How to get colors like this in ASP

[Kneops]

I'm visiting the Fuji 35mm flickr pool regularly and then I sometimes see images like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/theleestudio/16063768289/ or this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/theleestudio/15688287567/
For certain type of images (not model) I'm trying to get the same result, starting with Fuji raw files, but never succeed. The film simulations are pretty useless imho. Any idea how to get these kind of colors?

[grubernd]

there's quite a lot going on there. without the real profile you will only get so far.

here are some things i see:
black is not black.
greens have a shift towards blue.
lighter colors: magenta shift
shadows: one image shifts towards yellow, the other towards blue/magenta.
orange is muted.

i use the color equalizer for these kind of things, with the exception for black (Blacks tool or curves), and the general colorshifts in high/mid/shadow, which are best created with the Curves tool.

put a bunch of test images into one folder and play, play, play.
prepare for a lot of fiddling until you get a look you like.

[ferdinand-paris]

Bibble used to have different look profiles, e.g. portrait, but these were dropped when ASP was released with a new colour management engine that didn't support them. The ICC profiles behind each supported camera are now embedded in the exe, so there's no longer the opportunity to play with these or add to them. Other RAW converters do give you this opportunity and/or have a range of look profiles. LR does a reasonable job of supporting camera manufacturer in-camera look profiles, plus I think you can add your own. Capture One doesn't provide much in the way of support for in-camera look profiles, but it's easy to add additional ICCs.

These ICCs are in effect alternative calibrations, and as I said, you can't change these or add to them. But people also created packages of alternative renderings that simply use the settings and controls for the RAW converter. There are plenty of these around for other converters, but nothing that I've seen for ASP. Too small a user base and it would be a brave person to invest the time and effort given the history of the past few years. But as Gruber said, if you're willing to invest the time and experiment you should be able to roughly replicate most effects. If you find a combination of settings you like then you can save it as a preset.

[Kneops]

I hadn't played before with the color sliders in the equalizer. Indeed a lot of work to get some common film profiles.
So there is no way in ASP to import existing ICC's. That's a shame

[afx]

So there is no way in ASP to import existing ICC's. That's a shame

You have to look into the right place...
Check the Color Management tool.

cheers
afx

[ferdinand-paris]

Check the Color Management tool.

I confess I wasn't aware of this (obviously). Is this new or has it been there for a while?

So if you use this approach to have to remember to change this setting when you change to a different camera, is that right?

[afx]

Check the Color Management tool.

I confess I wasn't aware of this (obviously). Is this new or has it been there for a while?

It's been there since B5
Basically an alternative profile load for the built in one.
You could custom profile your cam and use that.
I've experimented with this as I describe the method for making custom profiles in ASG, but for most people I would not go through the hassles, as the shipped profiles have various manual tweaks.
But for a studio shooter with a constant environment or people with special requirements, it can be quite useful.

So if you use this approach to have to remember to change this setting when you change to a different camera, is that right?

Set it up in your camera specific defaults.

cheers
afx

[ferdinand-paris]

There's someone who has posted some profiles on DPReview that roughly replicate the Fuji film simulations for Capture One, so I guess you could do something similar for ASP. They're not hard to create with the right tools, and they're a bit easier to add in C1. Right now, with the state of play of ASP, I'm not sure that I'd bother. And I'm not sure what ASP is expecting here, as the C1 profiles don't work in ASP, i.e. you get a very dark image. So I wonder how you create ICCs that work as expected.

[grubernd]

I hadn't played before with the color sliders in the equalizer. Indeed a lot of work to get some common film profiles.
So there is no way in ASP to import existing ICC's. That's a shame

well, you are so right. that's why different films have so distinctive properties.
if you want to see what's really going on
shoot a simple colorchart - even printing one yourself will help.
shoot that chart straight and then let it run through
any filter/profile/software combo you want to explore.
compare the straight output and the processed one and voilá
you get a feel of how much is going on.
mind: profiles are three-dimensional blobs of color that behave more like goo
rather than a linear slider. supercomplex stuff to imagine.

one thing you should remember, though:
a lot of those looks simulate the analog days.
and while the engineers were real masters
they didnt build the films with that particular look in mind,
but the look was the result of a lot of chemical/processing/production compromises.
something a lot of the analog-fanboys forget:
it's not a perfect world but just the least bad they could manage.

i prefer to use modern days digital tools instead of feature-deprived simulations.

which doesnt mean i prohibit myself from being inspired by historic materials and methods,
after all i learned to take pictures with them.

happy color-tinkering. =)

[edit for grammatic/logic errors]

[afx]

And I'm not sure what ASP is expecting here, as the C1 profiles don't work in ASP, i.e. you get a very dark image. So I wonder how you create ICCs that work as expected.

There is a bug in linear mode which requires a two stop boost.
But for a regular profile I don't remember need an additional exposure adjustment.

cheers
afx

[grubernd]

There's someone who has posted some profiles on DPReview that roughly replicate the Fuji film simulations for Capture One, so I guess you could do something similar for ASP. They're not hard to create with the right tools, and they're a bit easier to add in C1. Right now, with the state of play of ASP, I'm not sure that I'd bother. And I'm not sure what ASP is expecting here, as the C1 profiles don't work in ASP, i.e. you get a very dark image. So I wonder how you create ICCs that work as expected.

the problem is that currently you *replace* the camera profile in ASP with your own.
that means your profile needs to contain the original profiling plus the tweaks for the look you are after.

best solution would if someone would write a plugin with an extra profile stage.
taking the image right after it leaves the internal ASP profile stage.
converting the good colors with a custom-look profile.
then the other tools get the tweaked colors and just do their work.

that's how oldschool C1 - very early 21st century - did the look-profiling.
back then you couldnt change the sensor/camera profile.
dunno how they do it now.

[ferdinand-paris]

i prefer to use modern days digital tools instead of feature-deprived simulations.

Amen to that!!! +100

the problem is that currently you *replace* the camera profile in ASP with your own.
that means your profile needs to contain the original profiling plus the tweaks for the look you are after.

After reading all this, I'm still not sure what sort of profile that ASP is expecting in the option that AFX pointed to, and how to create it. He made it sound straight-forward, but it sounds like it isn't. I don't have any active interest in doing so, my interest is mostly academic.

But this is mostly irrelevant to the OP. The look he is probably hoping to replicate probably wasn't created using a built-in look profile or an ICC profile, it was probably created by tweaking the sliders in some converter or other. I think that his best chance of success is one of those VSCO presets (yuk!), but I don't imagine they make them for ASP.

[afx]

After reading all this, I'm still not sure what sort of profile that ASP is expecting in the option that AFX pointed to, and how to create it. He made it sound straight-forward, but it sounds like it isn't. I don't have any active interest in doing so, my interest is mostly academic.

It is a replacement for the built in profile, not an add-on.
So yes, not really useful for the OP.

I do have a large collection of presets since the B5 days...
Attached is a tarball.
Maybe something in there is a useful base.

cheers
afx