Colour Calibration of Monitors - Hints & Tips

[Maureen]

Hi

Felt it best to start a new thread rather than continue under the previous Adobe RGB or sRGB thread

Irmgard Kaiser (Kessi) asked

One of the factors I find incredibly frustrating is calibration of the LCD monitor and the projector. I have been to so many sites to look at HOW To's, but just cannot get it right. I know one can use instruments like Spyder, etc, but the price is quite heavy. Are there any hints or tips you could possibly have on calibration of monitors.

I regard the question of RGB or sRGB as under Colour management (ie images) , whereas Calibration would involve setting up the equipment first.

Rather over simplified and a better and more lengthy explanation can be found with Wikepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_calibration

I know there are those far more expert than I, to explain colour calibration to you and unfortunately I do not have much time. I can only give my opinion and tell you what I would advise.

Firstly there is no substitute for good hardware calibration using one of the many devices (Colorimeters) such as GretagMacbeth, Spyder, Eye-One etc

Don't forget that older monitors do not always retain the calibration settings for very long. Calibration should be done regularly, not once and then forgotten.

However calibration should be carried out by a small number of people (preferably one or two) who know how to use it, i.e not a different member of a camera club using the calibration equipment on the screen every week.

Even calibration equipment can very occasionally like all equipment, go wrong or give a false setting, so believe your eyes and maybe double check with a chart.

If you wish to quickly (and cheaply) check for calibration use one of the many calibration charts available.

The most useful chart I have found is Canadian and unfortunately I cannot remember the source on the Internet (my apologies to the Camera Club who hosted it) but a copy can be downloaded here.

You will quickly be able to see that every detail of highlight and shadow information will be correctly seen if you can view all the squares and their smaller inside squares.

It is a quick cheaper option to the use of the calibration devices but not an alternative, if you can afford them.

GretagMacbeth also have a colourchecker colour rendition chart.

or download John Henshall's colour chart here :

http://www.epi-centre.com/charts/charts.html

Hope this helps Kessi

Best Wishes

Maureen

[Ken Cox]

see

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=59770

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=44374

but

if you buy or rent a dvd movie and there are known values such white shirts or blouse's in the movie and they show as white on your tv

- they should also show white on your computer setup

- when was the last time you had to adjust the viewing settings on the tv ?

ken

[fh1805]

- when was the last time you had to adjust the viewing settings on the tv ?

Ken,

This brings two questions to my mind:

- is what we see (in terms of colour on the TV) when we play a commercial DVD that which the producer of the DVD would have expected us to see? or is our TV in need of calibration?

- if the TV doesn't need calibrating then why do some of us have this urge to constantly calibrate their computer equipment? (For the record - I don't have the urge)

Maureen,

I don't quite understand why you felt a need to open a new thread (I think we could have let the discussion run in its original thread) but I feel that this is going to develop into a fascinating discussion. I'm just slightly concerned that we will end up with parts of the same discussion taking place in two separate places. The moderators might have to do some post moving between the two threads to keep things tidy.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Peter

"- if the TV doesn't need calibrating then why do some of us have this urge to constantly calibrate their computer equipment? (For the record - I don't have the urge)"

that is the question that bothers me -- why are people buying things that i dont believe they need -- is it to impress others that they bought a dongle/do-hickey/thingee and calibrated their monitor

this window we are typing in is white to my eyes -- if i go to the google search page

http://www.google.ca/

it is white background with coloured letters

when i shoot these pages to my tv the same white portions are on the tv

now as you and others know -- i just had catarct surgery - when the one eye was completed i realized that what i was actually seeing had a yellow tinge -- but nobody else told me my pictures/tv/monitor had a yellow ting

for years i have used

http://www.eye4u.com/home/

to set up my monitor

they have a greyscale

but the have a very intense colours before you get to the grayscale

and to setup my scanner i scan a known value and make the adjustments with the scanner software - not the monitor

i dont have a colour printer but i definitley would not calibrate my monitor with its controls if the printer did not print the white colour

also

this site has a grey scale

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos5dmarkII/

ken

[kessi]

Dear Maureen,

Thank you so much for your advice. I have downloaded the charts and I'll see if I get it right. I do however think that a hardware calibrator will be the correct way to go.

Regards,

kessi

[kessi]

Hi Ken,

I popped onto the site www.eye4u.com. Nice greyscale to use.

Thanks for the tip.

Regards,

kessi

[cjdnzl]

Ken,

This brings two questions to my mind:

- is what we see (in terms of colour on the TV) when we play a commercial DVD that which the producer of the DVD would have expected us to see? or is our TV in need of calibration?

- if the TV doesn't need calibrating then why do some of us have this urge to constantly calibrate their computer equipment? (For the record - I don't have the urge)

<snip>

regards,

Peter

TVs of course can be calibrated if you feel the need. Just go into any TV store and have a critical look at the banks of receivers on display - every single one will have color differences.

I was a TV tech for about 20 years, and I can tell you some tales regarding color balance. More often than not, if I adjusted the color on somebody's TV they would ring me a bit later complaining about the color, and what had I 'fiddled with' to alter it. On telling them the color was now correct, most would say they liked it as it was - usually far too bright and oversaturated - and would I please put it back!!

On one occasion I corrected the color, and when the husband got home after work, his wife asked him if he liked the color better now. He said 'I can't see any difference'. She rang me to ask if the color was really right, and said that her hubby couldn't see any difference. Given the set had been badly out, I said he was probably red-green blind. Well, that blew his cover! he admitted that he was color-blind, but had kept it a secret from his wife for over twenty years.

Moral: people get used to what they see. We photogs rock the boat a bit with concern about color balance. My own practice is to shoot the shot raw, convert to sRGB, and don't alter the color balance of the shot at all in Photoshop. That takes care of monitor calibration. I accept that the camera got it right, and even if it looks wrong on the monitor, I stick with not changing it. I crop, use brightness/contrast, levels - not auto-levels!, maybe a bit of cloning, but I don't change color balance. Projected images in slide shows look right. I go along with the person who said "The aim of color photography is pleasing color, not so much accurate color". The less one fiddles with an image, the better.

Colin

[fh1805]

Colin,

That throws up another question in my mind: We seem to get agitated about colour calibrating our cameras, our PC monitors, our printers and our projectors; but how many of us get our eyes colour calibrated?

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Colin

see

http://www.mightymac.org/mackinawlaunch1.htm

this page is predominately white with colour pictures - the USA flag has white where it should be and the wheelhouse on the ship is white when the ship is not in a shadow

what could be easier

when i printed colour in my wet darkroom, i had to buy special lighting with the proper colour temperature for viewing prints

-- i kept a large garbage can close by

as you said the cameras today do most of the work

people must remember when you go to all the trouble making adjustments to your monitor you adjusted it to your liking - if you must adjust it, adjust it to a known value

ken

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi All

My supercalafragalisticexpialidotious Panasonic TV bought last June, which I thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Started showing symptoms of imminent failure. (Wouldn't start after night shutdown without multiple switch pressing) I contacted Amazon and to cut a long story short had to select an alternative as my model was no longer available. Scoured the alternatives, almost got a Samsung but then the up graded Panasonic appeared on their web site, so I ordered it. It arrived yesterday, minus the swivel stand of the original. After reading the set up comic I switched it on. I was a little disappointed with the colours compared with the previous model.

We watched a full evenings programmes last night & my opinion has changed. The new set model TX-32LXD80 has something called an IPS Alpha panel which is supposed to negate the need for a swivel stand for viewing from different angles, it has a 178 degree viewing angle, which I can verify seems to work. My wife has diabetes & has lost the site in one eye so had to have the previous tv set at a specific angle. Last night see had no complaints.

The set also has a slightly less contrast ratio, 8000-1 as opposed to 10,000-1 previously and claims to have deeper blacks & whites. There are also a number of user settable features which I haven't tried yet, one is auto colour correction. There are 3 pre-sets for ambient light levels and the list goes on & on. The most noticeble difference is the depth of colour from different transmitting sites, National News London, Local news Newcastle, the One Show Birmingham was really vivid, London normal, Newcastle pale.

So, where do we go from here, I also plugged in my laptop through the VGA socket and the picture on the TV was much paler than the laptop screen, haven't tried my projector for comparison with the new TV. But my experience shows, what we se is as Peter said is a vast subject and difficult to address. Sorry for the waffle.

Yachtsman1