Monitor calibration - color temperature & Gamma

I try to calibrate my monitor to can color correct my photos before i send it to be print.

Untill now i have use a 6500 kelvin and gamma 2,2

Now when i use GretagMacbeths Eye One Match3 program to calibrate my monitor

i read that:

1. for proofing is better to have a 5000 kelvin color temperature on the monitor

2. For more details in the shadows a 1.8 gamma is better...

How you calibrate the monitor guys for best resultats?

The heavy part is not the colors of the details but the blues

there is see offen big difference between original and print

My system is

Windows XP

Monitor : Samsung SyncMaster 900NF

GretagMacbeth Eye-One Display 2 calibrator

Lambis

Lambis,

The best way to calibrate your monitor is to use a dedicated hardware (e.g. Colorvision Spyder 2 or equivalent). You can't really rely on what you see on the screen , or on what the monitor says, as these things tend to drift (vary) with time, and are very approximate.

Cheers,

Mat

Mat

I use a calibration device. GretagMacbeths Eye One Match3

The point is in what themerature and gamma you calibrate your monitor. The device dont fixt this for you

Lambis

Hey Lambis

I use the same, 2.2 and 6500K with a Spyder.

But only cuz the agency told me....i have never experimented and don't really make prints

I use a colorvision spyder 2 and use 6500 and 2.2.

Cor

Same here: 6500ºK, and gamma of 2.2

This has given me good colour matching for books, magazine articles and prints at photo shops and home.

This will be a longish reply <_<

Whitepoint settings on CRT monitors usually ranges between 5000K and 9300K.

6500K is described as "daylight" and is considered the "neutral illiminant". Less than 6500K will look yellowish, more than 6500 will appear blueish.

(As background, the temperatures refers to the color of an iron bar when heated to a certain temperature and the color it will emit at that temperature)

According to the ISO norm (3664:2000), use 6500K as whitepoint for the monitor.

Gamma is used to describe the transition of brightness from black to white for a device in this case a monitor.

Gamma values range from 1.0 to 3.0 but in practice tend to be between 1.8 and 2.2. The lower the device gamma, the brighter the mid-tones will appear.

Gamma for windows environments is recommended to be set to 2.2, for Mac they usually say 1.8.

Now here comes the catch:

If you are really serious, you should probably have a chat with the wife/girlfriend as well:

If you want optimal viewing, you'd have to paint the room in a nice neutral shade of gray or mossy green and use 5000K (d50) TL lighting. Then you'd have to make certain that outside light doesn't influence viewing conditions inside, so preferrably you'd have to blind the windows.

My whole point is actually that you can take it as far as you want to take it, your pics will look great on your monitor, but when other Wetpixel users download them onto their monitor, they might look completely different...

The Eye one is a good tool, I'd say better then the Spyder.

Do you have the Eye One with printer proofing or without printer proofing?

I have the version that has printer profiling as well, which is a nice feature since it makes me independant from the ICC profiles provided by the manufacturers.

I have , finaly find & order some D50 light bubbles (Daylight) for optimal viewing, so I hope it will be better.

My kitchen :-) Where my computer is have a neutral grey color i the walls and I can blind the windows :-)

My point is to have my pics will look the same as on the print later and not for the Web.... I have the Eye One without printer proofing, I dont have a printer becauce I send my photos to a photolab for prints.

I often get better results when using "native" white balance rather than 6500, and some articles I've read say that some monitors respond better that way (for example, the Sony Artisan that I use at home).

I'm also using D65 lights here in New York (the guy I'm staying with has a few), and I gotta say -- I really like them. Would seem strange to use D50 lights with a 6500 degree monitor setup.

Make a profile for your monitor.

make that profile the RGB working space and embed with the images that you will send to be printed.

Now their printing device should translate your monitor ICC profile to their device profile and choose the closest color.

If you want to look what the pic will probably look like, you should call the photolab and ask them for an ICC profile of their printing device.

If they have it and send it to you, you can look in PS what the pic will look like when printed, see instructions below.

Eye One does have an excellent paper on this subject, although it primarily deals with CMYK printing devices, this Photolab printer is however not a CMYK device.

Still, the paper covers most of the basics of color matching.

@ Eric,

I didn't come with this, it's simply what ISO standard says...

yzer4!!!

Thanks man for the exelent Eye One paper. Its great. really somthing to print out and have it as reference...

Thanks!!!!

Btw. I do it exactry like you say...i use my photolabs ICC profile for soft proofing

Eric..

I to have read in some articles that, for proofing, it is better to have a 5000 kelvin color temperature rather that 6500 k

When you say that u use when using "native" white balance what are you saying?? i dont get it...

Lambis

white balance is better for prinitng becuace off the color off the paper and

Whoa nelly, are you sure you're supposed to make the monitor profile your working space? I've heard this is a common mistake.

The monitor profile loads at startup and is applied to the working environment.

James

mea culpa...

James is right, just looked at my settings and I have indeed only loaded the monitor profile in the display settings and use Adobe 1998 RGB as workspace since that is what I set up on my camera...

I'm gonna keep my big mouth shut now

My G*d! I actually said something correct about color management. That's a first.

Cheers

James

I am new to the necessity of calibrating your monitor. I have purchased a Spyder 2 and need to start from the beginning. I hear everyone speak of profiles etc. Can someone explain these a bit and steer me in the process of using the Spyder for the first time. Should I just follow the directions that came with it, is it that simple or are there more tricks to this?

Cheers,

Chuck

If you have an LCD display, its extremely simple. Put your LCD on factory default. Place the Spyder2 on your monitor, tell the software you have no controls (this is important!), then let the spyder create a profile for you. Presto, done. Make sure you download the latest version of the colorvision software here.

I called colorvision about this after i had less than perfect results with my Dell LCDs trying to use controls. They suggested the above, which worked great.

If you have a CRT (old fashioned monitor), you usually have to use some of your controls. Either Kelvin sliders or RGB sliders or whatever. Although you could try and see what happens when you again tell it you have no controls. Version 2.x of the colorvision software is pretty good.

Cor