How Do You Calibrate Your Monitor?

i have the spyder 3 elite. but have to set the white to native or it all comes out blue. i had to get the more advanced one because i have two screens.

screen brightness and tint varies on all screens. the screen on my right, has a red tint that i can't get rid of. it has a fluorescent tube in the back which needs to warm up for like 30 min before i can use it for anything (including calibrating).

i don't let the device change the screen for the light source i have. it has the ability to compensate, but the screen keeps changing color and brightness and that's no good.

my general settings: gamma 2.2, white point native, gray balance on, and that's pretty much it.

the device decides on the brightness and such in the middle of the test. you do have to calibrate on an ongoing basis because the lights in the screen do wear out.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Thanks Mike, I calibrate, not as often as I should but I do do it, I set it to factory before I start, set the white point to what it says to,I think that's 6500, then do the calibration. The colors look good and clean but always way to bright, the spyder 3 basic won't set that, and I guess I don't trust myself to do it correctly, the brightness that is. So does yours do a good job? I was thinking of getting their latest one, wish I would have gotten it when it was on sale.

TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

i leave the settings along and just recal when i need to it. i'd rather see a tiny change. it took 6 hours the last time to get it right. sometimes it just doesn't work to my liking. if you set the gamma it should let you set it... however... it takes in account the screen type and model you have. and your screen may not have that

70 contrast
23 brightness

that's what my screen is set too currently. but i have an LED side lit screen and your screen may vary a bit.

mine only works if i set the white to native. then it works fine. otherwise everything is dull and blue. if i were to go spend more money, i might go to a color munki, it checks the screen, scanner, printer etc. so everything is tune. but its like $400, and something i use so little,i can't justify it, even if its important.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I have a Spyder pro 4 and it does a good job. It measures the ambient light in the room and makes brightness suggestions based on that. I set the brightness but it tells me what to set it to.

I am about to win (by tomorrow) a ColorMunki from X-Rite - because of a contest I posted about here: http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2629323

A friend and local photographer with two successful galleries has one. He says it is great for what he does and what I want to do - but he does all of his own printing on a huge Epsom printer. He is also retired from National Geographic so he (seems to) know what he is doing and talking about. Anyway, I'm looking forward to being able to calibrate my laptop with two monitors. I have external monitors in each of our two houses. I suppose I'll be learning something new by mid-September - so I'll be following this thread.


---------------
~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com

I don't think I will ever do my own printing so I wouldn't need that, and like you I have a hard time spending that kind of money, but I don't really want to spend 4 hours either of you know what I mean, my attention span isn't that long!

TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

sometimes your scanning things in and you want it to match. it will make the profile for that. i think camera's too. it was hard spending the money on the spyder too. yet knowing my colors may be off bothered me more. finding out my nice bright red shiny fire truck was more of a dull brick primer color - really affected the look of it. mostly it took a long time because i couldn't get it to balance. once it was set to native. it doesn't take all that long. the colors and amount of light in the room can make a big difference as well.

most screens are set to a 100% brightness -- that's way too bright.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I know with the one I have it says to reset the monitor to factory, when it's done it is as bright as a beacon!
I have an arts and crafts fair this weekend of I sell out maybe I'll get a new one.

TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

use the one you have. it should work fine. set the screen to the settings above, set the settings to native and try it. use the lighting you usually use. clean the screen. blow off the sensor (it doesn't come with a cover like my other ones), tilt the screen back and let it go. use the gray calibrator as well if you have it.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

What is the gray calibrater?
TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

if you go to the expert console, all the settings are on that screen. at the bottom, there is something called gray calibrator or something. it checks each level of gray and tries to adjust each one. it takes longer to do the test, but it think its more accurate.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I will check, it's pretty basic!
TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

TL,

Waste of time and money! You have to ASSUME that whomever is printing your stuff, has the same settings as you have, which isn't possible. You can calibrate your monitor ALL day long and then send it someplace and it will look different. Unless you send YOUR printer a test print to match, nothing will ever look like your screen.



Here's ALL you need!

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/monitor-calibration.htm

I calibrated my monitor about 4 years ago!

If you use the Cambridge test and can see what needs to be seen, you're fine. Brightness is usually what is the first thing to correct. Get a print made locally at Sam's or Costco and then adjust your monitor, if needed. Take an image that has a neutral gray and get that printed and see what comes out.

Anyone that has super saturated colors, shouldn't worry.

And the other ASSUMPTION that is made by all the "pixel peepers" here, is that the "buyers" have a calibrated screen/monitor, which we know isn't the case! So what THEY see, may be totally different that the actual image!

Rich

But some of mine aren't super saturated! ;-)

TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

One monitor I heard had a percentage brightness method which is very crude and the guy set it to 16%.

My monitor came at 320 cd/mm^2, I lowered it to 80 cd/mm^2. Which is where it is supposed to be. That was
the bottom of the range for my Asus.

The Dell Graphics monitor is built I think with the color file built in. Something like that.

Dave

TL,
Read my last paragraph!

Rich

Rich I know, I was joking!

I understand that others don't have their monitors calibrated, I just want to make sure I have my ducks in a row on this end.

TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

I used prints from joy pro lab, much to rich's point. This means that images printed by FAA vendors (I understand there is more than one), will vary.

I thought with pro labs there was/should be, a standard and that is what we are shooting for with calibration.

TL Mair
http://tlmair.com

I used the X-Rite Colormonki Display to calibrate my old monitor and my laptop screen. I donŽt use my laptop for editing, but I use it as second screen, and it is easier to work, if both monitors show similar colors and brightness.

Since some days, I have a new NEC, which is factory calibrated almost perfectly. The only thing I had to adjust is brightness.

Although I do mainly black and white, a calibrated screen is very important for me. Yes, different labs deliver different results, and there are big differences which paper you use, if you print glossy or matt, acrylic or metal. But with a calibrated monitor, you take out an important part of all the guesswork.

Many of my photographs are very dark. So, may biggest concern is, that the prints come out to dark. The only way to overcome this, is to print your images youself or by a printing company, and adjust brightness if neccessary.

Because I have a very good printing company in Germany, I never bought a print from FAA (shame on me!), but from the many positive reviews here, I trust the FAA printers. Nevertheless, IŽll order (or better a family member orders, to improve my ranking 😎), some prints here, to check it myself.

Colin Utz
http://colinutzphotography.com

while its true the common joe won't have a screen that will see the colors as you see it - the printers will. and you can't judge color by eye. i've tried, and i've lost. the local printer may not be calibrated. for me, i needed to know if it was accurate. gamma boxes, are the most confusing method. i think windows has a gamma box adjuster. but they never work right.

when the test runs, it first sets the brightness and contrast, because it makes a big difference when adjusting for color accuracy.

i never bought anything from here either. i figure if they don't like it they will return it... so far not that many returns.

a calibrator is more of a peace of mind kind of thing. as it is, it told me the 10bit monitor i bought, was really an 8bit screen. that was really annoying to find out.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

a calibrator is more of a peace of mind kind of thing. as it is, it told me the 10bit monitor i bought, was really an 8bit screen. that was really annoying to find out.


Mike,

I had the same experience, Alexis an artist on here told me it goes to the graphics card. The Intel card does not really yet support 10 bit.

Dave

Anyone know anything about the calibrators that supposedly work on iPads? Though I find mine is pretty accurate as long as I don't brighten it too much, I've always wondered how the heck they work with limited controls.

I use Spyder 4 Elite on my iMac. Unfortunately I'm not at home to run you through what I do, but after I figured how to calibrate it correctly my brightness cannot be adjusted brighter, only lowered. Once calibrated, I never touch my Mac. I work in a very dark room and make sure there is no direct light on the monitor when calibrating. Often when images are edited on a very bright monitor, the images will appear dark on my calibrated display.

As to colors, mine are true to color whether from FAA or from my local printmakers. I don't use any printmakers that required calibration to their ICC profiles; i.e. Costco, Bay Photo, etc. If a printmaker doesn't use sRGB, I don't use them. I'm not going to bother having multiple ICC profiles; besides I can never get the colors to look like when it comes straight out of Lightroom or Photoshop.

~ Charly

I use an old DTP-94. Widely regarded as the best puck ever made. Had to do some itching and scratching to get Monaco EZ-Color to work on my Windows 7 64 Pro systems, but finally did. Also, only good IPS panels, too.