can I calibrate my monitor?

alaios

Hi I am the owner


of a acer aspire 7736zg
and I want to start editing my photos right now.


a. Is it possible to calibrate the laptops monitor? specs are here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-7736G-663G25Mn.25589.0.html .
If yes how?


b. what type of external monitor I can connect right away ? what is the maximum resolution my laptop can support actually?


I would like to thank you in advance for your reply


Regards
A

Newsy

Yes you can calibrate the laptop screen but I would not bother as it likely is a TN panel with all kinds of off angle color/gamma shifting and it likely offers no more than about 65% coverage of the sRGB color space.

The way you would do it is with a colorimeter like one of the following and run the software in the "easy" or "simple" standard mode (i.e. not the Advanced mode). The problem with laptops is that they lack RGB slider hardware controls and also a true Brightness control. The non-advanced mode of the calibration software will calibrate the screen without requiring you to access RGB sliders and/or the Brightness and Contrast controls. It makes all the changes required in software via a custom ICC profile it creates for the laptop and it will automatically change your Windows Color Management app to use the new custom ICC profile (make sure it is a v2.0 ICC profile).

Good hardware colorimeters include, in order of quality/similarity:


Best
Datacolor Spyder4 Elite
X-Rite i1 Display Pro

Better
Datacolor Spyder4 Pro
X-Rite Colormunki Display

Basic (I don't recommend these)
Datacolor Spyder4 Express (maybe OK used with 3rd party software)
X-Rite Colormunki Smile (imho, stay away from this)

You can read reviews here >> http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews.html#Monitor_profiling

or watch reviews on YouTube.



.............

I would buy a good quality external monitor, as previously discussed, and use that for color critical work. With this external monitor you can use the "Advanced" feature set of the calibration software so that the monitor's RGB sliders are used to fine tune the calibration of the monitor and then have a custom ICC profile created for the Windows Color Management app to use. I suggest you have the software create a v2.0 ICC profile. V4.0 is still problematic for some applications to use.

From what I can determine your laptop lacks a DisplayPort which means you cannot drive a monitor with a resolution higher than 1920x1200. Technically, a HDMI port v1.2 is supposed to be able to but this is not guaranteed. Your laptop's HDMI port will certainly drive a 1920x1080 monitor.

alaios

Hi thanks,
as I am also planning to upgrade my laptop soon then I guess I should buy a monitor that I can work right now with my photos but I can use it in the future with my new laptop too.
If my laptop screen does not support full srgb coverage will support it on a good external monitor (the new monitor might of course support it but what about the graphics card?)

Regards
Alex

Newsy

alaios wrote: »

If my laptop screen does not support full srgb coverage will support it on a good external monitor (the new monitor might of course support it but what about the graphics card?)

The sRGB coverage is controlled primarily by the back light of the laptop screen or external monitor. A graphics card that has been reset to factory default should support a full sRGB gamut or a wide gamut (AdobeRGB) if the monitor supports it.

However.....

This article showed up in my Twitter feed this morning. Very interesting and possibly explains some HDMI connection issues various people have posted on in the forums I follow.

http://pcmonitors.info/articles/correcting-hdmi-colour-on-nvidia-and-amd-gpus

If I was you, I'd try to ensure that the next laptop you buy has a DisplayPort or mini-DisplayPort.

That said, I have had no color issues connecting my external monitor via HDMI to my previous 2008 vintage laptop or my current 2014 ultrabook. Though it does recognize the monitor as a TV.

.

rubencarmona

Newsy wrote: »

The sRGB coverage is controlled primarily by the back light of the laptop screen or external monitor. A graphics card that has been reset to factory default should support a full sRGB gamut or a wide gamut (AdobeRGB) if the monitor supports it.

However.....

This article showed up in my Twitter feed this morning. Very interesting and possibly explains some HDMI connection issues various people have posted on in the forums I follow.

http://pcmonitors.info/articles/correcting-hdmi-colour-on-nvidia-and-amd-gpus

If I was you, I'd try to ensure that the next laptop you buy has a DisplayPort or mini-DisplayPort.

That said, I have had no color issues connecting my external monitor via HDMI to my previous 2008 vintage laptop or my current 2014 ultrabook. Though it does recognize the monitor as a TV.

.

This makes no sense. On one side you say that a graphic card resetted to the factory defaults will cover the full gamut, on the other side the article you posted proofs the opposite: The graphic card needs the correct linearisation of colors, and this will only work correctly with a calibration with a calibration device.

This will also automatically solve the problem mentioned on this article. The calibration will write the right ICC-profile into the LookUp-Table of the graphic card so the colors will be linearised correctly and the full gamut possible for the monitor will be used.