Monitor

[psp83]

Any one know a good monitor calibration device?

I have a problem on my spare PC where light greys/blues etc blend in with white/light backgrounds. Its quite annoying when I want to slice up a template and can't see the colours correctly.

[Rik]

Pantone Huey, Paul. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pantone-MEU101-Huey/dp/B000CR78C4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288809400&sr=8-2

[psp83]

Thanks Rik.. Quick Q if you know.

Do I have to leave the device connected all the time or can I connect it, correct the colours and then pack it away ?

[zappaDPJ]

I use a Colorvision Spyder. This is the top end model but there's quite a range to choose from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spyder-3-Pro-PC-Mac/dp/B000X4X37A/ref=dp_cp_ob_sw_h__image_2

I've not used the Pantone Huey myself but I'd imagine both devices will get the job done well.

[Rik]

They're made by the same firm, Zap, but Pantone markets to the amateur rather than pro. Having used the pro units all my life, I've found the Huey more than adequate.

[zappaDPJ]

I didn't know that, I've always thought of them as direct competitors.

[Rik]

Only in the industrial arena, Zap. Gretag MacBeth have never been interested in the domestic market, so Pantone approached them to produce a simple and relatively cheap product for that. GM agreed and the Huey was born. It's obviously not up to the standard of a professional Spyder, but for the average amateur it's more than adequate. I actually think that GM were slow to see the development of digital photography as a new market place, whilst Pantone spotted it and went after it.

[zappaDPJ]

That's very interesting, cheers.

[Technical Ben]

Is this for professional use or just to correct it for DVDs and such? As if it's just to correct the monitor, are there any new drivers or settings you can use?
I'd not recommend shelling out money (only £50 but still..) on a device you will never use, that is there to manage real life colour to digital conversions.

I can use "Acer eDisplay Management" on my monitor to manually adjust colour settings on my display. Also my graphics card has a colour adjustment option. Even a "colour calibration" button. no idea what it does though.

My Monitor looks horrid compaired to a quick "colour wizard" adjustment.
Though if you are doing web design ect it may be worth the purchase.
You might just need to change the settings from "cool" to medium or "warm"?

[Rik]

It's for anyone to use, Ben, depending on how important they feel colour fidelity is. I'd recommend it to anyone doing digital photography, whereas most web sites use sRGB colour space and most monitors are calibrated to that. However, sRGB takes a big excursion into the greens and is a smaller colour space than Adobe RGB which is the default for Photoshop and many high-end digital cameras. AdobeRGB converts better to CMYK printing, which we all use, even though Windows treat a CMYK printer as an RGB device (colour can get very complicated. A Huey calibrated screen will give a match to prints that only varies in the difference between reflected and transmitted technologies.

[Technical Ben]

True. But anything except professional photography/digital print I'd suggest 5 mins in your colour settings profile. It's a bit like messing with voltage settings on your CPU for extra performance. Overkill for most home users.
Mind you I've noticed some of my blends are off in my digital paintings if I view on a diff monitor :/

[Rik]

Exactly.

It's a personal choice, Ben, but I came through the graphics industry where colour profiling was the norm.

[Technical Ben]

Colour chart!How about this?

Uses contrasting colours verses mixed colours. If you can get the two sets looking the same, your close enough for most users.

[Rik]

Agreed, but there's close and there's right, Ben.

[Technical Ben]

Agreed, but there's close and there's right, Ben.

I agree. But in line with the fonts thread. There's right, and there's customers. 

[Rik]

 

[psp83]

Its for work use, The PC shows correct colours when connected to these monitors, they are IPS panels (HP LP2475W) not cheap ones. So I know its not the graphics card on that machine, its just the cheaper TN panel not showing the correct colours.

I've been through all the monitor settings and can't get it looking right and because I sometimes do some design work on it and maybe some photography work on it I need the colours to be correct.

I mainly use this pc I'm on now for all my work but would like the other PC to also be usable for when I can't be bothered to come upstairs 

[zappaDPJ]

When it comes to calibrating displays, I have to admit that I'm a bit of an evangelist but I think there's good reason for it. People are spending ever increasing amounts of time sitting in front of a screen but in the vast majority of cases, what they are seeing is not what was intended. I have never seen a new device come out the box properly calibrated and I've never seen a device that once properly calibrated, doesn't drift over time. Further more I guarantee that you can't calibrate a screen using a software solution. Anyone who has ever used a hardware device will understand why.

For the last few weeks I've been developing an in-house messaging system for a corporation. Their corporate identity is defined in shades of purple and they want the system front end to reflect that identity. While they have been happy with the work I've been doing there's been a lot of heated debate about the level of purple. It didn't take long for me to realise that we are all veiwing the same thing completely differently.

I went to their offices and brought one of their displays home and sat it next to mine which is on the left. Ironically I took this photo to demonstrate to someone else that the software visible is purple and not blue as they were seeing. Believe it or not, the office VDU on the right is not that far off but look how badly just a little drift can effect what you see.

[Rik]

I'm with you, Zap. People really aren't aware of how different monitors are, and the resulting colour misunderstandings can be a real pain. Luckily, I spent my working life in an industry which understood colour, and everything was calibrated, even the room lights.

[Technical Ben]

Yep. I do agree. Nice to know t's for professional use, so will be worth it. The colour difference is trouble.

[armadillo]

Any one know a good monitor calibration device?

The device I use is an X-rite Eye One Display LT (which is the same as the Gretag of the same name and is also the same physical device as the Eye One Display 2).

The calibration/ profiling software you use it with makes a big difference. I use basICColor Display 4. This is in a different league from the software that comes bundled with the device.

Also remember that the term "calibration" is used rather loosely. The process has two parts to it.

Those are (1) Calibration; (2) Profiling.

When you use the calibration device with calibration software, it calibrates the monitor and generates a colour profile for the calibrated monitor.

The profile only works for application programs which are colour managed.

Your calibrated monitor can only show correct colour if you are using a colour managed application program.

Calibration alone cannot achieve correct colour since calibration has no effect on the R, G and B primaries that are a physical and non adjustable property of the monitor. The profile takes account of these properties and other things. Calibration alters those few things which can be altered. Profiling describes the colour behaviour of the monitor after it has been calibrated. Calibration software carries out both calibration and profiling.

Examples of colour-managed applications are Photoshop, Firefox 3.x., Safari
Examples of non-colour-managed applications are Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera.

[Technical Ben]

"Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera." 
Except for IE I'd have thought the others would have worked.

[armadillo]

"Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera." 
Except for IE I'd have thought the others would have worked.

Indeed. One would have thought. Alas, none of those three is colour managed. They all ignore both image colour profiles and monitor profiles. Only Firefox and Safari use them.

The following two images look identical in Firefox 3.x (provided colour management has not been turned off. It is on by default in 3.6).

They look different in Opera, IE or Google Chrome.
If you have all those browsers, amaze yourself by viewing the post in all of them


The image has been converted to two different profiles. Opera, Chrome and IE ignore it. Firefox uses it.




This image is very good for visually checking out whether profiles are working too! The things in it are colours we have a lot of experience of.

[Technical Ben]

I've got a funny problem in the demo of corel draw.
Black is not black.
100% black looks grey. But 95% black 45% everything else is real black on my screen. I've no idea how to understand that right now. I think it has to do with the RGB/CYMK  conversion.
No problem really as the design I'm doing will be either vinyl or 100 black anyhow.

[Rik]

There shouldn't be a CMYK/RGB conversion on screen, Ben.

[armadillo]

100% black looks grey. But 95% black 45% everything else is real black on my screen. I've no idea how to understand that right now. I think it has to do with the RGB/CYMK  conversion.

Indeed it does look like a bug in RGB/CYMK  conversion.

Colour managed applications behave as follows (if they work).

Read document colour space (in this case, a CMYK space).
Convert document in memory from document colour space to profile connection space (usually XYZ or LAB).
Convert document in memory from profile connection space to monitor profile (which is always in RGB).
Output to graphics card.
Graphics card outputs to monitor.

For this to work properly, your monitor must have been accurately calibrated and profiled and its profile must be associated with the monitor in the place defined by the OS.

In Windows, this will be seen by right clicking the desktop and selecting
Properties>Settings>Advanced>Colour management

The name of the profile should be there and it should be shown as the default for the device.

Profiles are stored in C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color

I do not know the MAC equivalent of those locations.

Assuming the profile is accurate and is there, then colour management must also be set up in the application (Corel Draw).

Again, I don't know Corel Draw, so I cannot say exactly where it is set up. But there will be a preferences or settings dialogue somewhere in it with a submenu or two for colour management, colour preferences or colour settings.

You will need to check that it identifies the monitor profile and that it has not been set to turn off colour management.

I just tried out various CMYK blacks in Photoshop and they behave as you would expect.
That is, 60%K is grey and 100%K is black.

There is a problem when a document colour is out of gamut for a display device. The application should make sensible decisions about how to represent such colours. They do not all do this sensibly, Photoshop does. It should use a suitable "rendering intent" to map out of gamut colours to colours within the display gamut.

Your particular problem may actually relate to values of CMY which lie outside the monitor gamut.

It may be worth trying out colours in a document by leaving K at 100 and varying CMY and seeing if you ever get a true black. If so, then the application is struggling with the CMY values.

In Photoshop, default black in CMYK is 63,52,51,100
Altering the CMY has no effect when K is 100. It still shows black.


Colour management can drive you mad.

[Rik]

Good point, Dill, I hadn't considered Ben might be working in CMYK. Unless it's a high-grade calibrated monitor, a 5% drop in black simply isn't going to show up with Corel's colour management, which is somewhat idiosyncratic. Personally, I'd use RGB or, preferably, work in Adobe Illustrator.

[Technical Ben]

Good point, Dill, I hadn't considered Ben might be working in CMYK. Unless it's a high-grade calibrated monitor, a 5% drop in black simply isn't going to show up with Corel's colour management, which is somewhat idiosyncratic. Personally, I'd use RGB or, preferably, work in Adobe Illustrator.

Probably that. My monitor settings are probably "cool" as well, so adding extra blue to the black, but a redder black looks blacker.
I'd use illustrator too. But my trial expired. So onto Corel Draw.
One thing I have noticed using so many trials/different programs. There is a reason why Adobe do so well. Not only is the software fast, but it "just works" and does not have the problematic settings other programs do. It may only be a difference in defualt settings. But it makes a massive difference. IE Corel Photo Paint seems to not have any stylus options other than "on/off".
Gimp has these settings, but has too many for layers (layer size and orientation separate from the image. So it can get very cluttered).
Photoshop just has it all. Even the "Elements" edition has enough to make up the comparison to full software suites.

/rant 

[Rik]

Adobe has its roots in the graphics industry, Ben, so it's always had to do colour as well as possible (hard in the early days of Windows). Could you do the job in RGB, then let the drivers take care of the conversion? If not, do you want to expand on what the job is, and I'll see if I can think laterally for a change.

[armadillo]

So did you check any of the things I suggested, Ben? It may simply be that there is no profile associated with your monitor and so Corel throws a wobbly. Even associating a default profile from the monitor manufacturer might enable Corel to behave more sensibly.

[Technical Ben]

Like I said. No worries. If it's bitmaps I'm using, it will be for hobbies only. The one design I am doing is vector, so no colours at all. Just noticed it. Thanks for the info though. I'd have ago at calibrating, or changing profiles if I did not think I would make it WORSE.  

[Rik]

Try changing to RGB, Ben, see if that helps. Your screen and printer are both RGB devices.