I believe the color checker chart needs to be scanned or photographed together with the color you are matching for it to work.
Floquil Railroad Colors Lacquer and Enamel Paint Survey
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I believe the color checker chart needs to be scanned or photographed together with the color you are matching for it to work.
VFX Freak
Sr Member
I agree. I think it would be easiest if the color checker were in the scan with every paint-chip chart. I color corrected the X-Rite color checker using a Curves layer and the black, grey, and white-point sampler tools. But it's not easy in Photoshop to copy that correction to the image of the paint tests. It can be done as an action, but it would be simplest, I think, and more bullet-proof to have the reference in every scan.
Oops, I spoke too soon. You can copy the adjustment layer from the corrected color chart to the paint image pretty easily:
With the adjustment layer active, go to Layer > Duplicate Layer and in the Destination > Document : drop down, choose the 'other' image file and click OK.
And when I'd done all that I got Pantone 484C for Caboose Red, which is even further off than the original. Hummph.
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Yes, Zenwalker is correct...as I understand it, the color chart must be scanned with the exact same scanner and the same scan settings as the original paint chips, then the two are color adjusted together in order to match the colors properly.
After color adjusting the paint chips using the color checker I also get Pantone 484C for Caboose Red...just as VFX Freak is getting, so at least we are adjusting correctly
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When I go thru all of the color libraries to find the nearest match for each color I get much better matches using the TRUMATCH or sometimes the FOCOLTONE systems, does anyone have experience with these color systems? I think the PANTONE system is rather limited, just not enough color variation to get a proper match.
I guess if your system was completely color calibrated and your printer also color calibrated to your system, you could (in theory) then print high quality photos of the color samples and use those to find paint matches.
VFX Freak
Sr Member
My system is completely calibrated (Gretag MacBeth system to calibrate the monitor and printer and generate custom printing profiles for each type of paper.) and I printed out the red paint chart with my Epson 3800 on Epson matte and luster paper. The luster looked a lot better and the next step is for me to paint a test chip with the Floquil Caboose Red and see how close it is to the print out.
Like Imurme I got a much better color match in the Trumatch color library, but I don't know anything about Trumatch so it's time for Google...
Wow! Great work on this.
I think you are the right track and these color chips will be indispensable to a lot of us who are after accurate colors for their builds.
Color corrected scans of the paint chips and color chart in the same scan for each set seems to the way to go.
Thanks very much for doing these! And great paint collection you have there!
I think you are the right track and these color chips will be indispensable to a lot of us who are after accurate colors for their builds.
Color corrected scans of the paint chips and color chart in the same scan for each set seems to the way to go.
Thanks very much for doing these! And great paint collection you have there!
VFX Freak
Sr Member
Thanks, -... . .- --..
Great to have all that information! And I have severe workbench envy. So much real estate! I've got pretty much the same tools, materials, and methods, so that should make it easier to match colors.
So just to clarify, the Floquil paints, up until the time Testors bought them, were all Lacquer based? (That would explain some of my headaches as a kid and the resulting lost brain cells!) I've been using Testors enamel thinner with Floquil's retarder to thin my Floquil paints and it's worked well, but I have some Mr. Color Leveling thinner and will have to give it a shot.
I'll put in another vote for uncorrected scans with the color chart in each scan. No need for you to do any more work than you're already doing that way, and we all know what we're getting.
Again, well done and thank you!
Great to have all that information! And I have severe workbench envy. So much real estate! I've got pretty much the same tools, materials, and methods, so that should make it easier to match colors.
So just to clarify, the Floquil paints, up until the time Testors bought them, were all Lacquer based? (That would explain some of my headaches as a kid and the resulting lost brain cells!) I've been using Testors enamel thinner with Floquil's retarder to thin my Floquil paints and it's worked well, but I have some Mr. Color Leveling thinner and will have to give it a shot.
I'll put in another vote for uncorrected scans with the color chart in each scan. No need for you to do any more work than you're already doing that way, and we all know what we're getting.
Again, well done and thank you!
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^^ Agreed.
This works absolutely perfectly!! It could not be better done, and I know everyone is going to find these super useful for finding Floquil color matches and what ever they may need samples of these colors for...
For my part in this endeavor I would like to give a little tutorial on how best to color correct these using Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom (but the same techniques could also be adapted to other programs)...
[EDIT] This technique is not ideal, for a MUCH better way to color correct see the following posts by stonky
First in Photoshop:
Open the image showing the color chips and X-rite ColorChecker you wish to adjust.
Create an adjustment layer above the image layer.
Then using the Curves Set Gray Point sample picker (the center one between the black and white pickers) sample a neutral gray point on the ColorChecker (I marked them in the image below)...you need to use a neutral gray to get the white balance for the image correct (don't use the white or black as they may cause the image to be too blown out)
...And that should do it!!
The same thing can be done using a Levels adjustment layer instead of the Curves if you so desire...you follow the same procedure as before using the Levels Set Gray Point picker...
Now using Adobe Lightroom...it's pretty much the same thing, just that you are now going to use the White Balance Selector located in the Basic options tab, then pick the neutral gray point...
Then you can use the images as needed knowing that the image is now color correct...Pretty easy stuff!
Hope that is helpful to others for getting the white balance (color) corrected images on there system
Thank you again for taking the effort to put these on here for us all to gain from!!
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Hmmmm..... using a single square to correct for a "grey point" won't necessarily make any adjustment to and correct for the input device's native response curve, will it? If I had my druthers, I'd love to get a raw (ie. NEF, CRW) photograph perpendicular to the paint samples alongside the chart under flat light conditions. Short of that, I'd use curves to correct each grey square against their accepted (debatable) SRGB values until they all fall into line.
Vacformedhero
Sr Member
**** laymens terms, DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH ?
If someone can give us a 1,2,3... step process in PS on how to color correct this that would be ideal.
Hey there stonky, I am the first to admit that I do not know all of the in's & out's of color correction, but what we need is a simple way to color correct the TIFF images that are being offered (lets assume that this is all we can get for now)...so what would be the best step by step way to correct these images, as is? I am open to any better way, I was just trying to show a simple way that worked for me...
You mentioned correcting each of the grey squares against their accepted SRGB values until they fall in line with those, so how can we do that exactly? Do you have these SRGB values? Let's agree on some simple repeatable procedure that we all can use, then we can all be sure to be getting the same results.
Also, not to be argumentative, just to understand this better, is not scanning these paint chips and color chart about as close to perpendicular you can get? I mean it is sitting on a perfectly flat surface directly facing the scan head, yes? And I would think that using the scanners white spectrum LED's that move across the surface of the image evenly as about as flat a light source as you can achieve? Am I totally off here?
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Not to you I don't.
Yeah, the scanner gives us a nice perpendicular angle to the colors but the images aren't in a raw format - most of the software tools that'll let us make a profile automatically want raw images for their fidelity, etc. One of the main purposes of the chart is to allow you to "profile" the input device (scanner, in this case), otherwise you could just use a grey card if you only want to correct for white balance. We're using the chart to remove whatever secret sauce the scanner is using to record and interpret the colors when it takes the picture.
There's a bunch of resources online that take a bunch of charts and averages their colors to try to eliminate even the slight differences between charts, here's one:
Here are the RGB values for each of the "grey" square in the above image, dark to light:
50 50 51
83 85 85
120 121 121
161 161 162
201 202 202
245 245 240
So if you're doing this manually probably the best way to do it is to use photoshop's curves to match each greyscale square's values. Here's what I got after some quick fiddling:
If you open the curves tool you'll see an icon that looks like a hand with up and down arrows:
Press it - this will allow you to eyedrop over the color square in the chart image that you want to change, click and hold, and drag up and down until the new "Output" value in the curves window matches what you want it to be:
You'll see that after you get to the value that you want and you let go that there'll be a new point on the curve, in a new position. You have to do red, green, and blue separately, and do all the squares. I went through and did all the red, then all the green, and then all the blue, probably the quickest way - just change the "Channel" option in the curves window to red, make your corrections, then to green, make your corrections, and so on. Here' s what the curves looked like when I was done:
If anyone has a better way, great, please share.
That said, I'm happy to do them all and then post my results as -... . .- --.. continues to kindly post scans. Thanks again -... . .- --.., you rock!
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Vacformedhero
Sr Member
Tut tut, you didn't get the sci-fi joke........Event Horizon
-... . .- --..
Sr Member
Thanks guys, again more than happy to help.
And please do keep posting this kind of technical detail about how you're color-correcting these on your systems. It helps me a ton because it lets me be a bit lazy about that aspect of this stuff now, but when I do get some time to tweak these on my own system it'll be easier knowing I can use the same techniques that you guys have.
And stonky, your color-corrected version of my first red card actually looks really good on my system...much, much better than my own ham-handed attempts at color-correcting these. For example, the Zinc Chromate Primer looks more "brown" to my eye on the card I painted, but looks a bit more "red" when I scan it. Your color corrected version looks much closer to what I'm seeing with my own eyes. Thanks!
And please do keep posting this kind of technical detail about how you're color-correcting these on your systems. It helps me a ton because it lets me be a bit lazy about that aspect of this stuff now, but when I do get some time to tweak these on my own system it'll be easier knowing I can use the same techniques that you guys have.
And stonky, your color-corrected version of my first red card actually looks really good on my system...much, much better than my own ham-handed attempts at color-correcting these. For example, the Zinc Chromate Primer looks more "brown" to my eye on the card I painted, but looks a bit more "red" when I scan it. Your color corrected version looks much closer to what I'm seeing with my own eyes. Thanks!
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