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| 02-04-2020, 02:19 PM | #1 |
| Monitor Calibration Tool Recommendation | |
| 02-04-2020, 02:33 PM | #2 |
| 02-04-2020, 02:36 PM | #3 |
| 02-04-2020, 04:08 PM | #4 |
 Originally posted by luftfluss  Huh, my Spyder 4 Express works perfectly on my Win10 PC. Originally posted by BigMackCam I use a Colormunki Display colorimeter as the measurement device, and DisplayCAL software for profiling (which I prefer to Colormunki's bundled software). I believe it has been replaced by the Colormuni i1Display Studio and Pro versions, but the original is still available in some markets. The hardware in all of these is, I believe, much the same. I've had great, consistent results with this setup for several years now under Windows 10 and Linux Mint 18.3, and it's working just as well as the day I bought it. I own an HP ZBook mobile workstation with 100% AdobeRGB screen and built-in colorimeter plus profiling software. Comparing the profiles that creates vs those produced using the Colormunki Display and DisplayCAL, the results are incredibly close (not 100% identical, I'll admit - but 99%)... It's important to note that I am not a product photographer, snapping lipsticks and getting the absolute correct shade of red or whatever is not instrumental to me, as I said 'good enough' would be acceptable. Right now as my main photography monitor is dead I'm having to use my second monitor which is a gaming monitor with 144hz refresh rates. I notice it has sRGB mode, curiously when using that mode you are locked into a brightness and contrast and colours that you cannot get out of... I found this article;Results: Color Gamut And Performance - AOC G2460PQU - 24-inch 144 Hz Gaming Monitor Review - Tom's Hardware | Tom's Hardware In it it says to bail out of sRGB and do some tinkering (setting Gamma to 2) and changing some colours gives better accuracy, but I'm just unsure of how the fella is able to judge that... how does he know shifting a certain hue one way is resulting in better accuracy etc?  | |
| 02-04-2020, 05:14 PM | #6 |
| Originally posted by BruceBanner I'm still relatively new to all this colour calibration having really just had a friend 'do it for me'. I am now in the market for a new monitor and I notice the calibration tools like Spyder and Munki are not cheap! I don't need absolute accuracy as many of my images undergo a lot of colour manipulation anyway, but its nice to start off the edit in the general ball park of being fairly accurate. I'm just a humble amateur who likes to view and share my images (and other people's) on multiple devices of my own and within my family - numerous laptops, PC monitors, tablets, etc. - with some degree of consistency. Display profiling is an essential component of that, although the display device itself (specifically, the gamut it can display) plays a large role. A screen that is only capable of displaying (for example) 50% of the sRGB gamut is never going to produce the same output as one that displays 100% of sRGB, no matter how much profiling you do... but in that instance, profiling for perceptual accuracy will at least minimise the differences. Originally posted by BruceBanner Are you saying then, that certain monitors out of the box have the colours bang on and really all it is is a case of toning down brightness of the monitor for the environment working in? I mean if it was the difference to spending $700 for a monitor AND having to pay an additional 200-300 for monitor calibration vs just buying a nicer monitor at $1000 that really needs no additional tinkering then I think I would prefer that. Originally posted by BruceBanner It's important to note that I am not a product photographer, snapping lipsticks and getting the absolute correct shade of red or whatever is not instrumental to me, as I said 'good enough' would be acceptable.  Now, you obviously can't be held responsible for the accuracy of devices folks use to view or print your photos... but you can control the accuracy of your processing environment such that any significant inaccuracies are on them rather than you.Originally posted by BruceBanner Right now as my main photography monitor is dead I'm having to use my second monitor which is a gaming monitor with 144hz refresh rates. I notice it has sRGB mode, curiously when using that mode you are locked into a brightness and contrast and colours that you cannot get out of... I found this article;Results: Color Gamut And Performance - AOC G2460PQU - 24-inch 144 Hz Gaming Monitor Review - Tom's Hardware | Tom's Hardware In it it says to bail out of sRGB and do some tinkering (setting Gamma to 2) and changing some colours gives better accuracy, but I'm just unsure of how the fella is able to judge that... how does he know shifting a certain hue one way is resulting in better accuracy etc? Once you've ascertained the capability of your monitor and decided whether it's good enough for your needs, you'll set it to the sRGB mode (since other modes will alter the accuracy of sRGB reproduction), and use a colorimeter device such as the Spyder or Colormunki units - and requisite software - to create a profile for perceptual accuracy, with a white-point of D65 and luminance of (say) 100 - 120 cd/m2 and 2.2 gamma (as a starting point until your needs become clearer). That's going to give you something similar to printed output when viewed on your monitor... Last edited by BigMackCam; 02-05-2020 at 03:09 AM. | |
| 02-04-2020, 10:31 PM | #7 |
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Set camera colour space AdobeRGB, screen that has 100% AdobeRGB eg. IPS or VA, Asus PA or equivalent Benq or Eizo 2K or above panel. Output to Printer. For screen resave in sRGB. Currently I'm using some older Benq VA panels 1080 and use a friends ColourMunki to calibrate for screen and printer on Win. 7. The ColourMunki is doing a very good job. Beyond that I'm working with Displaycal and same monitors on LinuxMint with the ColourMunki, so far with reasonable results, although I need to work harder on that. (mainly to move away from Windows). TFT Central might be worth a look, depending on the screen choice, it may be in their database, often they test gaming screens but not always. Similar to BigMackCam, I am moving to a better screen, possibly a 100% AdobeRGB, but most likely a 100% sRGB due to cost. But hey I'm not producing prints commercially. I have set up similar screens for others and marvel at how much better they are than my current screen. What I'm aiming at is a higher ppi count (pixels per inch) and 2K resolution. I am installing a Benq BL2420PT for a friend on Sunday with a suitable graphics card. She has an older computer and needs a better screen to edit images and do home video on. I'm probably going to want a new one myself, mine are over seven years old now and have done a good job, time to move up  Last edited by beachgardener; 02-05-2020 at 11:57 PM. Reason: add image | |
| 02-05-2020, 08:08 AM - 2 Likes | #9 |
| Originally posted by BruceBanner Spyder5Pro is not working currently, for his system or mine, both completely different builds and he warned me a certain win 10 update would stuff it up and it did (this was latter last year). Everytime our machines boot up the colour calibration fails, even when re-calibrated again. Details contained in this doc: Windows 10 May 2019 Update (Windows 10, Build 1903) Unable to Create and / or Activate an ICC Profile in - SpyderX, Spyder5 and Spyder4 - Powered by Kayako https://support.datacolor.com/index.php? Help Desk Software Quote: I'm still relatively new to all this colour calibration having really just had a friend 'do it for me'. I am now in the market for a new monitor and I notice the calibration tools like Spyder and Munki are not cheap! I don't need absolute accuracy as many of my images undergo a lot of colour manipulation anyway, but its nice to start off the edit in the general ball park of being fairly accurate. Are you saying then, that certain monitors out of the box have the colours bang on and really all it is is a case of toning down brightness of the monitor for the environment working in? I mean if it was the difference to spending $700 for a monitor AND having to pay an additional 200-300 for monitor calibration vs just buying a nicer monitor at $1000 that really needs no additional tinkering then I think I would prefer that. ...... as I said 'good enough' would be acceptable. ....... In it it says to bail out of sRGB and do some tinkering (setting Gamma to 2) and changing some colours gives better accuracy, but I'm just unsure of how the fella is able to judge that... how does he know shifting a certain hue one way is resulting in better accuracy etc? I would say that no monitors right out of the box have colours bang on - how could they, as you have not defined your calibration points yet. Similarly turning brightness down or up needs to be calibrated for your ambient light editing conditions. This is not a matter of colour space sRGB or Adobe RGB they are merely colour gamuts which your monitor may be capable of displaying all or a percentage of. If you are calibrating and profiling a monitor then by definition you are aiming for colour accuracy and far better than good enough, as this will just not do and has no place in a colour managed system. So the first question is why would we want to calibrate a monitor? One answers may be so that we can be sure that others viewing our images on screen (with calibrated monitors of course!) will be seeing what we are seeing on our monitors within a colour savvy application regardless of system differences. Another answer, perhaps more important is so that we see our data exactly as it is and how it will print to paper via soft proofing facilities in our software. Basically there are two parts to the calibration process. First we need to set our target/aim points which may be similar to White Point D65, Gamma 2.2, Contrast *, Luminence 80 - 160 cd/m2. Once we have these set and start the process then the application will measure how close we get to these points. The second part of the calibration process is the recording of these reading differences against our target points in the monitor profile that it produced. It is with this accurate profile in place that colour savvy application e.g. Photoshop and Lightroom can adjust the display to take into account monitor differences (between aim points and actual) and therefore show an accurate representation of our image data on screen within the limitations of the monitors available gamut. Without this we could be editing an image to correct for a cold cast that is not in the actual image data which when viewed on another calibrated system may appear too warm both on screen and on paper. Similarly luminence too high and prints likely to be too dark or vice versa luminence too low and prints likely to be to light, because we have tried to compensate in editing for something that is non existing in the image data Last edited by TonyW; 02-05-2020 at 08:21 AM. | |
| 02-05-2020, 10:40 AM | #10 |
| Originally posted by stevebrot Conventional wisdom is to use the Spyder colorimeter with DisplayCal sofware. Perhaps giving that product a try might solve the Win10 issue. DisplayCAL | Display Calibration and Characterization powered by ArgyllCMS Steve | |
| 02-05-2020, 10:44 AM | #11 |
| Originally posted by TonyW Bruce this is a known issue with some of the Datacolor products after the Windows 1903 updates middle of last year. They have published a suggested workaround including uninstall of the Spyder software a MS patch and if that does not work disabling of "DisplayEnhancementService". Details contained in this doc: Windows 10 May 2019 Update (Windows 10, Build 1903) Unable to Create and / or Activate an ICC Profile in - SpyderX, Spyder5 and Spyder4 - Powered by Kayako Datacolor - Powered by Kayako https://support.datacolor.com/index.php? Help Desk Software Help Desk Software Bruce, with respect I think you may be under some misapprehension regarding monitors and particularly colour management and why we would want to calibrate a monitor. I would say that no monitors right out of the box have colours bang on - how could they, as you have not defined your calibration points yet. Similarly turning brightness down or up needs to be calibrated for your ambient light editing conditions. This is not a matter of colour space sRGB or Adobe RGB they are merely colour gamuts which your monitor may be capable of displaying all or a percentage of. If you are calibrating and profiling a monitor then by definition you are aiming for colour accuracy and far better than good enough, as this will just not do and has no place in a colour managed system. So the first question is why would we want to calibrate a monitor? One answers may be so that we can be sure that others viewing our images on screen (with calibrated monitors of course!) will be seeing what we are seeing on our monitors within a colour savvy application regardless of system differences. Another answer, perhaps more important is so that we see our data exactly as it is and how it will print to paper via soft proofing facilities in our software. Basically there are two parts to the calibration process. First we need to set our target/aim points which may be similar to White Point D65, Gamma 2.2, Contrast *, Luminence 80 - 160 cd/m2. Once we have these set and start the process then the application will measure how close we get to these points. The second part of the calibration process is the recording of these reading differences against our target points in the monitor profile that it produced. It is with this accurate profile in place that colour savvy application e.g. Photoshop and Lightroom can adjust the display to take into account monitor differences (between aim points and actual) and therefore show an accurate representation of our image data on screen within the limitations of the monitors available gamut. Without this we could be editing an image to correct for a cold cast that is not in the actual image data which when viewed on another calibrated system may appear too warm both on screen and on paper. Similarly luminence too high and prints likely to be too dark or vice versa luminence too low and prints likely to be to light, because we have tried to compensate in editing for something that is non existing in the image data Thank you, Tony, for summarizing a complex subject in a few succinct paragraphs. Steve | |
| 02-05-2020, 06:36 PM | #12 |
| Originally posted by BruceBanner I've been borrowing my mates Spyder one for a few years, really should get my own, and I noticed currently the Spyder tool has not been working properly for quite some time with a Win 10 update that rolled out last year. Both I and my friend who owns the Spyder tool can confirm it is just not working, we're waiting on an update from either Spyder or Win 10 to fix (he knows more about it than I). So... not really keen to do Spyder, what other recommendations do people have for monitor calibration? Cheers, BB | |
| 02-06-2020, 05:41 AM | #13 |
| Guest | |
| 02-10-2020, 01:49 AM | #15 |
| Originally posted by BigMackCam Given your level of photography and the fact that (if I remember correctly) you're taking on professional assignments, personally I think you really ought to work with good colour, luminance and contrast accuracy on screen. It's providing an essential baseline for your processing that will - at the very least - limit just how far off things are for your customers and viewers when they look at your photos on their own uncalibrated screens. It's also the first step in an end-to-end colour-managed workflow leading to accurate prints. I'm just a humble amateur who likes to view and share my images (and other people's) on multiple devices of my own and within my family - numerous laptops, PC monitors, tablets, etc. - with some degree of consistency. Display profiling is an essential component of that, although the display device itself (specifically, the gamut it can display) plays a large role. A screen that is only capable of displaying (for example) 50% of the sRGB gamut is never going to produce the same output as one that displays 100% of sRGB, no matter how much profiling you do... but in that instance, profiling for perceptual accuracy will at least minimise the differences. I wasn't saying that, but yes. Monitors designed for colour accuracy may come from the factory internally calibrated / profiled such that they will display colours and shades within their gamut accurately when the system they're connected to uses a default profile. Furthermore, some higher-end monitors designed for photography, video and graphics work actually have a colorimeter tool built in, and require no profiling on the connected computer. Understood... and yet, you'd be shocked just how far off the colour reproduction and default brightness is on some displays. For example, many LCD panels have a rather cold, blue cast to them (especially true of laptop displays, it seems). If you process your images to look "natural" using such a screen without profiling it, anyone looking at it on an accurately profiled monitor will see something that looks way to warm and yellow, and dark / under-exposed. Imagine taking a wedding photo and the bride and groom seeing your photos showing an unnaturally yellow dress Now, you obviously can't be held responsible for the accuracy of devices folks use to view or print your photos... but you can control the accuracy of your processing environment such that any significant inaccuracies are on them rather than you.The first thing I'd do is research your monitor and find out what percentage of the sRGB and AdobeRGB gamuts it is capable of reproducing. Gaming monitors aren't always the best in terms of gamut... but that's not universally the case. Ideally, for post-processing photos that are destined for other devices - via the web, or for typical on-screen viewing - you want a monitor capable of displaying as close as possible to 100% of the sRGB gamut. A monitor with, say, 57% gamut coverage is going to dispay fewer colour shades and seriously limit your ability to process with much accuracy. One with 85% coverage is pretty good. 100% coverage is ideal. I use a laptop / mobile workstation that has a wide gamut screen capable of displaying close to 100% of AdobeRGB (and, hence, easily manages 100% sRGB within that), but I only chose that because the other display options for that machine couldn't display a full 100% of sRGB. My external monitor is a BenQ BL2420PT 24 inch QHD model with 100% sRGB coverage. Once you've ascertained the capability of your monitor and decided whether it's good enough for your needs, you'll set it to the sRGB mode (since other modes will alter the accuracy of sRGB reproduction), and use a colorimeter device such as the Spyder or Colormunki units - and requisite software - to create a profile for perceptual accuracy, with a white-point of D65 and luminance of (say) 100 - 120 cd/m2 and 2.2 gamma (as a starting point until your needs become clearer). That's going to give you something similar to printed output when viewed on your monitor... I'm just curious as to how important it is, how regularly we must do it, and even we now have people saying that they bought x product, used the supplied software and didn't like what they were seeings so used y software instead... How is this calibration... I mean that's the user actually deciding the look they like vs what is recommended... what if they have bad judgement and x was the better software than y? How is this any different from someone buying a decent monitor right out of the box and just working on it, even if it is not absolutely perfect? In the 18 months since I had my monitor calibrated has anyone ever said to be "you know bruce... that skin tone looks a bit aff!"? Nope.. not once. I should probably have recalibrated half a dozen times but didn't. The difference is my workflow was not studio work for a lipstick company where colour accuracy is paramount. I'm questioning; How important is external calibration of a newly purchased photography geared monitor for the purpose of photography work that sits outside the realm of studio absolute colour accuracy? I say new because that's where I'm currently at, researching for a new monitor and I'm debating whether I feel the need to factor in (at least at this time) an external colour calibration device into that equation (vs borrowing my mates once every 18 months... and which I stated at the beginning seemed to be somewhat broken). Right now I'm using two 'old' monitors, a monitor for gaming and an old Asus 27 inch 1080p. It's actually been years since I have connected these displays up and I can see a huge difference in colours from the previous monitor (which has now died) which was the Philips 43 inch 4k monitor. I can understand more the necessity of colour calibration for older monitors, natively they seem very yucky indeed, however with modern monitors geared towards industry professionals? Am i really going to need to do colour calibration frequently on a display like this for example? BenQ 32" Designer Monitor, 2560x1440 2K QHD, 100% Rec.709, sRGB, Hotkey Puck, Dual View, HDMI, DP, Black, 32/inch, PD3200Q: Monitors: amazon.com.au?tag=pentaxforums-20& I bet out of the box it would be doing better than the 18 month old calibrated (and dying) 43 inch 4k monitor? (my work can be seen here; Eddy Summers and here; Eddy Summers | Flickr fyi. If you see some colours looking weird too you and not true to life... that would more likely be my presets, plugins and 3Dluts at play than bad colour accuracy caused from a badly calibrated screen. Originally posted by TonyW Bruce this is a known issue with some of the Datacolor products after the Windows 1903 updates middle of last year. They have published a suggested workaround including uninstall of the Spyder software a MS patch and if that does not work disabling of "DisplayEnhancementService". Details contained in this doc: Windows 10 May 2019 Update (Windows 10, Build 1903) Unable to Create and / or Activate an ICC Profile in - SpyderX, Spyder5 and Spyder4 - Powered by Kayako Datacolor - Powered by Kayako https://support.datacolor.com/index.php? Help Desk Software Help Desk Software Bruce, with respect I think you may be under some misapprehension regarding monitors and particularly colour management and why we would want to calibrate a monitor. I would say that no monitors right out of the box have colours bang on - how could they, as you have not defined your calibration points yet. Similarly turning brightness down or up needs to be calibrated for your ambient light editing conditions. This is not a matter of colour space sRGB or Adobe RGB they are merely colour gamuts which your monitor may be capable of displaying all or a percentage of. If you are calibrating and profiling a monitor then by definition you are aiming for colour accuracy and far better than good enough, as this will just not do and has no place in a colour managed system. So the first question is why would we want to calibrate a monitor? One answers may be so that we can be sure that others viewing our images on screen (with calibrated monitors of course!) will be seeing what we are seeing on our monitors within a colour savvy application regardless of system differences. Another answer, perhaps more important is so that we see our data exactly as it is and how it will print to paper via soft proofing facilities in our software. Basically there are two parts to the calibration process. First we need to set our target/aim points which may be similar to White Point D65, Gamma 2.2, Contrast *, Luminence 80 - 160 cd/m2. Once we have these set and start the process then the application will measure how close we get to these points. The second part of the calibration process is the recording of these reading differences against our target points in the monitor profile that it produced. It is with this accurate profile in place that colour savvy application e.g. Photoshop and Lightroom can adjust the display to take into account monitor differences (between aim points and actual) and therefore show an accurate representation of our image data on screen within the limitations of the monitors available gamut. Without this we could be editing an image to correct for a cold cast that is not in the actual image data which when viewed on another calibrated system may appear too warm both on screen and on paper. Similarly luminence too high and prints likely to be too dark or vice versa luminence too low and prints likely to be to light, because we have tried to compensate in editing for something that is non existing in the image data I guess I'm still a little confused over 'calibration'. Calibrating what exactly? If red is R =255 G=0 and B=0 then it has a certain 'look' to it. If I'm in PS with one calibrated monitor and I select that red and paint it in PS, then on another monitor (which is crappier and uncalibrated) and using the same value (255, 0, 0) and it looks different, then how does calibration work on the bad monitor to help it look more like the calibrated red. Isn't it just a physical limitation of the screen? Does calibration skew things? Would I be using a different value (172, 0, 0) to get the same kind of red on the now corrected calibrated naff monitor to get something that looks like the red on the better monitor? Does that then mean working on images on a monitor that is calibrated but not up to things tech wise actually get you in more trouble? It's something I've mentioned to clients in the past as well. When I have finished some first drafts and share them, they might look wildly different on their phones or screens. Should I perhaps be calibrating my monitor to their device output so if I know my client is using iphone 7 to judge my work, then if I also use iphone 7 calibration settings and get my home monitor to show colours the same, then at least I know when I edit and share my work with them we are on the same page? That kinda makes more sense to me... I laughed once that my wifes boss criticised some of the work social media images and how the colours looked awful. Turns out her phone display settings were something quite off from standard, like Reading mode or something LOL! Originally posted by Larrymc I use an Xrite Colormunki Display Device and DisplayCal as the calibration software. The Xrite calibration software yielded a very warm display so after a little online research i found that DisplayCal Freeware was very very good. I've used it several times and DisplayCal absolutely works seamlessly with the Colormunki Display Device. I recommend the combination highly. | |
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