Monitor Display Help & Questions

junepath

Back when I got my iMac in 2011, I got an xRite calibrator. (I think it was called iDisplay 2) It worked great, all of my photos matched when I printed them so long as I used a decent lab (WHCC and Nations) but then I upgraded to Yosemite and it was no longer supported. There is definitely a huge difference between photos taken prior, and post, update. I sent a batch of photos to be printed around Christmas, and photos taken before I upgraded printed fine, the rest were off. Not terribly off, but enough that I could notice it. I wasn't real worried about it because I hadn't been shooting anything, but it really struck me the other day when I had my macbook open next to the iMac how bad the colors had gotten.

So, time to get a new calibrator. I got the xRite i1Display Pro today and figured I'd run through the program, and voila, everything would go back to normal.

Uh, no.

First time through the screen was this horrible blackish brown color. I've run the program 5 times now and every time the screen is brownish. We're not talking "oh that's a little warm" we're talking whites are tan/brown. It looks like a CRT monitor on it's last legs, that dark, murky horrible color.

I don't know what is going on, and was hoping maybe someone here could help? It's a mid-2011 21.5 inch iMac. I had the screen replaced back in 2014 but I was able to reprofile it no problem up until I upgraded to Yosemite back in middle of last year.

And please forgive me for being dumb, I swear when I had a baby I lost half my brain cells: So long as I calibrate with a profiler, the prints should match right? It just embeds the profile when I export?

junepath

I've done a few experiments and it seems MOST of the issue is coming from the luminance. I see that industry standard is 80-120 but that's way way way too dark. I mean, can't read text on the screen dark. The closest I was able to get to a comfortable viewing was 200-220. If I set it to 120, I wouldn't even be able to see to work. Is it possible that the profiler is measuring the screen as much brighter than it is?