QPcard 203

Just received my QPcard 203 book

I had a bit of time this morning, and some artwork to copy (legally!), so put the QPcard to good use. The weather was nicely overcast, so I grabbed RAW reference images with the K5 and the Q at all ISO settings

Am incredibly pleased with the results - I produced a set of Lightroom profiles and the differences are sometimes subtle, but nonetheless worthwhile. Tried a set of flower and tree images too - lilacs and purples are much more "defined", greens are less 'icky' and warmer, light blues are richer. In fact, the scenes are much more like I remember them (though admittedly my colour memory is not that great). I'll certainly be using my profiles in favour of "AdobeStandard", that's for sure.

The QPcard.se website is helpful, but I feel there are a couple of things not spelled out enough (especially for first time users to colour management). So, I'll probably add a couple of extra bits here

Effectively you profile the camera with the QPcard - and that process is practically instantaneous.
Then, you need a decent grey point for each scene to get the white balance (and the card has that on there too - though any grey card will do).

More info and results to come later...

Matt

I've used QPCard 201 for sometime and went to order 203, but
when I went to checkout there were all kinds of addons such
as VAT and I think carriage so I cancelled.

Never heard of setting the WB from a grey card before I always
create a new profile from the 201 card.

-

I did the same originally... but decided to stump up the cash last week
(Happy I did )

The process is quite, quite different

The QPcard 201 (which I've had since 2005) works with their software to process a JPG and correct it for the scene.

The QPcard 203 is for digital camera profiling/calibration. It creates a profile file for Lightroom & ACR (and can do ICC files too) so that colour are accurately rendered. The white balance is a secondary process within the RAW program.

As I said, I'll do some more technie notes later
Matt

I forgot the 203 also does RAW. I'd be interested in seeing
your notes on it.

I may eventually buy the bigger card version rather than the book.

-

FWIW, Apparently the book is less reflective than the bigger card. So the book is more suited to photographing fine art (which is generally where I need the exact colour match) etc.

Although the 203 says you can do JPG as well, I'm not 100% sure how! It seems geared towards a RAW workflow (and much better for it, compared to the 201, IMHO).

I will take a little while since I'm trying also to see if there is any significant colour shifts in the K5 and Q through the ISO ranges. Initial examination looks good (which means I can use a single profile file). I'll then have to work out how much things shift when using different lighting...

Matt