Calibration
Dogdots
Registered Users Posts: 8,795 Major grins
Since getting my new monitor (Dell 2209WA) I've been having some trouble calibrating it. I use the i1Display2 for calibration.
My first calibration was the Easy way and it was easy, but the monitor was really bright and after getting photos back printed...well they were kind of dark. Bayphoto sent them through their process again and lightened them some more --Thanks bayphoto :clap But I should be able to get closer to the right brightness on my own. So tonight I calibrated it using the other method. Oh my that was hard, but this is what I came up with. Hopefully someone out there can tell me if these settings look ok.
Color Temp is current at 6500K
Gamma is at 2.2
Luminance is 121.9 -- Target is 120.0 and Minumun is 0.2
I had to turn my brightness all the way down to 1 to get my Luminance to 121.9. And my monitor is dark which I think it is to dark.
Maybe I've done something wrong. Any suggestions what I might do that I haven't done?
My first calibration was the Easy way and it was easy, but the monitor was really bright and after getting photos back printed...well they were kind of dark. Bayphoto sent them through their process again and lightened them some more --Thanks bayphoto :clap But I should be able to get closer to the right brightness on my own. So tonight I calibrated it using the other method. Oh my that was hard, but this is what I came up with. Hopefully someone out there can tell me if these settings look ok.
Color Temp is current at 6500K
Gamma is at 2.2
Luminance is 121.9 -- Target is 120.0 and Minumun is 0.2
I had to turn my brightness all the way down to 1 to get my Luminance to 121.9. And my monitor is dark which I think it is to dark.
Maybe I've done something wrong. Any suggestions what I might do that I haven't done?
0
Comments
Try some new edits and order some more test prints to see how the brightness matches what you're seeing this time.
Hi...I thought my posting got lost in the dgrin dumpster
So turning my brightness all the way to zero is ok to do to get near the 120 lumens? If it is...I'll do that.
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
Yes - as long as you get a good calibration at that setting you should be fine. I've heard of some people having problems getting the monitor to calibrate with the brightness all the way down but the software would tell you if that were the case.
Thanks for that bit of information. I was wondering if my software would tell me something when the brightness was turned all the way down.
Only problem now...the grays are looking a bit pinkish
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
There are a number of threads on calibrating the 2209WA in the Digital Photography Review website PC Talk forum. Here's a few that may have useful info:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=31691078
2209WA Gamut & Calibration Part II
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=30972745
Part I (if you want to read it, not much on calibration)
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=30685845
.
Thank you so much
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
Please continue the dialogue if need be, I need to learn some more.
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
I just set my monitor back to its default setting while I try to figure out what the heck I'm going to do.
Just checked my settings and saw my viewing conditions. Its set to the System Default - WCS profile for sRGB veiwing condition. So I'm thinking that should be right since I set it back to the default. But I see I can set it to:
***WCS profile for ICC viewing conditions
***WSC profile for sRBG viewing conditions
But then with these settings I can set the Device Profile to just about anything I want to -- even the ICC profiles for ezprint or bayphoto. Now I'm really confused. Right now its set at System Default.
Any suggestions anyone on what these should be set to before calibration? After calibration? Does it make a difference?
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
It sounds like you're getting a slight color shift, maybe caused by having to turn down brightness so far. Try this: Go into your monitor's OSD controls, choose Color Settings-Preset Modes-Custom(RGB) and reduce each of the RGB levels by about 20% for a starter. Now go back to the i1 software and see if you can get the luminance down to 120 with a reasonable brightness setting. You may have to go back and forth a couple of times to get it fine-tuned. Here's a screenshot from the Dell manual to get to the Custom preset:
As far as the monitor looking dark at 120 luminance, that's normal, something you'll get used to quickly. For a quick check after profiling, create a new photo with white background in Photoshop, hide the panels and enlarge it to full screen so you have a white screen. Then compare that white to a blank sheet of paper held off to the side under your normal room light, the brightness should be about the same. Another quick check would be to get out one of the original prints from BayPhoto, open up the file and see if they're closer in brightness now.
As far as the Windows settings go, leave them alone. It doesn't matter what the monitor profile is set to when you begin profiling, the i1 software turns it off anyway. After profiling, the i1 software creates an ICC profile for your monitor, assigns it as the default and loads it into Windows at startup. That's it, you're done.
Neil, just to offer some info, I think you're falling into the most common pitfall for those new to color management: confusing a color space with a device profile. A color space is(and I'm quoting Andrew Rodney) "a scientifically defined portion of human vision". It's a method of defining colors numerically as they relate to the range of colors we can actually see. The human eye can distinguish a greater range of colors than are encompassed in either the sRGB or Adobe RGB color spaces while the ProPhotoRGB color space contains colors that are outside the realm of human vision. Regardless, the point is that a color space is an absolute range of colors, related only to the limits of the "average" human's vision.
An ICC profile(or device profile), on the other hand, is is a tool to translate the absolute values in any given color space through a specific device to ensure that the output of that device is faithful to the input . Basically, it's a table of correction factors developed by feeding a device known colors, measuring the actual output from that device and, if necessary, producing a correction factor. That's the basic principle, anyway, the actual process is a bit more complicated...
In a nutshell, it's like this: You make a photograph of a red flower. Whether you convert it in the camera to jpeg or open it in Photoshop as a raw file, that particular color is converted to a specific RGB number depending on the color space you've decided to use when you open the file. To display that color accurately, Photoshop sends the number to the operating system, which uses the display profile to change that number to whatever the monitor needs to receive in order to display the same color you saw when you captured the image.
Applying a color space to a particular device may(or may not) give you acceptable results. On the flip side, using a device-specific profile as an editing color space most likely won't give you acceptable results. Either way, the ONLY way to get accurate output from your workflow is to use a wide-gamut color space for capture and editing and device-specific ICC profiles for output devices.
Wow, this went on a lot longer that I planned, sorry for the long post. Hope I shed some light on the situation.
Bill
Yes...I finally got my monitor and I really like it, but calibrating it has really been an issue. I never thought about turning down the RGB levels to 20% before starting to calibrate. Ha...right now they are sitting at 100% each, but I'm sitting at the default settings. I did try some of the settings that I read in the links from newsy, Those adjustments were with brightness and contrast before calibration. I got close, but the red was still out of control and then I would lose my 6500 reading and end up with something way different. I just wasn't able to get it right and after getting frustrated from running so many calibrations I gave up :cry
So if my monitor is calibrated in RGB then my camera should be set to Adobe RGB too? What about when I open into Raw...do I have that set at Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB? I read where all should be set the same. Is that information right or wrong?
I'm learnin' and lovin' it
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
Bill, thanks a lot for this great clarification!
I use a HP Pavilion dv8000 laptop running XPHome. Apart from having a glossy surface, and not being designed mainly for photoediting, the screen is very nice. I haven't ever calibrated it with hardware, but I have attempted to calibrate it using different software methods. One I have used is the one which comes with Corel Paint Shop Pro. At the end of the process it creates and applies a profile. However, if in Windows color control dialogs I manually select that profile for my monitor and apply it as the default rather than the sRGB profile I get into a lot of trouble, including a pink cast in grays. The only way I can get color which has good correspondence with other displays and prints is by selecting sRGB in every instance which is involved with an image, whether color space or device profile. At least, I think that is what I settled on. I'll go in and check. Fortunately the factory settings of my display seem to be pretty right on and I haven't seen much drift. However, I look forward to getting a more appropriate monitor in the future.
Any more information you'd like to share would be most gratefully received, including recommendations for photoediting monitors. Also, are there any calibration services out there?
Thanks again!
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Gotta run, but real quick DON'T turn the RGB controls DOWN TO 20%, REDUCE them BY 20%, i.e., set them at 80% and see how that works.
Gotta go, I forgot to subscribe but I'll check in later.
HTH,
Bill
Ha....Sorry I just have to laugh at my mistake
Ok...I'll reduce by 20% -- Thanks
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
Mary, first of all your monitor isn't "calibrated" in RGB or any particular color space, it's been profiled so that it produces an output(as measured by the i1 puck) that accurately reflects the input within the limitations of the monitor hardware. The color space you choose to use in your camera, or Photoshop, or your printer or whatever has nothing to do with it.
If you shoot raw, then the color space you select in the camera really has no effect unless you're using the manufacturer's raw converter, in which case it's noted and applied at conversion. ACR, Bibble, Lightroom, Capture One etc. all disregard camera color space when opening raw files, setting the color space to whatever you've selected for editing.
Current DSLR's are capable of capturing a range of colors beyond the AdobeRGB space and higher-end inkjet printers can also print colors beyond aRGB. You paid a lot of money for that sensor, why throw away colors and details before you even get started by editing in aRGB or sRGB? To get the most color and detail from your raw files, you need to edit in a wide-gamut space like ProPhoto. Sure, you may not be able to display or print some of those colors today, but who's to say what monitors and printers will be capable of ten years from now? But if you open that raw file in anything less than ProPhoto and then save it as a .tif or .jpg, you're throwing away information that you'll never be able to get back.
If you work in a wide-gamut space, you can always convert to sRGB for the web or commercial printers. Keep in mind, sRGB was developed as a standard back in the '90s, sort of a minimum standard for the monitors available at the time, just so there could be some semblance of color uniformity between different users on different hardware. We've come a long way since then in terms of hardware capabilities and sRGB is no longer even close to state-of-the art. So why bother?
"I haven't ever calibrated it with hardware, but I have attempted to calibrate it using different software methods. One I have used is the one which comes with Corel Paint Shop Pro. At the end of the process it creates and applies a profile. However, if in Windows color control dialogs I manually select that profile for my monitor and apply it as the default rather than the sRGB profile I get into a lot of trouble, including a pink cast in grays. The only way I can get color which has good correspondence with other displays and prints is by selecting sRGB in every instance which is involved with an image, whether color space or device profile"
Neil, your whole statement goes to ilustrate two things:
1) Notebook displays are, with very few exceptions, pretty lousy and ill-suited for photo editing.
2) You can't make an accurate color profile with your eyes. Don't feel bad, I don't know of anyone who can. The first thing the experts will tell you(in books, seminars, forums, etc.) is that using a hardware device to accurately profile your display is the essential first step in a color-managed workflow. If you don't know what you're seeing, how can you tell if it's being reproduced correctly when you put it on the web or send it to a printer?
The reason that your sRGB workflow works is that sRGB is a minimum standard that most devices(even laptop displays) more or less can cope with. But if that's all you want, why buy a DSLR and shoot raw in the first place?
As far as good photo-editing displays go, there's the Dell 2209 that Mary just got and the HP 2475 at the lower end of the price range. Going up into the $900-1200 range gets you into the NEC and Lacie monitors, over that you're into the high-end Eizo, NEC, Lacie a maybe a couple of Samsung models. I've been using the NEC 26" MultiSync LCD2690-WUXi for a while and I'm very happy with it. It's going for around $1200 on Amazon, if you don't have a profiling system you can get the SpectraView version for around $1400, which gets you the i1 puck and the NEC software. Since the i1d2 sells for around $200, you save the hundred bucks NEC will charge you for the SpectraView software.
As far as calibration services go, there may be some who deal with volume customers with large numbers of monitors, but I've never run across one. Since you need to refresh your profile occasionally, I don't think paying someone to come over and do it for you would be very cost-effective compared to the relatively low cost of a profiling package.
Wow, this got long again!
Bill
P.S. Even better, break out the credit card and go buy this video: From Camera to Print. Best 35 bucks you'll ever spend on photography!
Much appreciated, thank you!
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Ok....I remember going through this with you before
1. My workflow was not in ProPhoto...well sometimes it was, but I changed it back to sRGB. Yeah, I know.....:D I changed it back to ProPhoto now.
2. I'm now opening a DNG file into CS3 to do my editing. After editing I save the photos as a psd. and then flatten and change it to an 8-bit jpeg for my site and for printing. My question is....Do I have to do anything to change it to an sRGB file for printing? My understanding that when I add my photos to smugmug it automatically changes to a sRGB, but what if I wanted to print a photo at Wally-World? This is where I get confused and the reason I changed back to sRBG.
Doesn't it need to be an sRGB to print? I hope I made sense with all this.
My new hard drive is in today so I will calibrate my monitor tomorrow morning. Wish me luck
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
After you flatten your image, there are two ways to go:
If you use "Save for Web and devices" in PS, there's a check box to convert to sRGB. It's checked by default, that's where you get your conversion.
If you use "Save As..." in PS, after resizing and converting to 8-bit, then you should convert it to sRGB(Edit-Convert to Profile...) before saving.
I don't know if Smugmug does conversion between color spaces when uploading, but it doesn't hurt to be safe. Most all commercial printing services want sRGB jpegs, so you'll definitely need to convert before sending out for printing.
Good luck with the new drive and your profiling!!
Bill
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
OK
Bill
Thanks Bill -- I'll try this and see if I can follow the steps.
Calibrated my monitor using the advanced way with the i1 and finished with these settings. 6500K, 2.2, 120.1. My i1 software didn't detect my tool again, but I ran it anyway without reorganization. Xrite said that was ok to do. Only problem is the grays are red tinted somewhat. I opened a photo into CS3 and the CS3 background looks reddish too -- when I open a photo that has gray rocks in it they don't look red. Why is this? Should I recalibrate to get rid of this reddish look?
---Just ran a second calibration. Although the red isn't "as red" as it was before. Should I turn down the red some more in my RGB settings and run it again? I only adjusted the greens in my RGB adjustments to get to my final readings of 6500K, 2.2, 120.7.
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
Let's drop back and punt.... Try profiling to the monitor's native color space instead of 6500. Go into the monitor controls and select the "Standard" preset, then into the i1 software and , when you get to the Calibration Setings page, choose "Native White Point". Leave gamma at 2.2 and luminance at 120. Use your brightness control to get as close as you can to the 120 even if you have to turn it down all the way.
It sounds like you're getting the red cast from adjusting the RGB controls, profiling to native should get rid of this.
BTW, you do have the right driver installed for the monitor, right? If not, go download it from the Dell site http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/product_support/en/monitor_download?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=anavml and install it before going any further.
Another thing to watch out for is to make sure you don't have any light shining on the monitor when you profile. I usually run profiling in a darkened room, shades drawn.
If you set luminance to 120, the display WILL look dark to you for a while, but you'll get used to it. But it should look a lot closer to the prints you got back from the lab before they lightened them.
Good Luck!!
Bill
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
As for the driver for my monitor..I don't know about that. I'll check on it. Thanks Bill for that info.
Yes..I calibrate in a dark room.
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
I get 6500, 2.2, and 132.2 when my brightness is turned all the way down to 0.
Seems like the only way I can get to the 120 is if I mess with the RGB settings.
Now I'm really confused
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
Then leave it where it is and learn to live with it. It's not at all unusual for most LCDs to run high levels and it'll come down some in the next few months anyway. Did you set the target settings to "Native White Point" and try it? Did you install the right driver?
Bill
P.S. I'm not getting email notifications on this thread for some reason, I'll check in when I can.
Yes I did set it for Native White Point and downloaded the driver before I started my calibration. Ha...I forgot to do that when the new hard drive was put in. So many downloads and I air-headed the most important one
What do you mean about it running high and then coming down in a few months?
Do you have any ideas on my editing? Do I need to compensate on something? Or if it looks good -- it is good?
I thank you for all your help
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
Two photos...one was edited on my calibrated monitor and the other was edited on my monitor set at the default settings. Granted my monitor is alittle off so I would really like to know which is the better photo. Not saying they are good, but which looks better edit wise
---Which was done on the calibrated monitor and which wasn't?
---If you have a calibrated monitor -- which looks better and which would print better?
Thank you for your imput.
Photo 1
Photo 2
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Neil your looking at these on a calibrated monitor - right? Can you explain what kind of problems you mean? I had my Raw set for sRBG for the editing on photo 2.
This photo that was set to ProPhoto when I edited it.
The reason I ask is because I don't know if it was the calibrated monitor or not, but I was having a hard time seeing the colors and editing my photos. As for the ProPhoto -- I switched back to sRGB midsteam in my edtinig yesterday thinking that might help, but it didn't make any difference --at least not with the issue I was having with seeing the colors. So I thought I'd edit one photo with my monitor set to the default settings.
The first two photos look totally different to me, but right now I'm looking at them on an uncalibrated monitor. After I recalibrate today I'll take another look at them.
Thanks Neil...I look forward with what you have to say. Wish others would jump in on this too.
Photo #1 was edited on my calibrated monitor and Photo #2 was with the default settings.
www.Dogdotsphotography.com
The 16 bits is ultimately more important in workflow as it retains much more color information through image processing than does 8 bits.
It is also "extremely" important that if you are not using sRGB that you emebed the colorspace into the EXIF of the image. Most printers can work with almost any color space, but they will assume sRGB if the color space is not defined.
Note that both sRGB and Adobe-RGB can create colors outside what a computer display can present. Expecting a computer display to accurately represent the colors in a resulting print can be a frustrating experience.
It is much better, if you expect exacting results, to print "by the numbers" meaning that you should color sample an image to define specific colors and tones. Despite what the monitor shows, the numbers should translate to the most accurate printed depiction.
I do recommend that you download and print any number of monitor and print calibration images, which you can then match to your computer display in your current environment. Once you understand what the colors on your monitor translate into on the print, you can set up and fine tune your monitor for a "pleasing" depiction to match.
Use Google "Images" to search for "printer calibration image" and then download and print images which are similar to your intended use. Compare the printed images with your display to understand the color correlations. By "print" I mean use your commercial printer of choice for the test images to establish your standards.
It also helps to look at portions of digital reference images alongside your images in the same PhotoShop session. The human eye is much more sensitive to color comparison and color variation when the colors are right next to each other.
While the image on the following link demonstrates how easily human vision can be fooled, if you isolate the 2 squares (which are not really squares either) it becomes easy to compare the tones.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070717.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0707/samecolor_wikipedia_connected.jpg
The following is a snapshot of my own monitor to show the 2 regions side-by-side:
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