From M8 to C1 and PS...

[Snilleblixt]

Fellow RF members and guests,

I'm a proud owner of a M8 and I'm enjoying learning on a daily basis how to handle this beautiful camera. Sure there are shortfalls with it but never the less I enjoy its rawness and manual functions as oppose to regular DSLRs. In addition, I do have my own shortfalls!

As a newcomer, I would like to hear from you as to how you process your M8 photos in both colour and black and white. I use Capture One LE (came with the camera) and Photoshop.

I'm more interested in your "tricks" and "suggestions" given that I don't use a IV filter yet. Yes, I know I need to go a buy some filters...

From my limited experience I de-saturate the photos slightly in general in C1 and then adjust the Magenta slightly in PS under Image, Adjustments, Selective Colour and Magenta.

However I still don't feel 100% happy with the photos...as they are either too yellowish, greenish or red...

I might be an idiot for not understanding how to treat these photos but I'm ready to accept that and hope to learn from you...

Thank you in advance...

Regards, Carl

 

[sam_m]

Hi Carl,

There are profiles for c1 that correct the colour shift quite well, a guy called jamie roberts made them:

http://www.jirvana.com/raw_large/leica_R8/m8_profiles.zip

 

[Snilleblixt]

Hi Sam m,

Thank you for your quick reply to my query which is much appreciated. I've downloaded the profile as per your link. Stupid question perhaps, but how do I now import these into C1?

Regards, Carl

 

[jag157]

Hi ...first suggestion is that you download Capture One 4 ...your Capture LE gives you a free upgrade to the later and fuller featured One 4.

This will give you a camera profile for the wondferful M8 with or without the IR Filter. This will be a better starting point for you.

From here you can chose a preset or adjust saturation for YOUR particular B&W interpretation.

Color is fully catered for; as you have a starting point ...ie camera profile recognition you are really just tweaking your RAW shots after this point.

Once finished you can jump into PS if you want. I'd suggest doing all your RAW work on C14. Convert to Tiff for PS BUT look at PS Lightroom Bete 2 as it has a lot to offer without all the horrible PS issues. Brush is amazing and the Vibrance (saturation) adjustment is to be seen to be believed.

Cheers & Good Luck

 

[Snilleblixt]

Thanks jag157,

Your feedback is much appreciated. I've upgraded my Capture One LE to C14 now and will look at getting the PS Lightroom Beta 2 as advised...

Thanks, Carl

Hi ...first suggestion is that you download Capture One 4 ...your Capture LE gives you a free upgrade to the later and fuller featured One 4.

This will give you a camera profile for the wondferful M8 with or without the IR Filter. This will be a better starting point for you.

From here you can chose a preset or adjust saturation for YOUR particular B&W interpretation.

Color is fully catered for; as you have a starting point ...ie camera profile recognition you are really just tweaking your RAW shots after this point.

Once finished you can jump into PS if you want. I'd suggest doing all your RAW work on C14. Convert to Tiff for PS BUT look at PS Lightroom Bete 2 as it has a lot to offer without all the horrible PS issues. Brush is amazing and the Vibrance (saturation) adjustment is to be seen to be believed.

Cheers & Good Luck

 

[sam_m]

Hi Sam m,

Thank you for your quick reply to my query which is much appreciated. I've downloaded the profile as per your link. Stupid question perhaps, but how do I now import these into C1?

Regards, Carl

Good question! When I get home in a couple of hours I'll find the instructions I have saved that tell you what folder to put them in and let you know. What operating system are you on?

 

[sam_m]

Copy extracted profiles to:

Windows XP, 2000 - c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\color
Windows 95, ME, 98 - c:\windows\system\color
Windows NT - c:\winnt\system32\color

Mac OS-X - /System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/
Mac OS - HD:System:ColorSync_Profile

 

[jag157]

Sam ...can you elaborate on your experience with these profiles? I'm interested in looking at them. thanks

 

[sam_m]

They're far from a perfect fix. I've only had my m8 a couple of weeks so I don't have a lot of post-processing experience, but from what I can see they seem to adjust the magenta colour to something resembling charcoal, meaning they don't correct back to a perfect black, but the colour balance is certainly more pleasing than the original magenta.

I'm still waiting for my ir filters to arrive, when they do I'll do a comparison of the different options: unfiltered, filtered and unfiltered with Jamie's profile. Until then, they're a good solution, but I'm enjoying the m8 in b&w a lot, when I get the filters I'll switch to a colour workflow for a while to get a sense of the m8's true colour, of course the converter I use will still impart it's own flavour, so different converters are also up for trial too.

 

[jag157]

Thanks. I think you'll enjoy the impact of the filters on Color. Strongly encourange you to look at Capture 1. You can get a 30 day trial from Phase One site. Either C14 or the soon to be replaced Pro Vsn ( Sept). There is a lot to be said for a convertor that has a profile for your Camera in its various guises. Having said that Capture 1 on a side by side with other convertors seems to extraxt a lot more detail from the RAW data. Cheers