X-Rite ColorChecker Classic

For folks that want to get into photography as an artist or a career and wonder additional tools they would need to go with their camera and lenses, well, look no further. For the art photographer...maybe?? You got to give it to Xrite to eliminate the guess work of accurate colors and temperature, during shoots and in post! Although a bit of a pain in the a$$, once you get used to the set-up and workflow, it's pretty easy to use. The price may seem steep for most, but with it's professional and slight tactical appeal with rugged weather resistant construction, you'll easily realize you don't have to bust out that old janky, paint swatch covered, DIY calibration board you made from Home Depot parts and thought it was a great idea to use for a Bridal shoot, again. Those days are over and with this, you'll thank yourself for the investment well spent. This pack also have a white and grey cards included, which is great for video and even to calibrate your white balance on your camera. I even use this with my camera phone. It's great for bloggers to do a quick 5 - 10 second clip of them holding the ColorChecker Passport flashing all sides if they're on location and in fairly consistent lighting conditions, like on an over cast day. So much stuff on Youtube avail to watch on how to use this valuable tool in your photography. Most of us now have a nice bit of extra cash in our pockets, technically making this very affordable. Of course, I must say, this will only improve the color accuracy to a specific standard, for the sake of accuracy and consistency in their true visual representations. So, if your interested in industry work, such as, but not limited to; Product Photography, Hair Color Photography, Beauty, Fashion, Nature, even Reference Photography for 3D projects, or any type of photography where accurate colors are critical, this is the tool for you. It will make color matching and white balance less of a challenge. All of that being said, it really comes down with usage. Art Photography, by the very nature of it, open-ended to interpretation by the artist (photographer), colors can be manipulated to fit a certain tone and emotion created by the artists vision. I guess if you needed accurate colors to have a good foundation to start with, especially if the imagery were grouped together and you want to stay consistent to a theme, then this may be a good investment for you. What this product cannot do is make you a better photographer if you are not using it.

Paraphrasing that beer commercial, I must admit that I do not use this product for all my photography, but when I have to have faithful color reproduction, I do rely on this X-Rite ColorChecker. When used as instructed, it does its magic, saving hours of fiddling with sliders and ensuring the colors of the final output stay true to the subject. So if you do product photography, digitize color documents for archival purposes, care about skin tone in portraiture, or want to preserve the nuances of, say, the most delicate hue gradations of flower petals, please do yourself a favor and get one. The ColorChecker book is well made and feels as solid as a product made out of plastic can feel. Opening and closing it could have been smoother, though. Also, it does make quite loud sounds, making me freak out and double-check that I have not broken anything. The last gripe I have is with Lightroom workflow: once you have run X-Rite ColorChecker Camera Calibration software, Lightroom has to be restarted. Otherwise, it won't see the newly generated camera profile. I wish X-Rite and Adobe could talk to each other and find a solution. I am attaching a sample photo I took with Sony 7RM3. Hopefully, even after Amazon's recompression, the differences will translate. They are definitely there in my original image: subtle yet noticeable.

The passport is the perfect size to take with you on a shoot. The software that accompanies it (must be downloaded after registration) works perfectly. Be sure to get a good, close up shot of your passport with your actual lighting setup. If the passport is too small in the photo it will not automatically detect it. (You can crop and adjust manually) I used this passport on canvas art in a gallery setting. The colors matched perfectly. Best purchase for smaller projects. If you do large items, you may want to go with the larger sheet.

For the longest time I could not understand the reason a tool like this was needed. I thought it was nothing but a fancy way of doing white balances which I was already doing. Boy was I ever wrong! I tried this for the first time recently on an ocean portrait shoot. In post I added the custom calibration and suddenly the colors exploded with vibrance and accuracy. This after struggling with color correction of the skin in Camera Raw for a long time. My photos have never looked better! So in a nutshell this thing if used properly will make your images more vibrant while making the entire color correction process much easier. The skin was instantly perfect. The gear I was using to get these results were the Sony A7R IV and 135mm G-Master. If you do professional photography run do not walk to buy this!

This item, traditionally used as a reference target in photography for reproduction and more, has a long and distinguished history. X-Rite bought this industry standard target card from Macbeth, or more precisely, Gretag-Macbeth Inc. as part of the buyout. Some might recognize it in a much smaller scale as one part of the three targets which help comprise all three card and software combinations marketed as X-Rite ColorChecker Passport bundles. If you wish to have any hope of beginning to manage your color you must calibrate your display and all devices connected to it including output devices like printers and each type of paper. That requires an accepted industry standard target, a measuring device and appropriate calibrating software. If you are a photographer or designer involved in the reproduction of photographic color that will be all old hat. If you shoot RAW files, you will particularly appreciate the difference it can make. If controlling color in your work in general is what you want--we all need it--I encourage you to learn as much as you can because this target card is only the beginning. It is one simple part of a system that is as basic as it gets. If you are serious about color for publication or exhibition printing, you must trust what you see under controlled conditions, according to graphic arts conventions in order to make quick, precise judgements. We need an education to become sufficiently knowledgeable to color correct our photographs according to industry standards. By that I mean standardized conventions that are independent of any one user's preferences or personal opinions. It is in the sharing of such conventions that allows meaningful communication about color with other professionals who also adopt national standards. Otherwise what we do on our own is arbitrary. Admittedly, millions of people prefer to work just that way including some professionals. However, from a practical perspective, working without color management tends to waste a lot of time, materials and money. Most compelling of all, it produces both unpredictable and disappointing color results. This target is not self-sufficient. It is important and necessary but it is just one component. For example, I bought this in addition to already owning a ColorChecker Passport bundle because as convenient as the small case of targets is (that fits into a pants pocket) I can get more accurate readings from a larger target. That is true because my cameras can be further away from the target with a variety of lenses. For a simple example, by coming too close to the target I may distort the color recorded by a color cast that bounces off of my coat or shirt. When you step back to make your photographs it is highly unlikely it is still close enough to bounce that color cast onto your subject. The whole point here is to make a target that receives the same color that reaches your subject for any one set of light condition's profile with a specific camera and lens. Yes, if you own lenses of different manufactures, the color will sufficiently vary that it will be perceivable to the untrained eye. Your applications and clients may require different latitudes and standards. Bigger does not always have to be better. Some combinations of circumstances make this much larger target necessary for me. Your needs and lighting conditions may be different. Regardless of its size, the ColorChecker chart needs to be photographed large enough to be read using X-Rite Passport's software on your (hopefully) recently calibrated display. Unlike creating your display calibration or paper profiles you will not need a peripheral device, a color spectrometer, in order to read the color. By creating a profile for your specific camera you will get superior results, greater consistency and predictable color under any number of lighting conditions. If your lighting conditions vary and they will outside of the studio, or if you want to calibrate the camera with a polarizing filter on it, you will need to make individual profiles. And obviously if you have multiple cameras, each needs to be done. I reduced the rating by one star for the poor manufacturing quality, the excessive flexibility of the card backing. It is inadequate. These precisely controlled, silkscreened patches are mounted to a backing board, that in Macbeth's day, was far less susceptible to bending. The solution is not difficult nor expensive. X-Rite is simply counterproductively frugal. That is not a superficial complaint. You want to be able to photograph all patches on exactly the same plane, meaning a flat surface to avoid differences in densities, hue, saturation and avoid differences in the ratios and direction of light sources both original and bounced. Consequently, I have made my own, more substantial backing to remedy this. When one pays $60 to $70 for one page sized card without any software, I resent fixing X-Rite's unnecessary problem that it could have solved for pennies. Macbeth did. There is no excuse, X-Rite. I complain but I am still grateful to have such targets. Most folks will be perfectly satisfied with the basic X-Rite MSCCPP ColorChecker Passport , which includes a pocket sized ColorChecker, two other targets as well as software. That is clearly a better deal. In any case, whatever you use, get your color under control for less stressful work and better, repeatable results.

This works. It is big and unwieldy in the field, but manageable. It is perfect for creating ICC profiles for cameras and scanners and is the only approved solution for creating lightroom calibration profiles. It is not as convenient as a whibal or other greycard, but if used it does give you a whole lot more calibration options. I don't have a good way to carry it since it is too big for my photobags, but all in all it is sturdy and heavy duty and seems to take the abuse it gets outside the bag. My one complaint is the price. It was way more than its worth physically, but it is a bargain when it comes to camera or scanner profiling costs. Matt

This was a great product. I returned mine though to get the Passport (smaller version). This was a bit to big for me. I wanted something I could hold in my hand in front of the camera and snap a shot. This, although works great in correcting colors, was to big. Its as big as an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. So if you dont care about the size, this is cheaper and works just as good as the passport. I was amazed at the color correction this gave me. Im not a pro but I do like to have accurate colors.

Q: What makes this simple color checker worth the $119 purchase? A: TIME. your precious most valuable non-renewable asset. TIME no more guessing if you got the colors right when doing color corrections in post. essentially with one click you are able to make sure that with what ever light source you use during your shoot this color checker will be able to ACCURATELY bring back the right colors and white balance of your photo or video. In this photo i used a yellow light (using a light bar) to exaggerate the effect but as you see in the final photo the yellow light is not evident. *careful though this is for example only. if you have different light sources such as the daylight one that i have on the top, then you will notice that it had turned more to blue-ish in compensation to the yellow hue emitted by the light bar. I wish i could expound more on how this works but there are online videos that will be able to give the function of this item a little more justice