Ok, a gal walks into Best Buy to ask @ calibrating her monitor..

[Nancy Moran G]

So, I Posted 2 pelican pictures the other day, and thought, wow, I took that and it @ perfect!!
Then it was critiqued that it was dark. (Noted that if I moved screen, it was light/ dark and could be perfect!)

Ok, was advised to get laptop calibrated. So Best Buy looked at me with bewilderment.
TigerDirect store looked at me with bewilderment, but brought me to 'repair/geek' counter.
Said I DO NOT need calibration unless it is VERY expensive monitor. My laptop maker should have brightness/dark contrast that I need as a download tool.
I said it was for photos, I got no help.

SOOOO, help...
I am trying to support sticks and bricks stores but they aren't" helping... I asked for something like Spyder4, and got no help.
Thanks guys,
Nancy

[CP140]

I never buy anything from Best Buy or an other large store populated by teens and twenty-somethings unless I already know what I want. I would imagine the same holds true for questions about calibrating your monitor.

Seek out the tiny little place with the "old guy", grumpy and smoking behind the counter. Find a place where they tell the customer ahead of you, "... well that's certainly an option but I think you're making a mistake...."

The true bricks and mortar stores are the guys in the strip malls who actually know what they're talking about.

[fmrnykr]

Hello Nancy,

I would suggest that you purchase one of the calibration systems and do it yourself. Most of them have a "walk you through it" system. You just load the software, plug in your device and follow along.

I use Data Color's Spyder 4Elite and it works like a charm. I normally calibrate, or check the calibration, for my monitor every 30 days or so, that's why I suggest you purchase your own if funds allow. Most systems want you to do the calibration using the lighting conditions you use when you are doing your P/P and want your monitor warmed up for at least 45 minutes to an hour.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Bob

[ajohnw]

There are some decent reviews on calibrators on this site and other info

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews.html

I have used 2 types. 1st one was used of ebay. I was concerned that it was made before LED monitors came onto the market. It turned out to give identical results after I bought a ColorMunki Display which I am perfectly happy with. I also use it with some more professional calibration software that can be used with many of them. It's called Argll colour management. For monitors there is a GUI available for it which makes it very easy to use. Have to laugh if I see a comment about a calibrator being slow in a review. A full calibration with this software takes about 50min. A check probably about 1min.

One of the reasons for buying the ColorMunki was what it will do as it comes. Not sure if the flare aspect is important as to me it means lighting needs to be somewhere else. At the time it was also one of the few that definitely had filters in it suitable for LED monitors. Many hadn't been updated.

The 1st monitor I calibrated was a Belinea. Well regarded by some but when I moved to a VeiwSonic Professional one and calibrated that there was a big improvement in dynamic range and I could see that in many instances I had been over sharpening shots. I now use a Dell Ultrasharp. The types that come pre calibrated from Dell. They are good as they come. Mentioned in case you buy a monitor. Also this site to help make the choice.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

This image should help you set the brightness correctly. Set the contrast to it's default value and minimise the appearance of the central grey square.



Contrast usually defaults to 50% or 100% on most LCD screens and the default value usually gives the best tonal range. There is a different type of the above image in the calibration tutorial linked to at the top of this sites home page (CC) and also a grey scale that loosely checks the tonal range of your monitor. For setting the mid grey level I feel the one above is much easier to use. I suspect the other is a hang over from pre sRGB days / when some didn't have it.

John
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[Mike Buckley]

Said I DO NOT need calibration unless it is VERY expensive monitor.

Christina was told the same thing, which was as wrong for her as it is for you. She bought Spyder4Express, used it and immediately noticed a change.

[Brownbear]

Hi Nancy,

Mike is exactly right... The same thing happened to me. I ended up purchasing a Spyder 4 from a local computer store and I noticed the change immediately. I needed to calibrate my monitor. It's not fair that one walks into a electronic store, seeking and expecting expert advice, only to find that is not the case... And now the both of us are far more technically savvy than some of those geeks.

Christina was told the same thing, which was as wrong for her as it is for you. She bought Spyder4Express, used it and immediately noticed a change.

[DanK]

Actually, in my limited experience, cheaper monitors are often most in need of calibration, and most of the laptops I have used have been way off if not calibrated. But perhaps the larger moral of the story is that you can't assume that all stores have people able to give you good advice about complex technical issues. For that matter, caveat emptor applies on the web as well. I often see postings that are just simply wrong. One of the many nice things about this site is that there are so many knowledgeable people reading it, and most of the people who post answers have good ones.

[Bobobird]

Ok based on the comments in Nancy's pic thread and additional comments here and those by Christina - I went ahead and got a spyder4 Express today.

I use an Asus notebook when away and its built in monitor. Back home I use the same notebook but attached the big monitor instead. So all along my monitors have been uncalibrated. For as long as I have been posting here there has never been any suggestion that the pics are off-colour. But there have been comment that sometimes the contrast is shallow or sort of whitish. That has always been when the notebook monitor was used. Nowadays I just give the notebook monitor edits a curves push and they look fine here and pic sharing places.

Anyway long story short, I calibrated the notebook monitor 3 times and each time it ended up giving the monitor a sort of greenish cast.

The software just asks a few basic questions and each time came up with almost the same results.

Is there something about calibrating that I am missing?

Thanks.

[ajohnw]

In my view yes there is something missing. Use decent calibration software but unless you have independent rgb level controls you wont achieve the best calibration possible with a given panel.

Other options even with the software that came with the calibrator select sRGB mode as this often sets suitable brightness and contrast settings and gives something closer to true sRGB so needing less modification. If it's too bright some displays allow the panel to be dimmed but some don't. It's usually important that contrast is at the default level. Restore factory defaults maybe.

For software search and install dispcalgui and the other package it mentions first. The main problem using it is adjusting rgb levels before the main calibration starts. Adjusting one has an effect on the others and at some level it's usually possible to get zero error or very very close to it.

On you monitor there may be a review on tftcentral..co.uk. This will give suitable brightness and contrast settings but only on monitors they have tested. Some times googling monotor name/make. brightness contrast will bring up settings others have found.

John
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[Bobobird]

Thanks John. I will look up those utils and install.

Forgot to mention that it is a win7 notebook with what they call a multimedia display for best movie viewing. It also has it own independent graphics card if that matters. Win7 also has its own monitor calibration utility which walks you through the colour, brightness, contrast, and type settings.

The only physical hardware control available is for brightness ie no contrast control. The big panel back home has all the controls needed to refine the settings. It is a Dell something and has its own icc profile.

[ajohnw]

One other aspect is that if you are using a photo application with it's own colour management you may need to install the icc file in it.

Personally though I would give the other software a go. My biggest problem using it was the one I mentioned. Before I managed to get that right one colour patch in particular had a delta error of over 1. It took several attempts before I realised what I needed to do.

Might improve your Dell too. One thing it will do is tell you exactly what you have and allow you to add black level compensation if you want it. The problem with the software that comes with calibrators is that it improves with price and doesn't get to the levels this one has unless you buy a very high end spectrometer. Not even then according to comments I have seen.

John
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[Inkanyezi]

Oh, but if that guy in Best Buy was actually right? Most laptops do give decent colour directly from the factory, but contrast and brightness is a matter of your viewing angle. The LCD screen is different when viewed from different angles. If you move your head up and down, you will notice that its brightness changes. Calibration is possible, but will only work if you would always look at the screen from the same angle. Any angular difference will alter brightness and contrast.

So the conclusion is that most laptops are unsuitable for photo editing.

There are OLED and LED semiconductor screens that do work for photo, but LCD is a PITA. The calibrator software will find the graphics chip of the computer and set it according to input from the calibrator hardware, so if you get a calibrator, it will probably work, unless it doesn't have algorithms for your video card.

I haven't had any look into the macInosh Retina screens, they might be better, I don't know whether there's any better technology behind.

The LCD changes with angle, because its very function is an angular twist of polarisation.

[Nancy Moran G]

Thank you Urban. I only have an IPad3 and a laptop. And as you said, screen would have to be at same angle to show same effects. Still looking into all the info given and trying to figure my situation..
Thank you for the time in replying.
Nancy

[Bobobird]

Thanks John for the additional info.
Thanks Urban. My notebook flap tilts like any other but i have it at a constant angle using a light gray/light white graphic to adjust it so that the 2 colours are barely visible. This gives me the best viewing and working angle for pics.

The video card in the nb has its own slot and is a Nvidia GeForce GT 425M.

[Inkanyezi]

I have seen a little gadget that mounted to the monitor of a laptop facilitates keeping your eye in the right position for viewing. Its function is the same as the aiming sight of arms. Maybe such an item could help in getting more consistent results when using the laptop for editing images?

http://www.outdoorphotogear.com/stor...gle-gauge.html

[Colin Southern]

Thanks John for the additional info.
Thanks Urban. My notebook flap tilts like any other but i have it at a constant angle using a light gray/light white graphic to adjust it so that the 2 colours are barely visible. This gives me the best viewing and working angle for pics.

The video card in the nb has its own slot and is a Nvidia GeForce GT 425M.

Normally the best viewing angle for laptop is exactly 90 degrees. Easy way to achieve that it to just tilt the screen so that the reflection of your eyes is exactly in the middle.

[revi]

Otherwise, this site could have some useful stuff for calibrating the monitor; i.e. setting brightness/contrast/gamma to decent starting values. Calibrating as opposed to profiling, where you model the differences (remaining after calibration) between what you want and what you get from the monitor.

[Nancy Moran G]

Again, thank you all for the additional help.
So much to learn!
Nancy