Monitor Callibration


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boreboor

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Nov 28, 2005
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Hi guys I wanna ask how to properly calibrate my monitor's colours? Is there any free-ware out there that can do a simple job?
And whenever I start my photoshop, it'll prompt me saying that my monitor profile is faulty.
If i choose to use it anyway, the colours will be screwed up. Instead of white it will be purple.
How do i set up an new and proper monitor profile?

Thanks!
 

you need to buy a hardware calibrator (eye one ) to calibarate your monitor ...... i waiting some to MO for it
 

Nothing will beat a hardware calibration tool... just BUY BUY BUY!!!!
 

Will the desktop viewers such as MSPicture Manager 2003 show the same image as CS in terms of brightness? It's very puzzling to me when images tuned in CS appear quite dark on the desktop viewers such as explorer etc... I tuned the monitor with Adobe Gamma, then edited images using the sRGB color space.

Can any comment?
 

teckkang said:
Will the desktop viewers such as MSPicture Manager 2003 show the same image as CS in terms of brightness? It's very puzzling to me when images tuned in CS appear quite dark on the desktop viewers such as explorer etc... I tuned the monitor with Adobe Gamma, then edited images using the sRGB color space.

Can any comment?
You will need to make sure that all the applications are looking up the correct colour profile. If not different applications will display them differently.
 

espn said:
Nothing will beat a hardware calibration tool... just BUY BUY BUY!!!!

Slightly OT here, once you calibrate your monitor using a hardware calibrator why would you need to do it again?
 

boreboor said:
Hi guys I wanna ask how to properly calibrate my monitor's colours? Is there any free-ware out there that can do a simple job?
And whenever I start my photoshop, it'll prompt me saying that my monitor profile is faulty.
If i choose to use it anyway, the colours will be screwed up. Instead of white it will be purple.
How do i set up an new and proper monitor profile?

Thanks!


What monitor are you using, brand, model? Some CRT & LCD monitor are hopeless...
 

espn said:
You will need to make sure that all the applications are looking up the correct colour profile. If not different applications will display them differently.

Does it mean, if my windows uses the calibrated profile, I have to default to this profile in photoshop? Thanks for your input
 

cyber_m0nkey said:
Slightly OT here, once you calibrate your monitor using a hardware calibrator why would you need to do it again?
Yes, colour shifts and tubes degrades over time, constant calibration is necessary to ensure your colours are displayed correct. Even an accidental increase/decrease of brightness/contrass will require recalibration again. For older monitors maybe bi-weekly for new ones maybe monthly.



teckkang said:
Does it mean, if my windows uses the calibrated profile, I have to default to this profile in photoshop? Thanks for your input
Yeppers.
 

espn said:
Yes, colour shifts and tubes degrades over time, constant calibration is necessary to ensure your colours are displayed correct. Even an accidental increase/decrease of brightness/contrass will require recalibration again. For older monitors maybe bi-weekly for new ones maybe monthly.

Surely this doesn't apply to LCD's though, does it?
 

cyber_m0nkey said:
Surely this doesn't apply to LCD's though, does it?

Yes it does. Colour shifts are less likely but LCDs lose brightness over time, so re-calibration every month or so is a good practice. This is especially important with older LCD monitors (1.5yrs or older).
 

teckkang said:
Will the desktop viewers such as MSPicture Manager 2003 show the same image as CS in terms of brightness? It's very puzzling to me when images tuned in CS appear quite dark on the desktop viewers such as explorer etc... I tuned the monitor with Adobe Gamma, then edited images using the sRGB color space.

Can any comment?

This is normal with programs that don't do colour management. This explanation took me a while to understand, and sometimes I get confused too, so bear with me...

New monitors are typically calibrated to something close to SRGB (but it can never be the same), so profile mismatches may not be obvious. However as a monitor ages, colour shifts may occur, and that is when colour calibration becomes more important.

Using Adobe Gamma created your monitor colour profile. This monitor profile will probably not match SRGB because your monitor colour space is probably smaller than SRGB colour space (ie your monitor cannot display all the colours in the SRGB colour space). Instead, the purpose of the profile is to enable you to see the widest range of colours and brightness levels that your monitor is capable of.

The other thing to remember is that RGB values are not absolute, so an RGB value of 230,0,0 in one colour space may translate as 255,0,0 when converted into another colour space. Remember I said that your monitor colour space is probably smaller than the SRGB colour space? So in order to display the SRGB picture, your monitor has to convert and compress the colours to fit your monitor colour space. This explains the difference in colours that you encountered in MSPicture Manager 2003.

Photoshop is colour aware, so it can recognise images embedded with the SRGB profile and do the necessary conversions correctly. Other programs which are not colour aware may not check the embedded SRGB profile and simply display everything as if the colour profile was in your monitor colour space, not realising that the RGB values it is receiving is actually for SRGB.

If you want your pictures to display correctly in SRGB, the solution for this is to ensure that you work in SRGB working space in photoshop, save the file with the correct colour space embedded, and you use an image viewing program that is colour aware. I'm a mac user, but if I'm not wrong, ACDSee, Photomechanic and iView Mediapro are examples of such programs.

However, if you are not concerned with how the pictures look to others, eg maybe you only want to output the picture to use as your desktop wallpaper, then you should save the picture in your monitor colour space. It will then more or less match what you saw in photoshop. But you must remember that because that wallpaper is in your monitor colour space, it could look strange on someone else's monitor, so if you decide to post the same picture online, you will need to re-save the picture in SRGB colour space. In fact, as an experiment, you could try saving a picture in your monitor's colour space in photoshop and opening it up in MSPicture Manager 2003 to see if it looks the same. If it does look the same, then it means that the program doesn't read ICC colour profiles. It just displays whatever RGB colour values it receives in the monitor colour space.

I hope this helps a bit.
 

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