[Ray Somerfield]

I've just started messing with RAW and post processing, but I am running into a bit of a problem. I have four monitors, one CRT and three LCDs. If I edit a photo to look good on one, it looks completely different on the others. I've tried messing with the brightness, gamma, and color settings on the monitors, but I really don't know what I am doing. Like just the other day, I was trying it on my laptop and did about a dozen photos until they looked good, but it later turned out my laptop lcd screen is dim and I boosted the brightness too much on the photos.

Now, I don't expect every monitor to display the same. Mainly what I am asking is for my post processing monitor how should I configure it for the best universal results? I want to use one of my monitors as dedicated for PP, but again I'm not really sure how to set it up.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance

[Venturi]

Pick up a monitor calibration tool like Spyder3 - and note there are different versions "tailored" for specific needs (e.g. with/without printer calibration) and the pricing varies dramatically.

They are not a magic bullet though. You need appropriate ambient light (color temp and intensity both) and the better the monitor you're starting with the better the results you can attain.

[tlwyse]

Get yourself a good colorimeter or spectro and display calibration+profiling software. Two packages that are highly regarded in color management circles are 1) basICColor Display and 2) ColorEyes Display Pro.

For colorimeters/spectros, there's only two that I can recommend without hesitation. The X-Rite DTP94 "OPTIX" is a very highly regarded colorimeter. X-Rite no longer sells it direct but they can still be had in a ColorEyes Display Pro bundle, at least for the time being. For spectrophotometers, the Eye-One Pro is about the only game in town. DO NOT get the *Eye-One Display* colorimeter or software package. It is an inferior product in my opinion. The Spyder3 is highly regarded by my colleagues at Integrated Color Corp., (Integrated Color Corp. Home of ColorEyes) enough that they offer it bundled with ColorEyes Display Pro but I personally have not used the device so I cannot vouch for it.

If you're confused about colorimeters vs. spectrophotometers, the first major difference is price...colorimeters go for typically a couple hundred bucks while spectros start at around $800 and go from there depending on the software that's included. Colorimeters are essentially a multi-filter type of device (tri-stimulus) while spectros break up the incoming light into spectral bands of typically 10 nanometer bandwidth. Spectrophotometers TEND to be more accurate and don't require any special filtering for the different types of displays (CRT and LCDs with different backlights). Colorimeters generally need to have filters "tuned" to the particular kind of display you're measuring but that is changing as newer devices add more filters, essentially becoming more like spectros. Bottom line, a true spectro can measure any kind of display whereas a colorimeter cannot.

In terms of software, I would strongly recommend either of the two packages I mentioned. Both offer DDC control for those monitors that support it (such as EIZO) and offer "iterative" calibration where they will repeatedly "tune" the calibration prior to profiling to achieve the best possible profile. The iterative calibration makes a big difference in achieving optimum gray balance/neutrality and is worth it.

As far as achieving a "match" between different displays, especially between CRT and LCD, it's not going to happen unless you make some compromises, with the main one being that you will end up "dumbing down" the LCD display in an attempt to match the CRT. Before I go into all that, it might be helpful to review what goes into the calibration process. But you should also be aware that in a *properly* color-managed application such as Photoshop, it's really not necessary to make the monitors match all that closely since, given an accurate display profile for each monitor, Photoshop will correct the display's preview so what you will see will be consistent across multiple displays, white point (color temp) and luminance being the two things that *will* change from display-to-display...but colors themselves will be pretty close. OK, here's what you need to know about calibration....

There are four major things that you will be asked to "target" during a display calibration:
1) Color temperature or "white point" expressed in degrees Kelvin typically.
2) Luminance typically in candelas per square meter or simply cd/m2.
3) Black level (typically this is set to "minimum")
4) And lastly "gamma" or the tone curve of the display.

The two that are LEAST important, at least with color-managed applications, are black level and gamma. Having said that, I would strongly recommend using the relatively new L* (or L-star) "gamma" or tone curve. It's perceptually uniform and is fairly close to the more common 2.2 gamma setting.

The two that are most important for display-to-display matching would be the color temp and luminance...and one of the "problems" here is that the two go kind of hand-in-hand. As far as luminance, an LCD display can typically exceed 200 cd/m2 while the typical (new) CRT can only achieve about 120-140 cd/m2. If the CRT is more than a couple years old, chances are it can barely exceed 100 cd/m2. So, the first thing you're faced with, if you want all the displays to "match", is you're going to have to reduce the luminance of the LCD to no more than the max luminance of the CRT...so that nice LCD you purchased will look just as dim and dingy as the CRT!

The second part of the equation is the color temperature. Opinions differ widely on this, ranging, typically, from 5000 degrees Kelvin (5000K) to about 6500K. 5000K is generally the "standard" for things like viewing booths that we use in the graphic arts but as a photographer viewing prints and comparing to a display, I would suggest something closer to 5500-6000K (I personally use 5700K as it matches my favorite printing paper, Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, pretty closely). Bottom line here is that the BRIGHTER your display (higher luminance), the lower you can set the color temperature without it looking to "yellow" or warm. The problem here is that if you opt to lower your LCD luminance to that of the CRT, say 100 cd/m2, you'll probably need to set the color temp to something closer to 6000K or even a bit higher to keep it from going visually warm. But if you can go closer to the native luminance of the LCD, you have the option of going to a warmer color temp to better match your photo paper.

Myself, unless I was forced to view both the CRT and LCD simultaneously, I would probably NOT calibrate them to "match" each other, forcing me to dumb down the LCD, but would instead calibrate each display to their optimum settings and accept the fact that they are not going to match exactly. After they are calibrated, you then go through the display profiling process and at that point, once a good profile is created, Photoshop will do it's best to give you a consistent preview. If you want to take it to the next level, you would actually turn on Photoshop's soft-proofing preview to achieve an even better match between displays.


Sorry about the length of this post but it's a complex subject that deserves as complete an answer as possible.

Regards,
Terry Wyse

[pingflood]

Keep in mind that most LCDs are 6-bit rather than 8-bit and not really ideal for photo editing.

[Duck Dodgers]

The assumption always seems to be that everyone runs Windoze. *Sigh*

For the rest of us non-lemmings here's a bit of info:

Linux color management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Wheatfield]

The assumption always seems to be that everyone runs Windoze.

I believe the advice given would also hold true for Mac.

[Duck Dodgers]

Keep in mind that most LCDs are 6-bit rather than 8-bit and not really ideal for photo editing.

I never heard that.

So, of course I had check mine.


It says:

"Color Support 24-bit (16.7 million colors)"

This is a run-of-the-mill Samsung SyncMaster 192MP.

[pingflood]

I never heard that.

So, of course I had check mine.


It says:

"Color Support 24-bit (16.7 million colors)"

This is a run-of-the-mill Samsung SyncMaster 192MP.

Most monitors claim 16.7M colors, but are dithering most of them. Apple got sued for this a year or two ago.

Your Samsung I believe uses a PVA panel which is 8-bit though.

The vast majority of LCDs out there are TN panels which unfortunately aren't true 8-bit... here's some info on it:
S-PVA panel LCD monitors for photography Digital photography articles Blog Archive

Personally I use a Dell 2007FP which came with two different panels; one 6-bit and one 8-bit. Luckily there's a way you can tell which from the serial number. Mine has the LG panel, which is S-IPS. Not bad for $229, 20" 1600x1200 true 8-bit. Still can be found brand new here and there.

[Ray Somerfield]

Wow, information overload. Thanks very much for the detailed response, tlwyse. It looks like I'll have to do some more reading up on this.

[Mann]

Yes, that's quite some information.

I've just made a new .ICM file under Windows. I'm just about to use 'xcalib' under Linux. I believe I should type the following: xcalib [filename.icm]

After this is done, then what? I'm just checking with other Linux guys here to be sure that what I do is right.

Does GIMP also need something to do with the .ICM file?

[Duck Dodgers]

Yes, that's quite some information.

I've just made a new .ICM file under Windows. I'm just about to use 'xcalib' under Linux. I believe I should type the following: xcalib [filename.icm]

After this is done, then what? I'm just checking with other Linux guys here to be sure that what I do is right.

Does GIMP also need something to do with the .ICM file?

There might be some helpful info here:

How to Add ICC Profiles In GIMP

[Mann]

There might be some helpful info here:

How to Add ICC Profiles In GIMP

Thanks. It looks like Adobe doesn't give away the data for Linux: their link after accepting the terms leads nowhere good.

[jstevewhite]

Most monitors claim 16.7M colors, but are dithering most of them. Apple got sued for this a year or two ago.

Yeah, I (and many of my mac-using friends) read about that, and got quite indignant. Then we spent hours with a loupe and long gradients, looking for evidence of dithering, just in case our vision wasn't accurate enough. We had a 6 bit monitor (declared so on packaging) to compare to. The dithering was fairly obvious with only minor magnification on the 6 bit monitor (I think it was a winlite, maybe?). None of our MBPs showed similar dithering. On the other hand, one's tempted - nay, driven - to believe the original complaint must have had some merit or Apple probably would have trounced them in court, if only to make a statement. All I can figure is that some macs had 6 bit screens in 'em.

Whether dithering impacts photo editing is another discussion, though. That would depend on viewing distance and visual acuity, I suspect, just like DOF or image noise. If you look at the screen from, say, 24 inches, and at 24 inches, you can't tell the difference, then it can't really impact your PP. If you look at it from, say, ten inches, and can see the dithering - or tell the difference - then obviously it does. The original lawsuit never became a class action lawsuit because they couldn't find enough people to sign on the lawsuit to make it one, so that suggests that either most macs didn't have the six bit panels, or only a very tiny group of people can tell the difference. Since Macs are overrepresented among visual professionals (video and photography), it seems that either there was no merit for class action, or visual professionals can't tell the difference.

This isn't meant as a defense of Apple, by any means. I'm really interested in how much difference 6 with dithering vs 8 without makes. The Winlite panel we had to compare to was cheap and didn't have nearly the contrast our MBPs have, and images looked much worse on it even from five feet away, due to lack of contrast, which killed the richness of the colors. Is the loss of contrast a function of the six-bit panel, or just the design of the cheap panel? Can one tell one has a 6-bit panel without a loupe? Or can well-built 6 bit panels fool you, even after you've seen the difference?

[Duck Dodgers]

Thanks. It looks like Adobe doesn't give away the data for Linux: their link after accepting the terms leads nowhere good.

Yeah, I saw that. Someone said one could use the Windows files, so I downloaded them, but they turned out to be binaries. I left a post anyway; maybe something will turn up.


Edit: I just went back to that site, and someone answered, saying the Windows binaries work fine under Linux. Huh. Guess I have something to try when I get home.

[Duck Dodgers]

Okay, I just remoted into my home box and ran

Code:

sudo apt-get install icc-profiles

Pulled it down from the repository.

Now I just have to figure out where apt-get stuck the files!