Photo Colour Analysis Software Recommendations?

[KenO]

Am interested in recommendations concerning colour analysis software that will give a specific number for a selected colour area from a digital photo.

Thanks

Ken

[chauncey]

Peruse this site and their products...http://www.xrite.com/

[Polar01]

Ken if you use Adobe Photoshop or Elements or similar product. All you should do is open the info box, use colour picker, place on colour and it will give you a reading in R#,G#, B# you can also get is as C#,M#, Y#, K# where # is a value.

Cheers: Allan

[ajohnw]

Just search colour sniffer possibly with US spelling and you will find there are a number on the web. They can be handy for scanning the web for shades and will generally function over your entire desktop.

John
-

[IzzieK]

What do you use, John? Just interested.

Just search colour sniffer possibly with US spelling and you will find there are a number on the web. They can be handy for scanning the web for shades and will generally function over your entire desktop.

John
-

[ajohnw]

What do you use, John? Just interested.

It's a subject that causes me a lot of irritation Izzie. There are lots about for windows and probably mac too. Not much for Linux. When needed I use Gpick but it's not ideal. It's intended for producing colour pallets so while I can get hsv, hsl,rgb cmyk, lab and lch it doesn't do it directly as I hover over things. I have to click it and it adds the colour to a pallet and then click on that. It's here for windows too.

https://code.google.com/p/gpick/

The bells and whistles are not really needed for my use but at least it gives full info. I do find it useful at times. I've played around looking for tones in web images and then trying to apply them to shots. Mixed results at the moment but ....

John
-

[xpatUSA]

Am interested in recommendations concerning colour analysis software that will give a specific number for a selected colour area from a digital photo.

Thanks

Ken

Welcome, Ken.

Have a look at ImageJ which has lots of functions that I haven't used yet. That might be one of them. Then there's ShowImage. Both freebies.

Not sure what you meant by "a specific number"? Number of colors - or a color number (code) or what?

[xpatUSA]

I've played around looking for tones in web images and then trying to apply them to shots. Mixed results at the moment but ....

John
-

Yes, I used a screen color picker for a while but found that it shows just that, a screen color. When that color is put into an image file on my computer and then displayed - you get what the file .icc profile says plus whatever the monitor profile says and that combination rarely matches what you measured in the first place

OT, but some editor color pickers show what's on the screen (i.e. RGB numbers change if you change the working color space) and others show the numbers in the editor working file which do not change with working color space.

[KenO]

Thanks everyone for all your comments!

Will try to answer your questions.

Am looking for a software only "color picker" but want it to display a number for a specific area of the digital photo which does not change with working color space.

Can anyone tell me if Adobe Photoshop or Elements, ImageJ or ShowImage do this?

Did quick Google search using "editor color pickers" and also added reviews but did not find any reviews or comparison charts.

Did find ImageJ... http://download.cnet.com/ImageJ/3000...tml#full-specs

"The LUT Editor (Image>Color>Edit LUT) displays the ending index in the status bar as the user drags to select a range.
LUT Editor color pickers no longer move the green and blue sliders when the red slider is moved."

Tried to find a wiki about "LUT Editor color pickers" but to date nothing. Appreciate comments.

Thanks

Ken

[xpatUSA]

[QUOTE=KenO;462989]Thanks everyone for all your comments![quote]

You have duplicate posts. You can delete one after clicking on the "Go Advanced" button . .

Am looking for a software only "color picker" but want it to display a number for a specific area of the digital photo which does not change with working color space.

Your "display a number for a specific area" shows a lack of understanding of how pickers work and is still rather vague. The only "area" of an image that pickers work on is one pixel, i.e. an area of 1x1 pixels.

Can anyone tell me if Adobe Photoshop or Elements, ImageJ or ShowImage do this?

Elements 6 does it and probably PhotoShop. ImageJ and ShowImage do not have optional working spaces because they are not editors - all they do is analyse existing images. (ImageJ can actually apply some image adjustments but that is not your purpose, I believe).

RawTherapee changes picker values when the working space is changed.

Did quick Google search using "editor color pickers" and also added reviews [to the search string] but did not find any reviews or comparison charts.

Did find ImageJ... http://download.cnet.com/ImageJ/3000...tml#full-specs

"The LUT Editor (Image>Color>Edit LUT) displays the ending index in the status bar as the user drags to select a range.
LUT Editor color pickers no longer move the green and blue sliders when the red slider is moved."

Tried to find a wiki about "LUT Editor color pickers" but to date nothing. Appreciate comments.

I've never used that function but I'm almost certain that it is not what you're looking for.

[KenO]

xpatUSA,

Thanks for the delete instructions.

"Your "display a number for a specific area" shows a lack of understanding of how pickers work and is still rather vague. The only "area" of an image that pickers work on is one pixel, i.e. an area of 1x1 pixels."

Agree I do lack an understanding of how they work but would like to learn. Do you have any links to tutorials...

To date have done some searches and found "Get Colors from Image (BETA)" http://html-color-codes.info/colors-from-image/ and it has 9x9 pixels area.

Also found "IMAGECOLORPICKER.COM" http://imagecolorpicker.com/ and some other Internet sites but would like an app that I can use off line on my old Windows XP PC.

Thanks again for your help.

Ken

[xpatUSA]

xpatUSA,

Agree I do lack an understanding of how they work but would like to learn. Do you have any links to tutorials...

I don't know of any tutorials that address the subject of color-pickin' specifically, sorry

To date have done some searches and found "Get Colors from Image (BETA)" http://html-color-codes.info/colors-from-image/ and it has 9x9 pixels area.

Now that picker does appear to take the average of the 9x9 area so, if that's what you wanted, then you have found it, by golly! Do however please note that there are yellow, brown, orange, red pixels in the sample - so the average RGB number D2 3E 1D (hex numbers, google hex to decimal conversion to see normal RGB numbers) may be of little help to you in some activities.

Also found "IMAGECOLORPICKER.COM" http://imagecolorpicker.com/ and some other Internet sites but would like an app that I can use off line on my old Windows XP PC.

Played with that one and it looks like a single pixel picker.

[KenO]

xpatUSA,

"ImageJ can actually apply some image adjustments but that is not your purpose, I believe" This may be helpful, will try to clarify.

Asked the color picker question because I have been unsuccessful in color matching similar landscape photos taken with different digital cameras.

Hope to have better results by choosing 1 photo as reference and taking measurements of key areas common to all the photos and then match the other photos using these measurements so "single pixel pickers" would seem to be the best. Does everyone agree?

If anyone knows of software that can do this am interested!

Also since I am a beginner would appreciate any suggestions concerning color matching photos made with different digital cameras.

Did some forum searches using "colour matching photos" Search Titles only but only got "The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search"

Does anyone know of previous posts about this subject?

Thanks

Ken

[KenO]

Since last post Googled using same key words and found "How to fix white balance in your photos"
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/pho...-photos-973511 "the colour picker tool also exists in Google Picasa, which is free and straightforward, as well as in GIMP, which is free, feature-packed and powerful."

Has anyone tried color matching photos with either of these apps?

Ken

[xpatUSA]

xpatUSA,

"ImageJ can actually apply some image adjustments but that is not your purpose, I believe" This may be helpful, will try to clarify.

Asked the color picker question because I have been unsuccessful in color-matching similar landscape photos taken with different digital cameras.

I'll stick my neck out and say that that is an extremely difficult goal and would welcome opinions from anybody else on that subject. As a matter of fact, it's worthy of a separate thread but posed as a question "can similar landscape photos taken with different digital cameras be color-matched in post?".

Hope to have better results by choosing 1 photo as reference and taking measurements of key areas common to all the photos and then match the other photos using these measurements so "single pixel pickers" would seem to be the best.

What would you consider a key area to be? How would you actually measure an area of many pixels with a "single pixel picker"?

If anyone [else] knows of software that can do this am interested!

Also, since I am a beginner, would appreciate any suggestions concerning color-matching photos made with different digital cameras.

As shown in my previous, unacknowledged post #12, the 9x9px picker that you found seems suited to your purpose.

Does anyone [else] know of previous posts about this subject?

Sorry, I've gone as far as I can in this discussion. Good luck with the search . . .

[ajohnw]

If the OP really wants to produce near identical shots from different cameras the only option really will be camera calibration. A web search should come up with various methods of doing that. It can be done cheaply with a console application called Argyll CMS. A command line application. An appropriate calibration chart to photograph is needed as well. Their site suggests a good source of those as they really need to be fresh if colour accuracy is needed as well

Without it a colour picker probably wont help. There is too much variation on even areas that have the same apparent colour.

Many PP packages have the facility to alter RGB balances but I wish the OP luck with that. It isn't an easy thing to do and probably takes an awful lot of practice and truly excellent colour vision.

John
-

[xpatUSA]

Since last post Googled using same key words and found "How to fix white balance in your photos"
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/pho...-photos-973511 "the colour picker tool also exists in Google Picasa, which is free and straightforward, as well as in GIMP, which is free, feature-packed and powerful."

Has anyone tried color matching photos with either of these apps?

Ken

No, I have not. Picasa is too simple for your purposes, not recommended. GIMP has a steep learning curve but is well-suited, by the sound of it. PhotoShop Elements is also very capable but costs money. RawTherapee would suit you, too, but it's pretty technical.

As far as I know, trying to "color-match" photos is not a common post-processing practice. Clicking on an area that is supposed to be neutral (R=G=B) is very common indeed but the intent is to color-balance a single image, not to color-match it to another.

An exception is perhaps where you take a series of shots of the same scene on the same day and at the same time and with no change in lighting. Now say your first shot had an incorrect WB setting but you set the WB correctly for the rest. Then, it could be said that correcting the color balance of the first image in post is "matching" it to the rest.

[chauncey]

I have been unsuccessful in color matching similar landscape photos taken with different digital cameras

This statement tells me that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how those different digital
cameras process images. I am assuming that these images have a jpeg file name and as such, each
camera manufacturer has different integrated software instructions for processing it's jpeg images.

Camera manufacturer A's image will not match with manufacturer B's image, they all have subtle
differences in appearances. I know of no software that will automatically match-up those differences.

On the other hand, should you have access to the RAW files...running them thru most RAW converters
will enable you to "balance" the RGB numbers to get the same "look".

[ajohnw]

This statement tells me that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how those different digital
cameras process images. I am assuming that these images have a jpeg file name and as such, each
camera manufacturer has different integrated software instructions for processing it's jpeg images.

Camera manufacturer A's image will not match with manufacturer B's image, they all have subtle
differences in appearances. I know of no software that will automatically match-up those differences.

On the other hand, should you have access to the RAW files...running them thru most RAW converters
will enable you to "balance" the RGB numbers to get the same "look".

I think there is a need to go deeper than that WM due to the debayering process itself which averages blocks of coloured pixels amongst other things.

John
-

[xpatUSA]

Picasa is too simple for your purposes, not recommended. GIMP has a steep learning curve but is well-suited, by the sound of it. PhotoShop Elements is also very capable but costs money. RawTherapee would suit you, too, but it's pretty technical.

Ken, it may be that RawTherapee is what you're looking for. Consider a scene of a white cottage in a grass field under a blue sky. Change the color balance in any of those and all of the dominant colors (blue, white, green) will be changed. However, RawTherapee has a function called the "HSV Equalizer". With this function, you can change a color (H), it's saturation (S) or it's brightness (V) without changing any others! I believe you can have a reference picture up and alter the victim at the same time - and RawTherapee always keeps your original image unchanged, just in case.

I'm off to show an example which I will post later . .