TrueColor configuration for XH A1

[Bill Busby]

Why don't you guys just connect your A1 to a calibrated monitor and make adjustments to the preset (-blue and/or +red, etc). Some experience this slight blue cast (me included) and some don't. Like I said, I did... and corrected it with adjustments.

[Artur Smiech]

Originally Posted by Bill Busby

Why don't you guys just connect your A1 to a calibrated monitor

I haven't one but I'll try to do it with my Samsung SyncMaster 957DF. Certain difficultness is multitude of adjustments such as RG Gain, GR Gain etc. Did you noticed blacks are black and whites are blue in my shots?

[Michael Hutson]

Bill,

Do you mind sharing your adjusted settings?

Thanks in advance.

[Steven Reid]

Originally Posted by Michael Hutson

Bill,

Do you mind sharing your adjusted settings?

Thanks in advance.

Reviving an old thread: I, too, would be interested in what "adjustments" were made. Last night I experimented extensively under tungsten lighting using the current TRUCOLOR preset (i.e., the corrected one, not the original). I white-balanced using a professional card, holding it at various angles to the light to ensure that I wasn't getting variations in WB depending on orientation (shadows, etc.).

Danged if I couldn't get rid of what looked like a blue cast in the whites, looking, for instance, at a sheet of paper with my naked eye and through the LCD viewfinder simultaneously. I white balanced probably a dozen times: same result. In fact, the entire picture looked a bit cold no matter what I did, suggesting that my various attempts to white balance were "correct", and at least invariable.

For grins I clicked over to auto-WB and the image warmed immediately and slightly to remove the blue cast, yielding whites that really looked white and an image that didn't seem warm but just right. What gives? Why couldn't I attain the same pleasing image with an accurate manual white balance?

If it weren't for this troubling (to me) aspect of TRUCOLOR and my apparent inability to compensate for it, I would use the present as my default. Any ideas from folks who have experimented more?

Steve

[Christopher Neville]

Steven,

When I tried this preset a while back, I got a same blue cast as well. I don't believe it's a white balance issue either. I have never seen anything specific on what settings can compensate for it. I would like for someone to post those as well. On a side note, do you think the colors on this preset look a bit saturated?

[Steven Reid]

Originally Posted by Christopher Neville

Steven,

When I tried this preset a while back, I got a same blue cast as well. I don't believe it's a white balance issue either. I have never seen anything specific on what settings can compensate for it. I would like for someone to post those as well. On a side note, do you think the colors on this preset look a bit saturated?

No, I don't think the colors look too saturated. I chose this preset for the express purpose of obtaining accurate, and the most, color information so I could grade in post. I believe that was the original intent of the author of this preset. Therefore, I'm not too concerned about what the raw footage looks like, so long as its accurate, e.g., with no blue cast!

WB'ing comes second nature to me now, and so I, too, suspect that I'm not WB'ing incorrectly. Unfortunately, I'm just a serious hobbyist with a high end LCD monitor, not a calibrated production monitor ($$). I suppose if I had the latter, I could find out just what tweaks in the camera would remove the slight blue cast. Since I don't, I revived the thread for my selfish purpose of finding out what might have worked for others similarly situated (frustrated).

Steve

[Artur Smiech]

Originally Posted by Steven Reid

what tweaks in the camera would remove the slight blue cast.

I changed RGB settings to 0,0,0 and something else. Now the white is exactly white. My version is below.

[Steven Reid]

Originally Posted by Artur Smiech

I changed RGB settings to 0,0,0 and something else. Now the white is exactly white. My version is below.

That was a fast response! Thanks very much, Artur. Could I trouble you to post a list of your revised settings in a reply here?

Steve

EDIT: I suppose your reply also would clarify for me what "RGB" is, if this does not refer to the three separate gain settings for R, G, and B, respectively.

[Bill Busby]

Originally Posted by Michael Hutson

Bill,

Do you mind sharing your adjusted settings?

Thanks in advance.

Sorry I missed this originally. It's been so long ago I may have made further adjustments that suited my needs, but here they are:

GAM N
KNE M
BLK P
PED -4
SET -1
SHP -1
HDF M (default)
DHV 0 (default)
COR 0
NR1 0
NR2 0
CMX N
CGN 8
CPH 0
RGN -1
GGN -2
BGN -3
RGM 10
RBM -12
GRM 6
GBM 0
BRM 12
BGM -3

[Artur Smiech]

Yes, RGB are separate channels of Red, Green, Blue.

Parameter Original value My value
GAM Gamma N N
KNE Knee M L
BLK Black P S
PED Pedestal -9 0
SET Setup -9 -4
SHP Sharpness -9 -4
HDF Hor.Detail M (default) M (default)
DHV Detail HV Balance 0 (default) 0 (default)
COR Coring 0 -2
NR1 Noise Reduction 1 0 0
NR2 Noise Reduction 2 0 0
CMX Color Matrix N N
CGN Color Gain 0 0
CPH Color Phase 0 0
RGN Red Gain -7 0
GGN Green Gain 3 0
BGN Blue Gain 12 0
RGM Red Green Matrix 40 40
RBM Red Blue Matrix -12 -12
GRM Green Red Matrix 6 6
GBM Green Blue Matrix 0 0
BRM Blue Red Matrix 12 12
BGM Blue Green Matrix -3 -3

[Steven Reid]

Bill, Artur:

Many thanks for the quick replies. I'm going to give these revised TRUCOLOR settings a try this evening. Artur, your earlier posts of pictures showing white paper illuminated by a desk lamp under various WB settings looked exactly like my results from last night. Thus, I'm encouraged that a solution is in sight!

Steve

[Steven Reid]

After testing this evening, it is evident that both Bill's and Artur's variations of the TruColor preset definitively get rid of the blue cast that I observe with the original TruColor preset. I conducted three tests following the procedure below each time I changed values in the TruColor preset.

Test:

1. Selected one of the variations for the preset.
2. Correctly locked exposure: no overblown whites or underexposed blacks. I did not change exposure over the duration of my three tests.
3. Manually focused on and white balanced on my professional WB card.
4. Took a few seconds of footage. Brought into Vegas, slapped on a title, exported to Adobe Photoshop Elements, and used the eyedropper tool to get RGB values for my WB card.

Results:

1. Original TruColor is most definitely blue. Subjectively and objectively (RGB) this is clearly the case.

2. Artur's variation seems almost reddish by comparison. Also, the blacks in this variation have more details, but also quite a bit of noise that I could see easily in Photoshop. Otherwise, the image looks pretty danged good.

3. Bill's variation struck me as the most neutral with no detectable color cast, even though the RGB values are essentially identical to Artur's. The blacks are much less noisy, however, and more akin to what TruColor offers, in my subjective opinion. Bill's and Artur's variations use different pedestal and and black settings, which likely account somewhat for the differences I observe in the black regions.

As you can see, the tests were under artificial (halogen) lighting. I'd like to try out the variations outdoors in daylight, where I tend to shoot the most footage. For now, I really like Bill's version.

My thanks to both gentlemen for posting their efforts.

Steve

[Artur Smiech]

Thank you for comparison, Steve. I can see my settings give some reddish cast opposite to Bill's. I will try his preset in tungsten and daylight. I use my TC's version indoor only. At this reason I raised PED and SET to get more details of blacks. I left RG, GR, BG etc. the same of Paolo Ciccone. I lowered KNE at L to avoid overexpose the whites.

[Larry Secrest]

I like Bill's too.
I had noticed the blue cast in the original setting and thought to just work it out in post, but Bill's much better.
I 'm wondering what the original poster thinks about this?
L.

[Steven Reid]

Originally Posted by Larry Secrest

I like Bill's too.
I had noticed the blue cast in the original setting and thought to just work it out in post, but Bill's much better.
I 'm wondering what the original poster thinks about this?
L.

You know, Larry, I tried doing the same in post. In my hands, however, the footage always looked a bit "off", no matter how hard I adjusted hue, WB, or other things. Maybe I just have poor skills. For instance, I shot a lot of baseball games, and the grass field and foliage beyond the field always looked a sick blue-green (e.g., not a nice blue-green like Kentucky blue grass :) ). I just could not get rid of the blue cast entirely without making other parts of the image looking too reddish.

It is plain from the previous many pages of this thread that the OP was quite active and was adamant that TruColor gave no blue cast whatsoever. I got the feeling the OP felt that to the extent that a blue cast does exist on a given camera, however, then perhaps that camera needs calibration. His blog indicates that he does not have an A1, suggesting that this project was a one-off not to be visited again. Still, like you, I'd be interested in reading his thoughts.

Steve