# X-Rite colour passport and calibration



## Jack Henry (Mar 21, 2014)

Does anyone here use any of the colour checker passport type products?

And I'm sure a lot use screen calibration devices. What do you recommend for calibratione? Spyder? X-Rite?

All opinions welcome


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## Tony Jay (Mar 21, 2014)

Jack I do use the colorchecker passport, not because I shoot mission-critical images as far as colour fidelity goes, but, because I can learn more about colour management.

As for monitor calibration there are many good products out there.
I happen to use Spyder products but my next purchase, whenever that occurs, will probably be an X-rite product.

Tony Jay


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## Jack Henry (Mar 21, 2014)

Thanx Tony.

The X-Rite is what I'm looking at. There are some passport/calibrator packages around at a good price.


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## clee01l (Mar 21, 2014)

I use the X-Rite i1DisplayPro. It will actively manage both of my monitors.


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## DAYMX5 (Mar 21, 2014)

I use the pass port.  I also use the color monki display for monitor calibration.


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## FredL (Apr 2, 2014)

I use the X-Rite colormunki Photo; it is a good product and easy to use.


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## Oxize (Apr 20, 2014)

I use X-rite Colormunki Display and Passport also. I like the products from X-rite. Good quality.


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## Jack Henry (Apr 21, 2014)

I ordered the 'package' of the Passport and Calibrator last week. It should be here in the next couple of days. Looking forward to playing.


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## Jack Henry (Apr 24, 2014)

ColorChecker Passport and Color Munki arrived. Whilst I'm still only playing with it, I've also downloaded the App for iPad calibration. iMac, MacBook and 2 iPads are all now calibrated.


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## IanGains58 (Apr 26, 2014)

I use the X-Rite i1 DisplayPro too on my rMBP. The display seems very stable colour wise.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Apr 29, 2014)

I found I got a lot of benefit from the Passport, where I calibrated a D800 and D4.  After doing so, the results from them matched each other better, as well as giving deeper and more rich colors.  Interestingly I also found in doing this I had to tweak the automatic white balance on the D4 to warm it up a bit for it to match the D800 in terms of color balance; I was surprised how different they were (note this is different in overall calculated temperature as opposed to the calibration with the passport which was about individual color changes and not white balance).  Doing both these things yield far better results, so I was quite pleased.

I do monitor calibration with other hardware, just commenting on the passport, that I think it is worth doing.


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## Jack Henry (May 1, 2014)

What do you mean 'Calibrated a D800'?  How are you calibrating the actual camera? Or are you just referring to the white balance?


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 1, 2014)

Jack Henry said:


> What do you mean 'Calibrated a D800'?  How are you calibrating the actual camera? Or are you just referring to the white balance?



No, not white balance.  In lightroom, in the develop module, on the bottom right under Camera Calibration, there's a selection there such as "Adobe Standard" and "Camera Vivid", etc.   This is a set of instructions that basically say "for green, make it this much darker, for red make it this much more orange".  It's the same concept that is used on monitors, to cause "orange" to appear the same regardless of the monitor, except here it is so that the processed image appears the same regardless of sensor sensitivities.  Even the same camera model may have sensors on different bodies that react slightly differently from each other to the same color light.

So with the color passport (and associated software, or similar alternative software), in the simplest mode you take a photo of the passports color chart, run it through the software, and it produces a calibration file.  You then apply it in lightroom (you can apply it in a preset or manually).

This is very camera (including serial number level) specific, and unrelated to your monitor. 

Color profile affects how colors look, and so does white balance, but color profile is applied irrespective of white balance (ok, in a dual profile it is a bit more complex).  Just like the default in Lightroom, set it (by camera) and forget it.


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## Jack Henry (May 2, 2014)

Ferguson said:


> No, not white balance.  In lightroom, in the develop module, on the bottom right under Camera Calibration, there's a selection there such as "Adobe Standard" and "Camera Vivid", etc.   This is a set of instructions that basically say "for green, make it this much darker, for red make it this much more orange".  It's the same concept that is used on monitors, to cause "orange" to appear the same regardless of the monitor, except here it is so that the processed image appears the same regardless of sensor sensitivities.  Even the same camera model may have sensors on different bodies that react slightly differently from each other to the same color light.
> 
> So with the color passport (and associated software, or similar alternative software), in the simplest mode you take a photo of the passports color chart, run it through the software, and it produces a calibration file.  You then apply it in lightroom (you can apply it in a preset or manually).
> 
> ...



Oh I knew all that. The way I read your post, I thought you were doing something in the ACTUAL camera......... 

I use a D7000 and the images have improved nicely in the last week or so since i've been testing it out in LR.


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 2, 2014)

Jack Henry said:


> Oh I knew all that. The way I read your post, I thought you were doing something in the ACTUAL camera.........
> 
> I use a D7000 and the images have improved nicely in the last week or so since i've been testing it out in LR.



No, the only thing I did there was after I started paying more attention, I found one camera was significantly off on the automatic white balance, and adjusted that in the camera.  

This all came up while I was shooting golf shots, and alternating a lot between the D800 and D4, and as I looked over thumbnails in the grid, I noticed some were nice and green and some relatively unsaturated and brown, and finally realized it was completely camera dependent.


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