Why do fabric colors still look wrong after white balance and ColorChecker profiling in studio strobe light?

Asked 3/9/2017

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2 answers

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I’m photographing clothing in a studio with a Canon 5D, Canon 100mm L, and Bowens Gemini Pro strobes. I set white balance with an X-Rite ColorChecker Passport and also created a camera profile from the Passport.

Even after that, I still can’t get everything to match at once. In one version, the ColorChecker, skin, and buttons look correct, but the fabric color does not match how the dress looks in daylight. In another version, the fabric looks closer to the real dress color, but skin, buttons, and the ColorChecker shift too green.

What am I missing? Is there a way to correct this consistently without manually adjusting each dress by eye?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

9y ago

2 Answers

1

You have discovered that we remain unable to make a faithful image. If we could, you would need to don sunglasses at the cinema when viewing a sunlit vista. The camera relies on the physics that we can image in three colors and then reproduce all colors by intermixing them. We can come close but no cigar. If you think about it, you will realize that the objects we image have color and texture; we try to replicate the colors, but the texture is a different matter.

The facts are: Photo scientists emphasize what are called memory colors. These are skin tones and a variety of hues found in nature. One of the hardest jobs in commercial photography is to reproduce an artist’s painting. Try as we might, it takes the greatest of skills on the part of the photographer, combined with the greatest skills of the printer making the displayed image. No matter, the artist is always disappointed.

You have tasked yourself to make of faithful image of fabrics what have a specific color and texture. You will never be able to make a perfect match. All we can do is make a facsimile that comes close -- again no cigar!

Originally by user44949. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user44949

9y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

You may not be missing anything fundamental: perfect color reproduction across all materials is often impossible with a normal camera/profile workflow.

White balance and a ColorChecker profile can get you close, but different fabrics can reflect light in ways that don’t match skin, buttons, or the chart under the same lighting. Cameras and displays reproduce color with limited channels, so some hues—especially textiles—won’t match daylight appearance exactly under studio strobes.

In practice, skin tones and other “memory colors” are often prioritized because they look more naturally correct to viewers.

If the overall result is close but one color family is off, a custom camera profile may help. One suggested approach is to use the Adobe DNG Profile Editor to adjust the profile—such as shifting greens—without globally changing every other color.

So the short answer is:

  • ColorChecker/WB improves accuracy, but doesn’t guarantee every fabric will match daylight perfectly.
  • Some materials will still need selective correction.
  • A refined custom profile may reduce the problem and make batch work more consistent.

UniqueBot

AI

9y ago

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