HP w2207 monitor color calibration problems

ansel4

I have an HP w2207 monitor and the Eye-One Display 2 colorimeter. I have been trying to calibrate my monitor so my prints from Mpixpro match the monitor. I have calibrated to within the i1 specs based on a 5000 white point, 2.2 gamma and other Mpixpro specs. After doing this and comparing it to their prints, my red, green, blue and yellow all look more neon and fluorescent than the print. I am sure the print is correct and the neon looking colors are not. The skin tones are pretty close but the color block test charts are quite off. I am running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit on an HP Media Center PC, 2.4 GHZ core 2 quad-core, 4 GB ram. Any thoughts why the screen still looks wrong? Is this monitor not very good? Could it be my colorimeter (it's only about 1.5 years old)?

Newsy

ansel4 wrote:

I have an HP w2207 monitor and the Eye-One Display 2 colorimeter. I have been trying to calibrate my monitor so my prints from Mpixpro match the monitor. I have calibrated to within the i1 specs based on a 5000 white point, 2.2 gamma and other Mpixpro specs. After doing this and comparing it to their prints, my red, green, blue and yellow all look more neon and fluorescent than the print. I am sure the print is correct and the neon looking colors are not. The skin tones are pretty close but the color block test charts are quite off. I am running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit on an HP Media Center PC, 2.4 GHZ core 2 quad-core, 4 GB ram. Any thoughts why the screen still looks wrong? Is this monitor not very good? Could it be my colorimeter (it's only about 1.5 years old)?

I'm no expert but here are some thoughts I've had.

1) why a temperature of 5000K ?

That's quite warm and may be a reason for the saturated looking colours.

Most current guides to calibration suggest a gamma of 2.2 and a temperature of 6500K. Of course, the i1D2 can sample your ambient environment and suggest a temperature lower than 6500K depending on your room lighting. Is this what happened?


2) are you soft proofing per a Mpixpro supplied printer profile?


3) what white luminance point are you calibrating to, is it 120cd/m2 ?


4) the w2207 is not ideal for image editing as it uses a TN panel and has a 6bit colour space dithered to simulate an 8bit colour space. Sometimes this can make calibration difficult but Prad.de seems to like it well enough to rate it as "Good" when they tested it back in 2007. They don't state the sRGB coverage as do their newer tests but I'd guess this monitor has perhaps 85% sRGB at best.
http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2007/review-hp-w2207.html

Check your system visually using this web site: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/


5) What color space are you saving your images to ? sRGB? AdobeRGB? I'm thinking perhaps the photos are showing what your monitor is not capable of.


6) I have to say, I have some concerns regarding the Mpix work flow. 5 test images and then adjust your monitor to match their prints! I suppose that is OK if you use only Mpix for printed output but what if you have a correctly calibrated system and occasionally print your own images at home or with another local print service? What about a correctly calibrated monitor and images you've post processed for the web? The last thing I'd be doing is tweaking my monitor settings to match the Mpix output, especially when it appears they are not supplying any kind of ICC printer/paper profile so you can soft-proof in advance.

.

arodney

ansel4 wrote:

I have an HP w2207 monitor and the Eye-One Display 2 colorimeter. I have been trying to calibrate my monitor so my prints from Mpixpro match the monitor.

Did Mpixpro provide a printer profile for soft proofing? If not, this is a hopeless pursuit. You don't alter a display to match a specific printing process, at least in terms of color (luminance maybe). Without a profile for the printing process and setting up a soft proof, you can't possibly evaluate a proper match since you're viewing the image in a working space, not a printer output color space. You're viewing the proper gamut of the output device either. Ask them for a printer profile.

ansel4

arodney wrote:

Did Mpixpro provide a printer profile for soft proofing? If not, this is a hopeless pursuit. You don't alter a display to match a specific printing process, at least in terms of color (luminance maybe). Without a profile for the printing process and setting up a soft proof, you can't possibly evaluate a proper match since you're viewing the image in a working space, not a printer output color space. You're viewing the proper gamut of the output device either. Ask them for a printer profile.

Thank you! I will ask for one.

ansel4

Newsy wrote:

I'm no expert but here are some thoughts I've had.

1) why a temperature of 5000K ?

That's quite warm and may be a reason for the saturated looking colours.

Most current guides to calibration suggest a gamma of 2.2 and a temperature of 6500K. Of course, the i1D2 can sample your ambient environment and suggest a temperature lower than 6500K depending on your room lighting. Is this what happened?


2) are you soft proofing per a Mpixpro supplied printer profile?


3) what white luminance point are you calibrating to, is it 120cd/m2 ?


4) the w2207 is not ideal for image editing as it uses a TN panel and has a 6bit colour space dithered to simulate an 8bit colour space. Sometimes this can make calibration difficult but Prad.de seems to like it well enough to rate it as "Good" when they tested it back in 2007. They don't state the sRGB coverage as do their newer tests but I'd guess this monitor has perhaps 85% sRGB at best.
http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2007/review-hp-w2207.html

Check your system visually using this web site: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/


5) What color space are you saving your images to ? sRGB? AdobeRGB? I'm thinking perhaps the photos are showing what your monitor is not capable of.


6) I have to say, I have some concerns regarding the Mpix work flow. 5 test images and then adjust your monitor to match their prints! I suppose that is OK if you use only Mpix for printed output but what if you have a correctly calibrated system and occasionally print your own images at home or with another local print service? What about a correctly calibrated monitor and images you've post processed for the web? The last thing I'd be doing is tweaking my monitor settings to match the Mpix output, especially when it appears they are not supplying any kind of ICC printer/paper profile so you can soft-proof in advance.

.

Thank you for all the information.

1) Mpixpro recommended 5000. i need to see what Bay recommends as I also use them often.
2) no printer profile was provided. They provided a print and a video online on how to use i1 to profile the monitor.
3) I'll have to check. I am not with my workstation so I'll have to check when I get back to it. I think 120 sounds right, though.
4) very interesting. I know it wasn't a very expensive monitor so I figured it may have limitations.
5) I shoot and save all images in sRGB
6) what do you recommend. do you know if Bay photo supplies a profile? Do have any recommendation for good labs? if they do supply a profile how do I use it. Sorry, I am knew to color management.

Thank you again for all your help!

Newsy

ansel4 wrote:

Thank you for all the information.

1) Mpixpro recommended 5000. i need to see what Bay recommends as I also use them often.
2) no printer profile was provided. They provided a print and a video online on how to use i1 to profile the monitor.
3) I'll have to check. I am not with my workstation so I'll have to check when I get back to it. I think 120 sounds right, though.
4) very interesting. I know it wasn't a very expensive monitor so I figured it may have limitations.
5) I shoot and save all images in sRGB
6) what do you recommend. do you know if Bay photo supplies a profile? Do have any recommendation for good labs? if they do supply a profile how do I use it. Sorry, I am knew to color management.

Thank you again for all your help!

Re #6... Sorry, I have used Costco just a couple of times but I rarely ever print. I don't know Bay and I don't even know where you are located. How come you're not using the Smugmug print service?

Re #1... really !?!?!? The more you tell me, the more I don't like about this Mpix service.

.

ansel4

Newsy wrote:

Re #6... Sorry, I have used Costco just a couple of times but I rarely ever print. I don't know Bay and I don't even know where you are located. How come you're not using the Smugmug print service?

Re #1... really !?!?!? The more you tell me, the more I don't like about this Mpix service.

.

I am looking for pro prints with lots of print options. Smugmug's new pro lab is Bay Photo, they still have EZprints for non-color corrected prints, too. I have yet to order directly thru Smugmug but I order through Bay ROES for their other print options and $1.50 S&H. Maybe I'll try ordering through Smugmug to see if anything turns out differently.