color management on new laptop

[carolw]

So I have a new laptop, and my xrite i1 display2 doesn't work on it. My prints are, of course, too dark and too saturated. I read the tutorial on calibrating the display on this site and it stressed that most computers today have the gamma set at 2.2. I finally found the gamma setting in the control panel for the graphics panel (if that's the corrct term?). The gamma is at 1.0, and looking at the sequence of pictures of the man's face in the tutorial, it did appear as though putting the gamma at 2.2 would make the monitor display look much darker, which would lead me to adjust my images lighter, which would solve my problem of dark prints, right? But when I changed the gamma to 2.2, the display became much brighter, the opposite of what I thought it should do? So I put the gamma back to 1.0 and I'm more confused than ever. Am I misunderstanding something?

Also, what would y'all recommend for color management for my laptop? I don't print for professional display or for entering in photography competitions, and don't need to calibrate a projector, but I do make cards and prints for family shots etc., so while I'm not as critical as some, I would like to control how my prints would look. It appears that spyder and Xrite are the best options, but they both have a range of price and sophistication options. Would the under $200 range likely work for me, or would I more likely need to go to the next level up? My understanding of this stuff is very spotty, so please excuse the basic questions, and thanks for the suggestions.

[Manfred M]

Hi Carol(?). Welcome to CiC. Would you clicking the "My Profile" tab on the top of this page and would mind filling in both your name and where you are from on your profile. We are a fairly informal lot here at CiC and go on a first name basis.

First of all, you are going to have to give us a bit more information as to the type of laptop you are using and the operating system you are using. I have an old xRite i1 Display Lt and I run it on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 computers (desktop and laptop), so I can't quite understand why it is not running on your machine. It does require to original software that came with it, not the newer software of the updated version of the tool.

If you do decide to get a replacement, the low end units are probably going to be just fine. As the price goes up, you are starting to look at more professional features using high end computer screens, rather than a laptop.

I would not touch the gamma setting on the laptop screen; the gamma you are looking for is part of the profiling setup and is selected in the software, not on your computer screen. Gamma on the screen is a holdover from the old CRT (picture tube) displays and was used to correct the non-linearity found in them. The setting of 1.0 on laptop screens and LCD screens is pretty standard I believe. The gamma in the profiling operation maps the performance of the linear characteristics of your screen to the non-linear characteristics of your eyes. Even though both are labelled gamma, they do two different things.

As for printing too dark or too light; that is a process totally outside of what the profiling tool will do for you. It will ensure that the colours are correct, but you will have to compensate in your printing software so that the level of your print is correct. So long as you do not touch the screen controls after profiling this will not change. Unfortunately, you are going to have to do test prints to figure out how to set up your output.

One other word of caution. Laptop screens are built to minimize battery power use and tend to have marginal colour accuracy at best. My ASUS laptop screen has a significant blue colour cast to it, something that I have not been able to overcome, even with a profiling tool. I only edit on a laptop when absolutely necessary and will clean things up using an external computer screen that does have good colour reproduction.

[carolw]

Manfred, Thanks so much for your very helpful reply. Mind you, it's a bit discouraging in that my laptop is an Asus running windows 8.1, and one of the first problems I noticed was a marked blue cast in my white shirt - great to know you haven't been able to get rid of it. Your comments about too light/dark are also not encouraging but make sense in that with my prior laptop the way I was finally able to deal with it was by learning what angle to adjust my screen that seemed to correspond with my prints - this screen doesn't change according to what angle i have it, so that's not an option. Suggestions for adjusting for output? I use lightroom 6. Do I adjust the lightroom settings i.e. change how light the image is in lightroom before sending to the print module, or adjust my printer settings? It's actually been a while since I've done much printing, and if I remember correctly, I'm supposed to disable the color management of my printer? Also, I get confused about what to do with color space - in the past it seemed that my images looked much better when set in srgb than in adobe, so I have ended up ignoring everything I read about using adobe rgb. I'm guessing this is another case similar to the gamma issue, where there's an essential item of information that I'm missing?

I don't know what the deal was with my old i1 display, just that when I tried to run it I got a message that it wouldn't run on this machine - I originally got it for my old laptop running vista. I can't remember if it downloaded new software when I plugged it in - might need to go back and check that. I had decided to get spyder 5 pro. Would it be likely to give me better results than the Xrite, supposing I am able to get it to run?

One final question - the only screen adjustment readily available is the brightness on those keys at the top of my keyboard, and a built in screen calibration utiliy, which I have already run. The laptop has a Nvidia graphics "thing", and I finally found the gamma adjustment (which I will now leave along) along with other screen adjustments in a control panel for it. When I run the calibration, should I use the Nvidia panel, or just the basic windows option? I feel like I know just enough to be dangerous, and end up not getting the results I want just because my knowledge is spotty.

Thanks so much for your help!!

[Manfred M]

Carol - unfortunately, it's difficult for me to write in more than generalities because there are so many variables involved. Part of the reason I got the specific laptop I did is that it has a 10-bit per channel screen, so in theory, I should be seeing most of the AdobeRGB colour space. It is also a touch-screen, so I suspect that the overall blue is a result of that technology being built into the screen.

My i1 is even older than yours as I was running it on my Windows XP machines (I guess I had better cough up the money for a new one eventually). I expect that I will be installing Windows X on some of my machines (still running Windows 7 on everything except the laptops) and if the profiling software does not run there, I'll have to replace it with a newer model.

If the new screen looks the same at most view angles, that is a bonus as it reduces the variables you have to deal with. When I create a profile for my screen, part of the setup is to reduce the contrast and brightness to minimal levels, and the profiling software makes the adjustments based on that "base state". Just make sure that you are working under similar ambient lighting conditions as when you profile your screen. That's easy for me to say; I have my editing equipment in a basement office that has neutral walls and consistent lighting; but the ambient conditions do indeed factor in. Just ensure that you do not touch any of the colour settings on your laptop after profiling, otherwise everything will be off and you'll have to go through the whole process again.

I do all of my printing out of Photoshop, so I am by no means all that knowledgeable with the finer details of doing this in Lightroom. I can only assume the process is generally similar to Photoshop. When printing, definitely let Lightroom manage the colours (for B&W, let the printer do this). I assume you have a printer that lets you set the icc profiles for the paper you use? If printing your own, then you can use I would stick to AdobeRGB, as more closely matches printer capabilities than sRGB. Don't forget you have to make entries in both the Lightroom and Printer dialog boxes on your computer. In portraiture I tend to stick to the Relative rendering intent, but for other work, I will tend to use Perceptual (this all deals with how out of gamut colours are handled).

Lightroom defaults to the ProPhoto colour space, although the newer versions let you change that. I use ProPhoto when working with raw files and AdobeRGB when working with jpegs. A wider colour space is best for any editing, but I'm definitely not sure how Lightroom handles colour space conversions, so setting and sticking to AdobeRGB might be the best approach. If you find that sRGB looks better in print, that suggests that you are having a colour space conversion issue somewhere in your workflow. What you are describing tends to happen when you are not converting properly and the resulting colours come out looking flat.

Whether an xRite or Colorite (Spyder) is better or worse, I can't answer as I and anyone I know well have used one of the xRite products. They are generally viewed as the company that has the broadest colour management experience (Munsell, Pantone, Getag-MacBeth) were all well known in the field before being acquired by xRite. I would suggest both companies make good products and the choice of which way to go is really up to you. When I replace my unit, I expect I will be getting another xRite product, just because I use other xRite products in my workflow.

When it comes to adjusting your screen for profiling, I would suggest using the nVidia console panle as it is designed for the video unit in your compter; the Windows controls are generic ones.

[carolw]

You are so helpful - thanks again. I did look back on my i1 display 2, and the documentation from xrite says that trying to install it on windows 8 may result in the "blue screen of death", which is why I decided not to pursue trying to install it :-). Thanks for the answer about the Nvidia card controls - that question was really bothering me. As well as how to set the controls. Once I get profiled, I'll try printing again, following what you have outlined, and may be back with more questions - I know you can't wait...

Thanks again, Carol