Monitor Calibration & Profiling

[arith]

Yes you can change back Kit. I think you go into Display in Control Panel, Settings,Advanced, Color Management. highlight the profile and apply.

[Class A]

Yes - things will change with the viewing angle, but they change very little within the normal range of angles that you'll encounter; and when you need them to be "spot on", just make sure you''re looking perpendicular to the screen.

You can only look perpendicular to the screen at one point. At all the pixels left, right, above, and below it, you'll look at an angle. Obviously, the bigger the screen, the worse the problem.

For bad TN displays, this means that you cannot see the whole image correctly at once; you have to move your had and "scan" it (or move away from it considerably).

I don't know how good the best TN displays are nowadays, but if I spent money on a screen dedicated to photography, I'd make sure it has an IPS or PVA display.

[Class A]

Good bang for the buck are the Dell U2311H http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2311h.htm
or the Dell U2211H http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2211h.htm

Many thanks for this tip and the pointer to the software! Much appreciated.

[mythlady]

Thanks, everyone, for the monitor advice (both pro and con). The new monitor arrived today and at first look, it's great -- so much better than what I had! I'm going to calibrate it tonight and then try to print something out tomorrow, and we'll see. But so far, so good.

[Klickit]

Yes you can change back Kit. I think you go into Display in Control Panel, Settings,Advanced, Color Management. highlight the profile and apply.

Thanks, Steve.

[Colin Southern]

I'm going to calibrate it tonight

And after you've calibrated it, be sure to PROFILE it!

[mythlady]

Printed out a bunch of pics today, and they came out great! Compared to my old monitor/printer combo, they're amazingly good. I'm sure there are ways that they could be better, but I'm really happy with what printed out today. Thanks, everyone, for the information and help.

[Colin Southern]

Too easy

[Donald]

Thanks, everyone, for the monitor advice (both pro and con). The new monitor arrived today and at first look, it's great --

Congratulations on the new arrival. Have fun!

[Tongodiva]

I have a HP w2207 and I calibrated it with the Spyder3 express but it seems to run warmer, ALOT warmer than what it's supposed to! I have the result I want when I edit it, but when I print the colors are cooler and so it's all off. I have a laptop as well and the prints are closer to the laptop colors than that of the HP monitor that was calibrated with spyder. Does anyone else have this problem? Photos I've edited to look sepia look blue in print

[Colin Southern]

I have a HP w2207 and I calibrated it with the Spyder3 express but it seems to run warmer, ALOT warmer than what it's supposed to! I have the result I want when I edit it, but when I print the colors are cooler and so it's all off. I have a laptop as well and the prints are closer to the laptop colors than that of the HP monitor that was calibrated with spyder. Does anyone else have this problem? Photos I've edited to look sepia look blue in print

Hi "Tongodiva" (What's your first name?),

It could be one of several things. First up, "calibration" and "profiling" are actually different ... and I'm guessing that you actually mean "profiling", although having said that, I think we need to check the calibration of the monitor too.

Calibration refers to adjusting your monitors controls so that it's as close as possible to being correct before profiling (a profile is little more than a lookup table that substitutes whatever colour has been requested, into a slightly different value that is supposed to ensure you get the colour you intended. The smaller this "correction", the better the result. So the first question is "did you default your monitor back to factory settings prior to carrying out the profiling"?

When going through the profiling process, it's possible to check the colour temperature of the monitor (and optionally adjust using monitor controls if you wish) - just wondering if you did this optional step, and what the results were? (reason I ask is that a monitor at factory default settings should be relatively close to normal, and if the Spyder III thinks its waaaay out, then the Spyder III may be faulty.

Other things to keep in mind ...

- The Spyder III needs to be flat against the screen, with the suction cup removed

- I prefer to do my profiling in a dark room so that the room lights can't influence anything.

Printers also need to be profiled - if it's not then there could well be a big mismatch between what's desired and what's printed.

I'd possibly start by getting Photoshop to fill the screen with a neutral gray, and see how that looks - then print it, and see how it looks.

Also, the colour temp of your room lighting and the colour of your walls will also influence the way things look on your screen (and to a greater degree, how your prints look).

There's also an option for the Spyder III to check the accuracy of the current profile - might pay to run that.

[Markvetnz]

The Spyder will work with any NVidia card. I have 3 different ones and each one has profiles loaded into them on bootup.

[Colin Southern]

The Spyder will work with any NVidia card. I have 3 different ones and each one has profiles loaded into them on bootup.

At the end of the day, it's not even really a question of "will / won't work with" etc ... the Sypder III software simply produces a standard ICC profile, and that profile is loaded into the video card, either via the ProfileChooser software, or (as I prefer to do it), via the operating system (as the default profile).

Once an ICC profile is created, it really doesn't matter what created it.

[revi]

Would it be possible that the profile is applied twice: once by the OS, and again by your editing application?
What made me think of that is that the OP said that the screen display was much warmer, but prints appeared colder

[Colin Southern]

Would it be possible that the profile is applied twice: once by the OS, and again by your editing application?
What made me think of that is that the OP said that the screen display was much warmer, but prints appeared colder

Good point - a lot of people mistakenly select the display profile from within Photoshop, whereas the ONLY place it should be used is by the operating system, as the default display profile.