did i calibrate correctly?
- Thread starter sfoto100
- Start date
Too tedious! I am not so much of a geek myself but I this is what I found out for myself after years of doing color-correction/matching on both PCs and MACs.
1. CRT Monitors(not the cheapo ones) like Sony and Viewsonic are affordable(now cheap) and reliable. If you have the budget for higher end models, of course they are even better. But to me the Sonys and Viewsonics are good enough.
2. LCD Monitors are never as accurate as the CRTs, though the good ones can be calibrated quite close to the CRTs. Some cheap CRTs and LCDs can never be calibrated correctly.
3. Everybody view colors differently. So, there's no 100% perfect model to follow. Every individual pair of eyes judge color charts differently too. We can only come to a general overall agreement in colors worldwide. That's what the calibrating hardware and software try to help us achieve. And these hardware and software still require our eyes' judgment.
4. The reason why we want "accurate colors" on our screen is for OUTPUT. OUTPUT can be in printed form or for uploading online. For online purposes, as we can't control the colors on others' monitors, we just have to achieve a general accuracy for the images to look generally good on most monitors. As for OUTPUT in printed form, it depends on what kind of prints and who prints them. That's the reason why commercial photographers who demand high accuracies in colors always attach printed color proofs along with the softcopies and color profiles to printers.
5. To simplify your "calibration" as a home-user(I suppose), I would suggest the following:
a. find a good printer (e.g. Konota in Peninsula, tel:63334492) to print out some of your prints especially those with skin tones (unless you don't shoot people at all). JPEGs SHOT IN DAYLIGHT straight out of camera is fine. (Most cameras handle daylight pretty well today). Skin tone is usually the first thing that annoys you when color is out. Our natural eye is more sensitive to "skin tone accuracy" than other stuff. Usually we are more "forgiving" towards the color accuracy of inanimate objects.
b. try matching the colors on your monitor screen to the prints. Do this under white light or semi-daylight (closer to 6500K). Do not do this under tungsten light.
In doing these, you should achieve a general accuracy in your monitor colors. You can then try uploading some files and view them at a few of your friends' monitors to see if they are diversely different. They should not differ that much and if one monitor is very different from the rest, it's either that monitor is totally out (OR it's the only accurate one
)
As I have said, we can control our printouts but not the colors on other people's monitors. To so-called achieve 100% color-accuracy for images online is impossible and unnecessary. I would just achieve a general accuracy for the images I upload online for viewing.
Hope my amateurish advice helps. ;-)
1. CRT Monitors(not the cheapo ones) like Sony and Viewsonic are affordable(now cheap) and reliable. If you have the budget for higher end models, of course they are even better. But to me the Sonys and Viewsonics are good enough.
2. LCD Monitors are never as accurate as the CRTs, though the good ones can be calibrated quite close to the CRTs. Some cheap CRTs and LCDs can never be calibrated correctly.
3. Everybody view colors differently. So, there's no 100% perfect model to follow. Every individual pair of eyes judge color charts differently too. We can only come to a general overall agreement in colors worldwide. That's what the calibrating hardware and software try to help us achieve. And these hardware and software still require our eyes' judgment.
4. The reason why we want "accurate colors" on our screen is for OUTPUT. OUTPUT can be in printed form or for uploading online. For online purposes, as we can't control the colors on others' monitors, we just have to achieve a general accuracy for the images to look generally good on most monitors. As for OUTPUT in printed form, it depends on what kind of prints and who prints them. That's the reason why commercial photographers who demand high accuracies in colors always attach printed color proofs along with the softcopies and color profiles to printers.
5. To simplify your "calibration" as a home-user(I suppose), I would suggest the following:
a. find a good printer (e.g. Konota in Peninsula, tel:63334492) to print out some of your prints especially those with skin tones (unless you don't shoot people at all). JPEGs SHOT IN DAYLIGHT straight out of camera is fine. (Most cameras handle daylight pretty well today). Skin tone is usually the first thing that annoys you when color is out. Our natural eye is more sensitive to "skin tone accuracy" than other stuff. Usually we are more "forgiving" towards the color accuracy of inanimate objects.
b. try matching the colors on your monitor screen to the prints. Do this under white light or semi-daylight (closer to 6500K). Do not do this under tungsten light.
In doing these, you should achieve a general accuracy in your monitor colors. You can then try uploading some files and view them at a few of your friends' monitors to see if they are diversely different. They should not differ that much and if one monitor is very different from the rest, it's either that monitor is totally out (OR it's the only accurate one
)As I have said, we can control our printouts but not the colors on other people's monitors. To so-called achieve 100% color-accuracy for images online is impossible and unnecessary. I would just achieve a general accuracy for the images I upload online for viewing.
Hope my amateurish advice helps. ;-)
Too tedious! I am not so much of a geek myself but I this is what I found out for myself after years of doing color-correction/matching on both PCs and MACs.
1. CRT Monitors(not the cheapo ones) like Sony and Viewsonic are affordable(now cheap) and reliable. If you have the budget for higher end models, of course they are even better. But to me the Sonys and Viewsonics are good enough.
2. LCD Monitors are never as accurate as the CRTs, though the good ones can be calibrated quite close to the CRTs. Some cheap CRTs and LCDs can never be calibrated correctly.
3. Everybody view colors differently. So, there's no 100% perfect model to follow. Every individual pair of eyes judge color charts differently too. We can only come to a general overall agreement in colors worldwide. That's what the calibrating hardware and software try to help us achieve. And these hardware and software still require our eyes' judgment.
4. The reason why we want "accurate colors" on our screen is for OUTPUT. OUTPUT can be in printed form or for uploading online. For online purposes, as we can't control the colors on others' monitors, we just have to achieve a general accuracy for the images to look generally good on most monitors. As for OUTPUT in printed form, it depends on what kind of prints and who prints them. That's the reason why commercial photographers who demand high accuracies in colors always attach printed color proofs along with the softcopies and color profiles to printers.
5. To simplify your "calibration" as a home-user(I suppose), I would suggest the following:
a. find a good printer (e.g. Konota in Peninsula, tel:63334492) to print out some of your prints especially those with skin tones (unless you don't shoot people at all). JPEGs SHOT IN DAYLIGHT straight out of camera is fine. (Most cameras handle daylight pretty well today). Skin tone is usually the first thing that annoys you when color is out. Our natural eye is more sensitive to "skin tone accuracy" than other stuff. Usually we are more "forgiving" towards the color accuracy of inanimate objects.
b. try matching the colors on your monitor screen to the prints. Do this under white light or semi-daylight (closer to 6500K). Do not do this under tungsten light.
In doing these, you should achieve a general accuracy in your monitor colors. You can then try uploading some files and view them at a few of your friends' monitors to see if they are diversely different. They should not differ that much and if one monitor is very different from the rest, it's either that monitor is totally out (OR it's the only accurate one
As I have said, we can control our printouts but not the colors on other people's monitors. To so-called achieve 100% color-accuracy for images online is impossible and unnecessary. I would just achieve a general accuracy for the images I upload online for viewing.
Hope my amateurish advice helps. ;-)
solid answer! tks alot
Found an interesting view put up on the popular Spyder 3 colorimeter:
http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16756
Extracted from the article:
"The Spyder3 is a wonderfully engineered meter but it lacked factory calibration. Our past experience with Spyder meters showed that only approximately 1/3 were accurate enough out of the box for serious display calibration. The others were simply too far off to be of any use."
Perhaps that could be one of the reasons why some people, after calibration, aren't too happy with the result?
Sounds like one of those "between the devil and the deep blue sea" situations - Spyder 3 better hardware but calibration inconsistent, i1Display2 inferior hardware but better calibrated.
http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16756
Extracted from the article:
"The Spyder3 is a wonderfully engineered meter but it lacked factory calibration. Our past experience with Spyder meters showed that only approximately 1/3 were accurate enough out of the box for serious display calibration. The others were simply too far off to be of any use."
Perhaps that could be one of the reasons why some people, after calibration, aren't too happy with the result?
Sounds like one of those "between the devil and the deep blue sea" situations - Spyder 3 better hardware but calibration inconsistent, i1Display2 inferior hardware but better calibrated.
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Too tedious! I am not so much of a geek myself but I this is what I found out for myself after years of doing color-correction/matching on both PCs and MACs.
1. CRT Monitors(not the cheapo ones) like Sony and Viewsonic are affordable(now cheap) and reliable. If you have the budget for higher end models, of course they are even better. But to me the Sonys and Viewsonics are good enough.
2. LCD Monitors are never as accurate as the CRTs, though the good ones can be calibrated quite close to the CRTs. Some cheap CRTs and LCDs can never be calibrated correctly.
3. Everybody view colors differently. So, there's no 100% perfect model to follow. Every individual pair of eyes judge color charts differently too. We can only come to a general overall agreement in colors worldwide. That's what the calibrating hardware and software try to help us achieve. And these hardware and software still require our eyes' judgment.
4. The reason why we want "accurate colors" on our screen is for OUTPUT. OUTPUT can be in printed form or for uploading online. For online purposes, as we can't control the colors on others' monitors, we just have to achieve a general accuracy for the images to look generally good on most monitors. As for OUTPUT in printed form, it depends on what kind of prints and who prints them. That's the reason why commercial photographers who demand high accuracies in colors always attach printed color proofs along with the softcopies and color profiles to printers.
5. To simplify your "calibration" as a home-user(I suppose), I would suggest the following:
a. find a good printer (e.g. Konota in Peninsula, tel:63334492) to print out some of your prints especially those with skin tones (unless you don't shoot people at all). JPEGs SHOT IN DAYLIGHT straight out of camera is fine. (Most cameras handle daylight pretty well today). Skin tone is usually the first thing that annoys you when color is out. Our natural eye is more sensitive to "skin tone accuracy" than other stuff. Usually we are more "forgiving" towards the color accuracy of inanimate objects.
b. try matching the colors on your monitor screen to the prints. Do this under white light or semi-daylight (closer to 6500K). Do not do this under tungsten light.
In doing these, you should achieve a general accuracy in your monitor colors. You can then try uploading some files and view them at a few of your friends' monitors to see if they are diversely different. They should not differ that much and if one monitor is very different from the rest, it's either that monitor is totally out (OR it's the only accurate one
As I have said, we can control our printouts but not the colors on other people's monitors. To so-called achieve 100% color-accuracy for images online is impossible and unnecessary. I would just achieve a general accuracy for the images I upload online for viewing.
Hope my amateurish advice helps. ;-)
fully agree of what you said. I usually will place a Std gray/color scale for reference to check the print out. I use Barco / Rasterops monitor those days, is easier to match with those monitor then today LCD. However Grey/colour scale chart is important for such purpose. without reference point is hard to set.
ya.. it seems that we need to buy another calibrator to calibrate the calibrator... then another one to calibrate ... haha... in the end they will get richer, we get poorer...
hopefully there will be some kind of iso standard on colorimeter..
good article.. now i will be more careful when i buy colorimeter
any decent profiling gadget will do a better job than using bare eyes... precision of the profiling gadget should be plus/minus abit here and there...
but the key issue here is consistency... the ability to maintain a certain standard with the same profiling gadget on your monitor... where repeatability is concerned, this is where even a profiling gadget that might not be perfectly calibrated will trump the human eye... and with a monitor profiled in a consistent manner, colour is more predictable, whether the final output is for web viewing or print...
and where print is concerned, it should be the print output that should be matched to the profiled screen, not the other way around... unless it is the printer that is profiled and not the screen...
are there still new quality CRTs available for sale?... cause CRTs deteriorate quickly with age...
but the key issue here is consistency... the ability to maintain a certain standard with the same profiling gadget on your monitor... where repeatability is concerned, this is where even a profiling gadget that might not be perfectly calibrated will trump the human eye... and with a monitor profiled in a consistent manner, colour is more predictable, whether the final output is for web viewing or print...
and where print is concerned, it should be the print output that should be matched to the profiled screen, not the other way around... unless it is the printer that is profiled and not the screen...
are there still new quality CRTs available for sale?... cause CRTs deteriorate quickly with age...
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