A QUICK HISTORY

For most of the year I have been critical of the Leica M9’s strong blue tones. When the Leica M8 was released, it shipped with Capture One LE, which was a “lite” version of the Phase One’s Capture One raw editor software. Leica and Phase One tuned a color profile for the Leica M8 and Capture One LE shipped with two versions - one for images taken with IR filters and second profile for images shot without an IR filter. I was fairly please the Capture One profiles for the Leica M8. When Leica developed the S2, the Leica and Phase One relationship changed. Part of that change was the Leica M9 shipping with Adobe LightRoom instead Capture One. Long story short, I do no like the colors from LightRoom. It is very different than the Leica M8 look and the colors look dull, lifeless and muted (to my eyes). There is no “pop” and the color simply looks wrong.

Capture One does support the Leica M9; however, Capture One did not create a new color profile. Instead the “Leica M8 - Generic” profile was imply renamed to “Leica M9 - Generic”. You can prove to yourself by simply selecting those profiles for a M9 DNG and comparing them in C1. There is no difference colors... The lack effort of Capture One’s behalf pisses me off, but @#$% irony is, I like Capture One. I have been using it for years and feel quite at home with it. I am not saying Phase One set out to personally skrew me - but damn it, I do feel that way. Especially after spending $299 to upgrade 4.5 Pro and then getting popped another $99 for 5.0. Add in the original licenses from years past and it is alot of money, so I expect a better effort from Phase One.

Frustrated, I tried other editors including Aperture, LightRoom (2.61, 3.0 Beta and 3.2) and RAW Developer. LightRoom has already been discussed - phzzzzzzt! Aperture? Alot of interesting parameters there, but ultimately the color was not my taste. RAW Developer? I liked RAW Developer for the Leica M8, but for the Leica M9, they fell short. Plus, RAW Developer’s GUI is ancient and the workflow is out-dated. Hopefully the software engineers are hard at work on Version 2.0. They make a good product, but it is in desperate need of a make-over.

So it seems we are out of options...

THE CRUX  OF THE PROBLEM

The simple truth is - the Leica M9 still has IR leakage. In fact all digital cameras have some degree of IR leakage. Perhaps the Leica M9 is a bit more sensitive than the average dSLR, but nonetheless, the IR sensitivity is there. To mask the IR sensitive, I suspect the software engineers shifted certain ranges of reds and magentas towards the blue side. Also the Leica M9’s white balance is from another planet. It typically runs 300 to 500K cooler then Leica M8 and Canon 1Ds Mark III. If warming up the K value in Capture One, the colors tend to get distorted. Color profiles and white balance are intrinsically related, so unwinding a file’s white balance and color profile to remap the colors in another direction is delicate work. Frankly, it is more “art” than “science”. And out the outcome is more or less 100% personal preference with a healthy dose of trial and error.

DEVELOPING CUSTOM COLOR PROFILES

My approach is crude - a color chart, controlled studio lighting, a Leica M8.2, a Leica M9 - and hundreds of hours of tweaking colors via Capture One Pro’s color wheel. The goal was to make the M9 color mapping more similar to the Leica M8. This is an iterative process:  color charts aligned (RGB values compared), color edits saved, saved edits applied to real-world images, more color edits applied, color edits added to working profile and a new prototype profile created. This is done over and over again until a reasonably stable profile is produced. The difficult part is producing a profile that works well across a wide range K values - what looks good at 5000K can look like complete crap at 3400K or 7000K.

My first batch of color profiles are for landscapes in the 4500-6000K range. These profiles are not a-single-button-fix. They are intended to bring the image into a somewhat neutral color state and then colors can be amplified in C1 Pro and/or Photoshop. There are three profiles - 2A, 2B and 2C. They are progressive. 2A mostly reduces the cyan and turquoise blues and shifts the blue palette towards a more primary blue. 2A is the least radical of the three profiles. 2B is still somewhat neutral, the blues are the same as 2A, but some yellows area dded to warm up the image. Lastly, 2C is the most aggressive. Blues are just flat-out reduced, 2B’s yellows are still there AND some reds are added. 2A is my preferred profile, but if image looks somewhat lifeless with 2A applied, then try 2B and 2C to see if they work better.

INSTALLATION

Installing the profile is easy (I use a Mac). First, download the attached zipped file folder. It contains the three color profiles which need to be dragged into ColorSync Profiles folder. Capture One needs to be closed when dragging the files into the ColorSync Profile. I am assuming these profiles will be visible in the non-Pro version of C1, but I do not know for sure. I use the Pro version. Likewise, I do not know if these profile would work in Aperture, LightRoom or any other programs. They may, they may not - I have no idea how those programs organize their camera profiles, so try at your own risk. I do not own a PC, so PC owners will have dig around on their hard-drive to figure out where Capture One stores the custom ICC profiles.

PROFILE SELECTION

After the profiles have been added, now you can open C1 and select a M9 DNG. In the Quick Edit palette under Base Characteristics and the ICC Profile parameter, click the drop down a window will pop up. This shows all the C1 profiles and under “Generic” profile (which should be selected), my new profiles will be directly below and you can select any of them at will. I am using Phase One Capture One (C1) Version 5.2.1. I do not know of if color profiles will be visible in past versions such as 4.x or 4.5.x.

If you do not have Capture One, download a free demo from Phase One’s site and give it a shot.

DOWNLOAD LEICA M9 COLOR PROFILES