Monitor Calibration

I have recently gotten into underwater photography. Currently using a digital point and shoot and editing with Adobe Elements 6.0.

I have edited photos and when I ent to have them printed, sometime the exposure was a little darker that what I had on my screen or the color were not as I had seen in the screen.

Any suggestions for monitor calibration? I have heard of software and harware based solutions.

Thanks

Kirk

I use the SpyderPro 3. I'm very happy with it.

http://spyder.datacolor.com/product-mc-s3pro.php

I use the X-Rite eye-one display 2. It works very well.

(Note: not all monitors are created equal. Some have a color gamut that covers almost 100% of Adobe 1998, some cover only 50-60%. Also, printers have different color gamuts than monitors.)

To get a print to match what you see on screen, you'll need the the color profile for your printer (including the specific paper type). You might have to adjust the exposure a little brighter to have the print match what's on screen.

Welcome to the science/art of color management.

Take Care,

ChrisS

All monitor calibration is a combination of hardware and software. You need a device that measures the output of your monitor and software to actually do the profiling. While they are usually sold together, that's not always the case. What you should use depends on your platform and your monitor.

I own a Spyder2 which worked fine for me up until I got a Dell 3007. The hardware was fine but the software was not capable of profiling that display because of brightness. I then purchased ColorEyes DisplayPro which works with my existing Spyder2. It calibrated the 3007 very well. The software is more important than the hardware IMO.

I have now switched to the NEC 3090 which includes internal LUTS. Although ColorEyes still works fine, I now use NEC's SpectraView II software (which also supports the Spyder2) so that my profiling tables reside in the monitor rather than in the operating system. That's the preferred solution if you are willing to pay for it.

I am satisfied with ColorEyes DisplayPro and continue to use it on my notebooks.

Eddie Tapp - Photoshop Wizard who taught at Stephen Frink's UW classes this past summer - recommended the Colormunki. All the hardware and most of the software of higher priced X-Rite products. All I know is calibrating for the first time opened a whole new world for me. Blues were actually blue for the first time.

Any suggestions for monitor calibration? I have heard of software and harware based solutions.

 

Thanks

 

Kirk

Hello Kirk,

Like BotSO suggests, I have just purchased a Colomunki and highly suggest anyone getting one if you plan to print images. In the past, I have used the Monaco Optix, which works great for the monitor, however my prints would not always be the same as my monitor. This problem was especially when using a new type of paper.

With the Colormunki, you not only calibrate your monitor, but you then print a test pattern and use the Colormunki to scan the test. After Colormunki builds a profile for your paper, you then print a second test pattern and Colormunki refines the profile, giving you the exact colors you see on your monitor.

When you then use another type of paper, you build another profile by scanning again. Each profile is saved on your computer with a name you choose so you can easily change papers without worry.

The procedure is very easy and Colormunki includes a quick tutorial video during every step of the process.

Good luck,

Barry Guimbellot

Contributing Editor

Dive Training and Dive Center Business magazines

A quick refresh of this thread please... I see Kelby recommeds the i1Display 2 from X-rite. I called my lab, and they say they wre using Monaco Optix - which as far as I can tell is the same thing... maybe someone bought someone or something, but since I found this link:

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=607 it suggests the same gear, which is on sale at Amazon for $200. If this works good enough and saves me 1/2 the price over Colormunki then I am sold. For me, I do very little printing at home (on some Epson that came free with a G9) and do everything from my lab. For paper calibration, they say the calibrate every day, so they dont send a profile, but they are sending me a calibtration kit that they said will get me very close. Anyway, I run Photoshop from my Dell XPS M1330 and drive dual Dell 20" Ultrasharp monitors. So I want to calibtrate both these monitors, as well as my laptop LCD in case I need to do stuff on the road. I also sometimes drive a seperate 20" dell at home, and I have dual Dell 30" LCDs at work (that sadly I can't drive from this laptop, but I can forsee using them in the future). Will the i-1 Display 2 do all I need, or is a Spyder 3 better, or something else?

Thanks!

One word. Colormunkie. Best calibrator for under $500 and it does monitor and custom printer calibrations which take 1/100 of the time of other printer calibrators. I just got mine two weeks ago and love it.

I got an eye-one Display2 setup. My issue is I use my laptop's LCD, and two external Dell 20" monitors. I am told by X-Rite that unless I run two seperate graphics cards (obviously cant do this with a laptop) or have a card that can run seperate ICC profiles (can't find anything that say the Intel 965 controler can) then I can't get two profiles to run at the same time. There is a Microsoft Applet than apparently gets around this but X-Rite said it doesnt currently work on Vista.

Anything I can do to get two profiles to run at the same time?