Monitor Calibration Tools
TabascoJack
Posts: 865
in The Commons
Has anyone used monitor calibration tools such as Colorvision Spyder5 or X-Rite ColorMunki?
I have multiple monitors on my system, and I've done what I can by eyeballing them, but I know they're not accurate.
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I have an Eye1, but I could never get satisfactory results - after profiling the sceen seemed far too bright, subjectively, and seemed to have thw wrong gamma, looking at visual calibration tools and sites. It also seemed to give different results on successive runs. I decided that theer was some kind of additional gamma correction going on that it couldn't mask out, though I never did figure out where (Windows and the nVidia drivers seemed to be doing nothing unexpected). I haven't tried it since switching to Windows 10 (assuming I can get a driver).
The best advide I've seen about them...don't bother on consumer grade monitors. There are too many 'auto' adjustments and inconsistencies with the average monitor to actually improve anything. Upper end 'gaming' and workstation/'pro' grade monitors, yeah...
I've used them both. My experience is different from mjc1016's advice.
The Colormunki has driver stability issues on Windows 7. I have found the Spyder to work much better than the Colormunki.
How often do you have to recalibrate?
I have a Syder 4 and really like it. It seems to do a great job on both my laptop and desktop. You definitely want to do the calibration under the lightting conditions you typucally use while working (working in the same light all the time can be a big plus, but not always possible).
The Spyder 3 seems to work fine, although the changes I end up making are relatively minor and brightness is somewhat subjective. Same for the previous version of the Spyder I had (replaced I think the older version wasn't supported in Windows 7).
My shop has used a ColorMunki for years now. We only build profiles for the main monitor of each system and use that one for colour adjustments for printing. The second monitor is used for pallets (Photoshop, Poser, AE, etc) or non colour critical work. I don't feel that there's any real reason to get the multiple monitors on a system exactly the same. Do you have some specific reason for wanting them both identical? Even consumer monitors can be calibrated just fine as long as one turns off all the 'auto' stuff.
It's not that I want them identical - it's that it's highlighted to me that at least one of them is off and made me realize that I don't know which of them is closer to true.
I recalibrate before I start a significant photo editing session, if it's been 6 weeks or so since the last cal. I have fairly inexpensive monitors but the color is pretty stable. Brightness on the oldest is more of an issue.
It's my understanding that there is no 'true' standard for monitors. They come from the factory set to some average 'looks nice under average lighting' setting. I've only ever seen labs calibrate for print. Ie: create profiles that set the monitor to resemble what the print will look like using different media and inks. If you want to learn all about colour management I would recommend 'Real World Color Management' (ISBN-13: 978-0321267221 ISBN-10: 0321267222). It's available (like everything else) on Amazon and is well worth the price if you work with colour on a professional level.
In the dirty old days of chemistry and film we had a system to ensure consistent colour through process control. The big (and expensive) switch to digital left us floundering around and we wasted a lot of paper getting decent (and consistent) prints. Colour management came from the pre-press industry and allowed us to see what we where going to print with a couple of mouse clicks. Somewhere in the book they mention a web standard for monitors and we do have that profile available to check graphics for screen display but the differences are quite minor. Again, the book is your best source of information and will clear up a lot of mis-information.
Bob
It is not adjusting the monitor to match the standard but building an IEC profile to display the image properly.
I use to be he IT manager for an ad agency and we calibrated everything from scanners, monitors, to color copiers. When we were finished we could buy color off the screen, and we were not using high end monitors.
So it can be done. You will also need to put a Color Target in the Shot just like you would do with a RL Camera at a Photo shoot, so you can get the colors right.
In Windows or MacOS each monitor has its own profile so it is possible to have both calibrated.
if you use a camera or a scanner you can get targets to scan or shoot, and then you can Calibrate them.
Is it worth it, It saved a lot of Paper, Toner and Printer time, especially when you have a customer what demands to have their Corprate Colors diaplayed properly.
If you are doing Film Animation, it woudl be the same.
Fossil,
If you don't Claibrate the Monitor, How to you know if Coke Red is Red and Pepsi Blue is Blue? You have to Calibrate the whole chain don't bother. Before IEC Profiles there were companies who did nothign but color correct Ads.
Several National Papers are printed on several hundred pressed throught the US. they can't go do a test print off all of them, so they buy color off the screen and they can do it becuase everything is calibrated to a single Standard.
. I just use the NVIDIA control panel , NVIDIA have some recommended settings for Their Geforce series Graphic Cards ( http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/how-to-calibrate-your-monitor) and setting up your monitors thats all I ever used to calibrate mine. nothing fancy
Today Monitors out of the box all do pretty well according to NVIDIA So I never to bother going beyond that. , NVIDIA also recommends all mentioned paid for calibrations tools . but for lay persons like me. s I just used the NVIDIA control panel to make my calibrations to my 2 Samsung monitors, then again I'm not a professional photographer either. so close enough is good enough for me' .
For at least some of the calibration tools, the idea is to adjust the display to correct for errors that can be identified. For example, the software tells the monitor to display nothing but the color red. The sensor you set on the monitor should see the same pure red color the monitor is theoretically displaying. However, if the monitor is actually displaying kind of a reddish-yellow for example, the sensor will see that color instead, and the software can then do the math to see what color needs to be displayed instead of red so that after the monitor incorrectly changes the color, it ends up actually being red when the incorrect color adjusted in the opposite direction is displayed. So once the software's sensor sees the color it expects to be displaying, then it is considered corrected.
Note that this also means if you have multiple monitors driven by the same card, the calibration only works for one monitor and the other one is actually being adjusted potentially worse than normal, unless your card has been designed so that each output can be separately adjusted.
Some of the calibration can be subtle, you might not notice an obvious difference if you have only one monitor, but if you set it side-by-side with another it might be painfully obvious. I had one older CRT monitor that was rather dramatically sepia-tone in color (never tried to adjust that one, it was just used as the 2nd unadjusted monitor). With the software I have you can also toggle the adjustment on/off while looking at a test picture to see the effects.
Setting a profile on a consumer LCD (LED Backlit) is useless. The colors of the regions of the montior will change on a minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour basis based on the heat generated by the LEDs in specific areas of the monitor. If you have a large area of bright white that is displayed for a long period of time, the heat from the LEDs will cause expansion in the matrix hence causing the RGB filters to distort outside of the bright area. This will cause not only color distortions but image ratio distortions as well.
See my post above. LCD Monitors designed for color fidelity will have extended backs (aka not slim profile) and active cooling to migrate the heat AWAY from the display matrix.
Kendall
Back in the days of CRT, yeah, 'consumer' monitors could benefit from calibration...if the needed controls where available.
Like Kendall is saying, LCD monitors are just too variable to be worth the time/effort/expense to do more than 'rough' adjustments. Top end, 'pro' monitors are hefty beasts.
I've used Adobe Gamma for who knows how long on both CRT and Laptops. The images done on the laptop appear redder on the CRT but both print out the same on my printers using the right printer profile, the same with my scanned images. I also use different test sites to try and get everything looking close to the same :)
I'm glad this thread came up. I have just redone my laptop and hadn't realised how much it had drifted. Everything is so much clearer now :) Between Adobe Gamma, the Intel graphics settings software and this site http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
Well, I picked up a Spyder4 on ebay for a decent price. I've heard some complaints about their software and a lot of good things about Argylle CMS and displayCal (nee dispcalGUI) as alternative open-source software options.
I'll let you all know how it turns out.
Thanks for all the feedback!
So......one of the first steps in the open source calibration tools was to measure and set the white point using the monitor's RGB controls. I believe that I actually got the most benefit from being able to do that. The longer profile based calibration resulted in minor changes, but nothing close to what the first part did.
I'd still call it a win, as I was able to use the colorimeter to set the white point accurately (and the monitors were a bit off), but I'm glad I didn't spend the money on a brand new calibration tool.