was shot at 24fps.

Then your clip will then open as a compiled movie. Export this in the movie format or compression of your choice to then bring into your editor.

The same thing can be achieved by importing the image sequence into Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premiere for example.

For Adobe Premiere some handy RGB Sequence presets can be installed by downloading the Black Magic Camera Utility 1.4.1 from http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support

I also experimented with using a Split Tone Preset to create this look in Capture One.

Here are the final two sequences edited together.

http://youtu.be/PutIaZ1mcSw

I am somewhat of a ‘newbie’ when it comes to processes like this but I believe it opens up interesting options for working with your movie files in a familiar application for color as well as other corrections.

Best regards

David