Calibrating monitor (LCD laptop)

Grumpy_one

No wonder!! Look at what I've been seeing vs. real world (print). No wonder my photo's looked ok on this monitor and looked like cr*p on my crt monitors (home, work). I just thought the image was lousy on the crt's. Turns out my laptop lcd monitor was giving me false confidence.


The photo's next to the monitor are pretty close to real color.

pathfinder

Calibrated monitors are a real assett, as you experienced oh Grumpy One

Even better when your prints match your screen, and you can reliably soft proof them there before printing with confidence.

Laptop LCDs are more usually difficult to reliably calibrate also. That is one of the reasons I strongly prefer to do my editing on my desktop Cinema Display at home, rather than in the field.

Even though I calibrate my laptop's screen, head position is very significant in how the image looks on my laptop; less so, on my Cinema Display with my Mac.

Icebear

Yup!
I don't even bother calibrating my notebook screen. I shoot all my assigments teathered. I encourage my clients to look at good shots, but tell them "This is just RAW data. Do not look at color, exposure, straightness - nuttin but composition" I think of my notebook screen as a bigger version of the LCD on the back of the camera. One day you'll get old too, and understand what I'm talkin' about.:rutt

jdryan3

pathfinder wrote:

Calibrated monitors are a real assett, as you experienced oh Grumpy One

Even better when your prints match your screen, and you can reliably soft proof them there before printing with confidence.

Most definitely. Besides monitor calibration, getting a good handle on using ICC profiles and PS/printer color management is very important. The yin to calibration's yang. Hint: turn off ANY printer settings that control how an image looks - vibrance, style, all that stuff. Let PS and your profile handle it

pathfinder wrote:

Laptop LCDs are more usually difficult to reliably calibrate also. That is one of the reasons I strongly prefer to do my editing on my desktop Cinema Display at home, rather than in the field.

Even though I calibrate my laptop's screen, head position is very significant in how the image looks on my laptop; less so, on my Cinema Display with my Mac.

I also calibrate my laptops (previously a PC; now a MacBook Pro), but only so if I am doing output in the field and my 24" WFP is not available. Plus something is better than nothing. At home I use my MBP monitor for PS tools and pallettes, my image is on the 24". And on the Mac I changed the gamma for both video outputs when calibrating.

Dave Clee

The best investment I made was the spider setup, it wasnt exactly cheap but all of my prints have come out fine since then.

Cheers

Dave

errick

Icebear wrote: »

I don't even bother calibrating my notebook screen. I shoot all my assigments teathered. I encourage my clients to look at good shots, but tell them "This is just RAW data. Do not look at color, exposure, straightness - nuttin but composition" I think of my notebook screen as a bigger version of the LCD on the back of the camera. One day you'll get old too, and understand what I'm talkin' about.:rutt

The only problems could be either the backlight, or the inverter? Because I bought a new display that was suppose to be new and the inverter which was supposed to be brand new. So I'm not going to put more money into this if its either one of those causes. I'd be better off buying a newer laptop and saving myself the aggervation. good luck!

David_S85

I moved this discussion into Digital Darkroom to get more eyes on it.

Newsy

errick wrote: »

The only problems could be either the backlight, or the inverter? Because I bought a new display that was suppose to be new and the inverter which was supposed to be brand new. So I'm not going to put more money into this if its either one of those causes. I'd be better off buying a newer laptop and saving myself the aggervation. good luck!

Not sure exactly what you are referring to Errick but if you check the dates on the posts you'll see they are from 2007 so the OP is likely not looking for an answer today.

The issues with laptop screens are these:

• 6bit panels which use electronic techniques to simulate an 8bit panel
• "TN" TFT LCD panels where gamma/color shifts at angles off center
• lack of hardware controls to adjust contrast and RGB (only a back light "brightness" control is typical)
• cheap CCFL back lights that don't cover the full sRGB color space
• flakey OEM "screen mode" software that is no where near a calibrated sRGB standard

For this reason most people that are serious about accurate color work using Photoshop or other editing software, will elect to use an external monitor with their laptops.

With the external they they can obtain a monitor with 8 or 10bit panels; 8, 10, 12, or 14 bit processing of the image; full coverage of the sRGB color space and/or AdobeRGB space (wide gamut); an IPS or PVA TFT panel that has minimal issues with gamma/color shifts at off angle viewing; and a full suite of hardware controls for use in calibrating - preferably with a hardware calibrator such as the Spyder3 or i1.

.