new laptop...calibrate?

Elaine

This may be a dumb question, but we're getting our first home laptop (HP Pavilion dv5t) just in time for a Christmas trip to Alaska. Can I use my x-rite eye-one calibrator on it, so I can continue to do a bit of editing while traveling? I don't expect it to be as accurate as my NEC monitor at home, but it would be nice if it was workable.

colourbox

I've calibrated my Mac and PC laptops with my Eye-One. I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and they do look better. The pros seem to do it as standard procedure...

Elaine

colourbox wrote:

I've calibrated my laptops with my Eye-One. I figured I had nothing to lose, and it sure does look better.

Great! Thanks!

Elaine

We got our laptop today and I'm trying to calibrate it with the eye-one. I changed the gamma to 2.2 (it was at 1.0) and tried to adjust the luminance to 90, although when it was finished it said it was at 121. It did seem to remove a lot of the blue, but it really lacks contrast now, which wasn't a part of the laptop calibration process. Do I adjust that after the fact? The brightness is a lot lower than it was initially, but there doesn't appear to be much in the way of real black right now. Should I have tried a calibration for an LCD rather than a laptop? Wondering what my next step is...

Elaine

Alrighty...I'm bumping this again because I truly could use some pointers. Is there any trick to calibrating a laptop? I've run the eye-one on it using the "laptop" setting that's given. The laptop is set on a gamma of 1.0 by default. I changed that to 2.2. Is that right? It only has you adjust the brightness level/luminance. When it's done, the color looks warmed up (as it should), but the blacks are really greyed out and it looks very low in contrast. If I try to adjust the contrast after the fact, it seems to freak out...I barely touch the contrast slider and it jumps into this ultra contrasty look.

Anyway, I'd love some help as I'm going on a trip with my laptop and I'd like to be able to look at my photos somewhat properly.

Pupator

That's what I remember from using the eye-one. Since there aren't any manual controls like for an LCD panel you're really limited in how good the calibration can be.

When I travel I just don't worry about doing important color correction while I'm there. Take the pictures and enjoy the trip! If you're going to be in the same place for several days (cruise ship, hotel) and it's important to you, you could always take your Eye-one and a video out cable. Then you could profile one of the monitors in the business center and use it for your editing. (I'd just wait till I got home, but that's me!)

Elaine

Pupator wrote:

That's what I remember from using the eye-one. Since there aren't any manual controls like for an LCD panel you're really limited in how good the calibration can be.

When I travel I just don't worry about doing important color correction while I'm there. Take the pictures and enjoy the trip! If you're going to be in the same place for several days (cruise ship, hotel) and it's important to you, you could always take your Eye-one and a video out cable. Then you could profile one of the monitors in the business center and use it for your editing. (I'd just wait till I got home, but that's me!)

Yes, I'm leaning towards just using the laptop for storage and viewing and culling, but no real editing. Thanks for the input.

If I load Zoombrowser onto my laptop, will that be all I need to view my Raw images?

Or, I'm guessing DPP came with my 40D...maybe I should use that?

Pupator

Elaine wrote:

Yes, I'm leaning towards just using the laptop for storage and viewing and culling, but no real editing. Thanks for the input.

If I load Zoombrowser onto my laptop, will that be all I need to view my Raw images?

Or, I'm guessing DPP came with my 40D...maybe I should use that?

Either one sounds like a good plan to me. I use Google's Picasa on my laptop because it seems to be able to read about every file format I throw at it, it's fast (very fast), and I can make some easy edits if I want while still preserving originals for when I get home.

Art Scott

Elaine wrote:

Yes, I'm leaning towards just using the laptop for storage and viewing and culling, but no real editing. Thanks for the input.

If I load Zoombrowser onto my laptop, will that be all I need to view my Raw images?

Or, I'm guessing DPP came with my 40D...maybe I should use that?

What do you use for organizing on your desktop machine......if a software like LR2 then why not load on laptop so you can tag, organize and renumber and copyright while on vacation and then do your actual editing on your desktop....of course adobe would like a little addition license fee for second machine I suppose...................

Scott_Quier

Art Scott wrote:

What do you use for organizing on your desktop machine......if a software like LR2 then why not load on laptop so you can tag, organize and renumber and copyright while on vacation and then do your actual editing on your desktop....of course adobe would like a little addition license fee for second machine I suppose...................

On there website, you can read this (emphasis is mine)...

How many computers are covered by a single license of Photoshop Lightroom 2?

Subject to the terms of the End User Licensing Agreement, the primary user of the computer on which Photoshop Lightroom 2 (the "Software") is installed may install a second copy of the Software for his or her exclusive use on either a portable computer or a computer located at his or her home, provided that the Software on the portable or home computer is not used at the same time as the Software on the primary computer. You may be required to contact Adobe to make a second copy. Lightroom is sold as multiplatform software, which means it can be installed on either Mac OS X or Windows.

BTW - essentiall the same license applies to PS.

Elaine

Thanks, Art and Scott! I do have LR 1.0 but have never become comfortable with it. My goal is to work through some tutorials this winter to learn how to use it efficiently. I could, though, take your suggestion and play with it while on vacation. Not a bad idea...