Monitor Calibration?


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SamPaul

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Sep 5, 2007
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Hi all experts out there,

Can someone clear my following doubts?

1) The photos that printed out from my printer (HP Photosmart C6180) is very much darker from what I see on the screen. Does it means that I need to calibrate my monitor in order to get the some color?

2) From what I know, the purpose of calibrating the monitor is to get the 'correct' color. So does it means that once I calibrate my monitor & saved the color profile. By using the profile, my printer will 'follow' the 'correct color' and hence my print out will match ( or rather close to) the one I see on my screen?

3) I try to adjust my monitor's color, brightness & contrast in order to 'match' my printout but it ended out very dim. is it normal?
 

Your printer profile, your paper profile and you monitor profile do make the different.
In the addition, the ambient light, the age of your inks also contribute to the difference.
 

to make sure that what you see on the monitor matches what you print, you would need to profile your monitor and your printer... what this means is that you need to use a device (eye power is usually not very consistent :)) and its associated software to make sure that the monitor and printer are producing colour that conforms to a certain standard... howerever, if your monitor is profiled and the print looks fine, usually people don't bother going into profiling the printer cause that's a really tedious and expensive process... so first thing, if you are concerned about the colour, buy or borrow or rent a monitor profiling device and profile your monitor...

here I would like to add one more point (a simplified look at calibration vs. profiling)... calibration refers to adjusting the hardware itself to match a certain standard (usually the manufacturer's specifications) whereas profiling usually involves measuring the colour available and controlling the output so that we know what colour is being produced... the thing is, monitors and printers are designed to produce a certain amount of colour, and in calibrating it, the colours produced would match what the manufacturers designed it to produce... but what these colours are in absolute terms needs to be known, and this is done by profiling the monitor or printer so that we know that when we want a certain red to show up, the computer knows how to instruct the monitor and printer to produce that same colour... :)
 

Thanks heheapa & theRBK.

So as what theRBK mentioned about the diff. between calibrating & profiling, if I purchse a Colorvision Spiderpro or Eyeone Display 2, do these calibrators calibrate or profile my monitor or both?
 

mainly profiling, although the programs do ask you to adjust the hardware to help optimize the colour and brightness... there are monitors sold with the hardware to do calibration, which stores the adjustments within the monitor and tries to reduce variation from the manufacturer's specs, although those are usually the high end ones... :)
 

Thanks again heheapa & theRBK! At least I'm sure now that I need to invest in a calibrator..:)
 

What you see on paper (passive) is normally slightly darker than what you see on monitor (active). You can run a printer proof to see the difference on CS before doing your actual print.
 

to make sure that what you see on the monitor matches what you print, you would need to profile your monitor and your printer... what this means is that you need to use a device (eye power is usually not very consistent :)....)

So does it mean that I dont need to calibrate my monitor if I dont do the printing myself? if i am sending my photos to those printing shop, do i still need to calibrate my monitor?

Got a free calibrator when i purchased my d80. Hmm...not sure if I shud venture into it :sweat:

Thanks in advance!
 

So does it mean that I dont need to calibrate my monitor if I dont do the printing myself? if i am sending my photos to those printing shop, do i still need to calibrate my monitor?

Got a free calibrator when i purchased my d80. Hmm...not sure if I shud venture into it :sweat:

Thanks in advance!
if depend on the printing shop to adjust your colour, then profiling your monitor is optional... but seeing that you have a free one, why not give it a shot... :)

if you want to control the colour of your images, and then tell the printing shop not to adjust the colours but to print them as is, then you should still profile your monitor (and possibly ask the printing shop for their printer's profile so you can soft proof your images as well)... :)
 

if depend on the printing shop to adjust your colour, then profiling your monitor is optional... but seeing that you have a free one, why not give it a shot... :)

if you want to control the colour of your images, and then tell the printing shop not to adjust the colours but to print them as is, then you should still profile your monitor (and possibly ask the printing shop for their printer's profile so you can soft proof your images as well)... :)

Think i need to read up more before i venture into it. m worried that i would end up messing up my monitors :p read your reply to SamPaul & realised it is not sth as simple as i thought

(btw, my free gift calibrator is the one given lots of :thumbsd::thumbsd: by reviews - gretagmacbeth. heehee)

Thank you so much for your reply :)
 

Think i need to read up more before i venture into it. m worried that i would end up messing up my monitors :p read your reply to SamPaul & realised it is not sth as simple as i thought

(btw, my free gift calibrator is the one given lots of :thumbsd::thumbsd: by reviews - gretagmacbeth. heehee)

Thank you so much for your reply :)
if there is prob with the profiling, just uninstall it... shouldn't permanently mess up your monitor... and from what some have reported, updating the software should manage most of the reported problems... can't give you definitive advice on it (I assume you mean the Huey or whatever name it is packaged as...) as I don't own one myself... or read up on the possible issues on the net or from this forum (there have been much discussion here) :)
 

Hi all experts out there,

Can someone clear my following doubts?

1) The photos that printed out from my printer (HP Photosmart C6180) is very much darker from what I see on the screen. Does it means that I need to calibrate my monitor in order to get the some color?

2) From what I know, the purpose of calibrating the monitor is to get the 'correct' color. So does it means that once I calibrate my monitor & saved the color profile. By using the profile, my printer will 'follow' the 'correct color' and hence my print out will match ( or rather close to) the one I see on my screen?

3) I try to adjust my monitor's color, brightness & contrast in order to 'match' my printout but it ended out very dim. is it normal?

There have been several answers to your queries, but let me try to help out point by point.

1) This means that your monitor's white and black point has not been set properly. And yes, this would mean you would need to calibrate your monitor.

2) Calibrating your monitor is one important step. However, you must use the correct ICC profile for your printer and paper to get the closest color to your calibrated monitor. I say 'closest' color as it can never be 100% similar. Monitors render color as RGB while printed media are reflective colors or CMYK. You can use your image editing software's soft-proofing ability to check. Needless to say, your monitor must be calibrated to get an accurate color rendering.

3) That will probably throw your color off more than leaving it alone. Take note of the following:

- when calibrating your monitor, make sure it has been running for at least an hour. LCD monitors take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to have a consistent temperature, brightness and contrast
- once your monitor has been calibrated, do not change color, brightness or contrast. Doing so will render your calibration useless
- calibrate your monitor in the same lighting conditions that you often work with. If you add or subtract light sources after your calibration, you're adding a color cast to your images and workflow
- ideally, your lights should have a temp of 5500 kelvin. if not, your light sources should be of the same temperature
- ideally, your wallpaper should be medium gray to avoid any color contamination when you're correcting images

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Justin
 

to make sure that what you see on the monitor matches what you print, you would need to profile your monitor and your printer... what this means is that you need to use a device (eye power is usually not very consistent :)) and its associated software to make sure that the monitor and printer are producing colour that conforms to a certain standard... :)

Monitor calibration is highly professional job and the proper software [and + neccessary hardware] is expansive.
Commercially available monitor calibrator available from Pentone.
If you are simple job, there is no way/appropriate to get such an expansive calibration system.

If your pictures ok on monitor but not ok on printer, then do a simple test:
Print a "Reference Page" from the printer software. I am sure the software comes with the printer has "Calibration" option to print out a test page.

If the printing of Test Image [if not available from your printer software] then download any nice picture from CS or Flickr and print a copy. If still bad, have your printer service. Must be out of calibration.

Cheers
 

Monitor calibration is highly professional job and the proper software [and + neccessary hardware] is expansive.
Commercially available monitor calibrator available from Pentone.
If you are simple job, there is no way/appropriate to get such an expansive calibration system.
which is why I suggested profiling the monitor instead of calibrating it... profiling is much more affordable... unfortunately for most discussions, these 2 terms are treated interchangeably... :)

If the printing of Test Image [if not available from your printer software] then download any nice picture from CS or Flickr and print a copy. If still bad, have your printer service. Must be out of calibration.

Cheers
of course, have to make sure that profile used for the paper is correct :)
 

THis is probably asked before....but how do i profile or calibrate my setup as follow:

1. Laptop (so...LCD screen)
2. Epson CX5500 Printer

Thanks a lot!!
 

I just received a printer profiling package..One of the cheaper solution around: Profile prism. It uses a scanner or a digi cam as the spectrocolorimeter. Basically the package contain a lab grade IT8 target which it uses as a basis for printer calibration. 1stly, u calibrate the scanner with the target then you print the same target with the file provided, next you scan the printed target with the calibrated scanner and it will compute an ICC profile using the printed target against a reference file. Definitely not as good as a real spectrocolorimeter, but should suffice..if you are interested, u can purchase a cheap IT8 target online and I can "lend" u the software for making the profile. In this way, u can profile as many ICC for the different paper used.
 

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