Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: RichardJG on November 10, 2008, 06:15:51 pm

Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: RichardJG on November 10, 2008, 06:15:51 pm
Hello,
My first post to the forum, so hello to all you experts.
I recently bought myself a Colormunki photo, which I've used to successfully calibrate my LCD monitor and my Epson R2400, I'm really pleased with the results.
This was done on my desktop machine running XP Pro, with the latest version of the Colormunki software.
However, I have tried to do the screen calibration on my new Toshiba Laptop which unfortunately runs Vista Home SP1, big problem!
The colormunki does the job and the appearance of the desktop changes to a more subtle colour rendition, but when pictures are viewed on the
windows picture gallery they are way too bright all whites are blown out, in photoshop the same pictures are ok. Also, when the laptop is restarted
the new profile is loaded and almost immediately the screen is reset to the old windows profile, but the picture gallery is still displaying too bright.
The only way to get the picture gallery to display properly is to manually reset the display profile back to the default srgb profile.
So I finish with an uncalibrated screen.

I have read elsewhere that vista has a few issues with colour management, but I haven't heard of anybody complaining of the picture gallery
software behaving in this way.
Any ideas?
Many thanks & Regards
RichardG
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 10, 2008, 06:55:15 pm
Quote from: RichardJG
Any ideas?
Many thanks & Regards
RichardG

Yes:

(1) laptop displays are notoriously difficult and unreliable to profile and calibrate because what you see depends very much on the angle at which you set and view the screen. To normalize this download a known image and angle the screen till it "looks right" - not very scientific but nonetheless a useful parameter.

(2) If you can find a copy of Windows XP Professional, get rid of Vista and go back to XP.
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Ray on November 10, 2008, 09:21:22 pm
Quote from: MarkDS
Yes:

(1) laptop displays are notoriously difficult and unreliable to profile and calibrate because what you see depends very much on the angle at which you set and view the screen. To normalize this download a known image and angle the screen till it "looks right" - not very scientific but nonetheless a useful parameter.

(2) If you can find a copy of Windows XP Professional, get rid of Vista and go back to XP.

Mark,
Would Vista Ultimate be an improvement? What about the contrast and brightness settings on a laptop prior to calibration? Laptops might have a brightness setting via the keyboard, and both brightness and contrast settings via the video card properties from the desktop.

Does it matter what these settings are initially with the ColorMunki?
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 11, 2008, 12:15:30 am
Quote from: Ray
Mark,
Would Vista Ultimate be an improvement? What about the contrast and brightness settings on a laptop prior to calibration? Laptops might have a brightness setting via the keyboard, and both brightness and contrast settings via the video card properties from the desktop.

Does it matter what these settings are initially with the ColorMunki?
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 11, 2008, 12:22:01 am
Quote from: Ray
Mark,
Would Vista Ultimate be an improvement? What about the contrast and brightness settings on a laptop prior to calibration? Laptops might have a brightness setting via the keyboard, and both brightness and contrast settings via the video card properties from the desktop.

Does it matter what these settings are initially with the ColorMunki?

Ray, I don't know the answer to either question. Starting with Vista, the reason why I suggested reverting to XP Pro is that it's a well-known, proven, workable operating system, so it's a safer bet to work from in terms of eliminating O/S variables which could be causing the OP's problems. Whatever the flavour of Vista, this is an OS which Microsoft is clearly backing out of, to read and interpret the computer press, and will be superceded probably by November/December '09 (viz latest isue of IT Pro) by M7.

I think it is generally important to set several parameters before creating a display profile: luminance, white point and gamma. I don't know whether one does that through the ColorMunki software (as one does for example with ColorEyes Display) or through whatever hardware controls the OPs l,aptop may have. But as I mentioned, the screen angle is the real deal-breaker with laptop displays.


Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: RichardJG on November 11, 2008, 05:37:23 am
Quote from: MarkDS
Yes:

(1) laptop displays are notoriously difficult and unreliable to profile and calibrate because what you see depends very much on the angle at which you set and view the screen. To normalize this download a known image and angle the screen till it "looks right" - not very scientific but nonetheless a useful parameter.

(2) If you can find a copy of Windows XP Professional, get rid of Vista and go back to XP.

Hello Mark,
Thanks for the reply, although not really what I wanted to know. I agree with your comments regarding Vista, I detest Vista, but I have this new Toshiba loaded with Vista and at the moment don't fancy downloading all the xp drivers required to get this machine running.

With regards to Laptop screens, yes I am aware that the viewing angle is critical, but if viewed from the profilers angle, which is full on, then there is no problem. My other laptop, which is about 3 years old
has been calibrated with colormunki and is excellent, but of course it is running xp pro.

So to get back to my main two questions, why does vista reset the new profile back to the windows profile and why is windows photo gallery too bright after calibration.

Oh! while I remember, which working profile should I use in photoshop color settings after screen calibration.

Regards
RichardG
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: mbalensiefer on November 11, 2008, 06:35:50 am
You really should find another utility other than Windows Picture/Fax to view your images. This is not a color-calibrated image viewer in any respect and there is no point in calibrating your external monitor at all if you are going to be using this program...

V/R
Michael
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: RichardJG on November 11, 2008, 06:57:41 am
Quote from: mbalensiefer
You really should find another utility other than Windows Picture/Fax to view your images. This is not a color-calibrated image viewer in any respect and there is no point in calibrating your external monitor at all if you are going to be using this program...

V/R
Michael

Hello Michael,
Not sure if you are correct in what you say, I think you are probably correct if you are talking about Windows Picture/Fax viewer in XP. (Although I don't have any issues with this program at all and comparing pictures viewed in photoshop and Picture/Fax Viewer in XP look exactly the same.) My issues are with photo gallery in Vista which IS affected by changing colour profiles, I wish it wasn't and would like to no why and how to correct it if possible.

Regards & Thanks
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: mbalensiefer on November 12, 2008, 04:13:54 am
For me, both Vista and XP's native image galleries are way off of my calibrated images' display. Only Vista seems to be worse.

 Question: are you calibrating your notebook's LCD screen, or an external monitor? Is your monitor backlit via LED (new tech), or flourescent tube?

 ~Michael
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: RichardJG on November 12, 2008, 05:09:51 am
Quote from: mbalensiefer
For me, both Vista and XP's native image galleries are way off of my calibrated images' display. Only Vista seems to be worse.

 Question: are you calibrating your notebook's LCD screen, or an external monitor? Is your monitor backlit via LED (new tech), or flourescent tube?

 ~Michael

Hello Michael,
I'm calibrating the notebooks screen and I'm sure it's "old tech" flourescent tubes. Having said that, I am happy with the results I'm initially getting from colormunki, except for these two issues,
When vista is restarted the newly created profile is reset to the windows original, but the photo gallery displays way too bright, not that I'm bothered about photo gallery, it's just that something
is not working as it should, which is out of my control at the moment. Not sure if it's vista or if it's the graphics driver (intel), which could be responsible.
I know I'm not the only one who has this problem, but up to now I have no clue as to what is happening.

Regards
RichardG
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: juicy on November 12, 2008, 05:21:20 am
Quote from: RichardJG
Oh! while I remember, which working profile should I use in photoshop color settings after screen calibration.

Regards
RichardG

The display profile and the working color space in Photoshop are two entirely different things. You should choose the working space according to your workflow and depending on the type of images you are editing. Also the end use of the edited images play part on this. You should never use a display profile as an editing space.

J
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: juicy on November 12, 2008, 05:32:21 am
Quote from: Ray
Mark,
Would Vista Ultimate be an improvement? What about the contrast and brightness settings on a laptop prior to calibration? Laptops might have a brightness setting via the keyboard, and both brightness and contrast settings via the video card properties from the desktop.

Does it matter what these settings are initially with the ColorMunki?

Don't know about either Vista or CM but generally you should not use any other adjustments than brightness (LCD backlight) because that's the only thing you can adjust without reducing the possible number of levels the display-video card combo can produce. That's why contrast should be set to max and video properties should not be messed at all. Normally the profiling applications reset the videocard anyway. The profile should do all the heavy lifting.

J
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 12, 2008, 07:19:05 am
Quote from: RichardJG
Hello Mark,
Thanks for the reply, although not really what I wanted to know. I agree with your comments regarding Vista, I detest Vista, but I have this new Toshiba loaded with Vista and at the moment don't fancy downloading all the xp drivers required to get this machine running.

With regards to Laptop screens, yes I am aware that the viewing angle is critical, but if viewed from the profilers angle, which is full on, then there is no problem. My other laptop, which is about 3 years old
has been calibrated with colormunki and is excellent, but of course it is running xp pro.

So to get back to my main two questions, why does vista reset the new profile back to the windows profile and why is windows photo gallery too bright after calibration.

Oh! while I remember, which working profile should I use in photoshop color settings after screen calibration.

Regards
RichardG

What do you mean by "if viewed from the profilers' angle" and "full on"? Maybe something I should know about!

If your other laptop is fine using XP Pro, that may be circumstantial evidence that Vista has something to do with your problem - but not necessarily. I appreciate the trouble of re-installing an O/S, but ater you've tried everything else and if you are still not getting the results you want, that may be the last resort.

I don't know why Vista resets your profile. It shouldn't. Once you've told the video card what the default display profile is (i.e the one you created with your Colormunki), in a properly functioning O/S that should stick.

The display profile has nothing to do with the your choice of a colour working space in Photoshop. If you are intending to print your photos on a recent model inkjet printer now or in the future, select ProPhoto as your default colour working space in Photoshop Preferences. That will help to insure that you don't inadvertantly clip colours which the newer printers can reproduce, but which ADOBE RGB(98) and especially sRGB would exclude.
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: David Good on November 12, 2008, 09:50:27 am
Richard,

I waited to reply until I re-calibrated and profiled both my laptop,Toshiba Satellite with Vista Home Premium and my internet LCD with Vista Home Basic with the newest release, v1.0.5. I am not experiencing any of the issues that you mention, display profile does not reset after a restart, and pictures look normal, not blown out using the windows slideshow(?). I don't have a solution for you but it does work properly on my two different vista systems, but they are both relatively new. Support has been quick to respond when I contacted them.

Dave
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: juicy on November 12, 2008, 11:07:41 am
Another thread, similar problems (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=24632&pid=236421&st=100&#entry236421)

Especially post #103.
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: John.Murray on November 12, 2008, 01:01:26 pm
Quote from: MarkDS
.... Whatever the flavour of Vista, this is an OS which Microsoft is clearly backing out of, to read and interpret the computer press, and will be superceded probably by November/December '09 (viz latest isue of IT Pro) by M7.

There is a *lot* of info out on the next version of Windows - let me tell you that MS is not backing out of anything.  Windows 7 is and will be fully based on the Vista and Server 2007 codebase.  I attended the Windows PDC and am currently running some bits released to developers.  Other than a UI polish, many changes are "under the hood" such as further code dependancy reduction and consolidation at the core; even developers will not see the result of this surface into API's in Windows 7 (http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1707).

The big problem is that Vista's builtin Slideshow/Photo viewer does not respect color management, not does IE7 or 8 (or for that matter Firefox).

Although posted before, I've found this image to be very usefull for determining the state of color managment for any given application:

(http://imagesbymurray.com/ll-images/bgrredducatiwcstesttrisiz5.jpg)

http://blogs.msdn.com/color_blog/ (http://blogs.msdn.com/color_blog/)  for an explanation.

hth - John
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 12, 2008, 02:06:48 pm
Quote from: Joh.Murray
There is a *lot* of info out on the next version of Windows - let me tell you that MS is not backing out of anything.  Windows 7 is and will be fully based on the Vista and Server 2007 codebase.  I attended the Windows PDC and am currently running some bits released to developers.  Other than a UI polish, many changes are "under the hood" such as further code dependancy reduction and consolidation at the core; even developers will not see the result of this surface into API's in Windows 7 (http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1707).

The big problem is that Vista's builtin Slideshow/Photo viewer does not respect color management, not does IE7 or 8 (or for that matter Firefox).

Although posted before, I've found this image to be very usefull for determining the state of color managment for any given application:

(http://imagesbymurray.com/ll-images/bgrredducatiwcstesttrisiz5.jpg)

http://blogs.msdn.com/color_blog/ (http://blogs.msdn.com/color_blog/)  for an explanation.

hth - John

I believe there is more to it than this. Perhaps one of the more important departures between Vista and Windows-7 is that through the Vista experience Microsoft has learned a lesson called "less haste more speed"; anyhow - the purpose of my initial suggestion was to help the OP eliminate variables that may (but not necessarily) be causing his problem.
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 12, 2008, 02:18:05 pm
Quote from: Joh.Murray
Although posted before, I've found this image to be very usefull for determining the state of color managment for any given application:

(http://imagesbymurray.com/ll-images/bgrredducatiwcstesttrisiz5.jpg)

http://blogs.msdn.com/color_blog/ (http://blogs.msdn.com/color_blog/)  for an explanation.

hth - John

The motocycle is blue on my laptop display using XP Pro, but this does not pretend to be a colour-managed display and IE-7 is not colour managed. It will be interesting to play with this image on my desktop (which has suffered a fatal crash recently) once I'm up and running again.
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: DarkPenguin on November 12, 2008, 02:53:16 pm
If you've the latest version of firefox color management can be enabled.  (You'd have to google how.  I don't remember. )  The difference, with this image, is not subtle.
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: RichardJG on November 12, 2008, 05:58:31 pm
Quote from: Joh.Murray
The big problem is that Vista's builtin Slideshow/Photo viewer does not respect color management, not does IE7 or 8 (or for that matter Firefox).


hth - John
I'm not going to argue with you, but according to my problem Vista's Photo Gallery is affected by color profile change. Well at least on my machine!
Also see this:-
Microsoft Link (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939395/en-us)
Regards
RichardG
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: RichardJG on November 12, 2008, 06:10:00 pm
Quote from: David Good
Richard,

I waited to reply until I re-calibrated and profiled both my laptop,Toshiba Satellite with Vista Home Premium and my internet LCD with Vista Home Basic with the newest release, v1.0.5. I am not experiencing any of the issues that you mention, display profile does not reset after a restart, and pictures look normal, not blown out using the windows slideshow(?). I don't have a solution for you but it does work properly on my two different vista systems, but they are both relatively new. Support has been quick to respond when I contacted them.

Dave

Hi Dave,
Thanks for taking the trouble to tell me how you got on calibrating your laptop. I also have the latest version colormunki software. The laptop I am having problems with is a Toshiba Equiem P300 running Vista Home. I'm not sure if it could be the graphics driver. The laptop is using an Intel 965 express chipset. I have downloaded latest drivers, but still have the same problem.

Incidentally, the picture of the ducatti is Blue on my desktop XP pro Machine and Red on my Vista Laptop.
Which is also proof of photo gallery being color managed.
Interesting!

Regards
RichardG
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: mbalensiefer on November 13, 2008, 07:02:10 am
Quote from: juicy
The display profile and the working color space in Photoshop are two entirely different things. You should choose the working space according to your workflow and depending on the type of images you are editing. Also the end use of the edited images play part on this. You should never use a display profile as an editing space.

J


Hi!
 I have to say that this statement is in direct conflict with other threads I've read on this same board. PS defaults to your monitor's profile...so with a calibrated monitor, your PS should be good. That's the way they programmed PS. If not, then how might one go about calibrating Photoshop by itself?

Michael
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 13, 2008, 01:59:30 pm
Quote from: mbalensiefer
Hi!
 I have to say that this statement is in direct conflict with other threads I've read on this same board. PS defaults to your monitor's profile...so with a calibrated monitor, your PS should be good. That's the way they programmed PS. If not, then how might one go about calibrating Photoshop by itself?

Michael

No - "Juicy" is correct about this. There is no such thing as PS defaulting to your monitor profile unless you have set it up that way, which you should not. You do calibrate and profile your display, you do not calibrate Photoshop. All you do with Photoshop is set the preferences correctly, give them a named preset and set that as a newdefault. The program should then open with that preset in place every time. As I said above, the display profile and Photoshop's colour working space are separate items. One characterises your display and the other tells Photoshop the gamut of the colour working space you want, which depends on what you intend to do with the images now and in the future.
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: mbalensiefer on November 14, 2008, 06:58:40 am
" You do calibrate and profile your display, you do not calibrate Photoshop. All you do with Photoshop is set the preferences correctly, give them a named preset and set that as a newdefault. "

 Got it. My Display already =calibrated.
               Photoshop =left alone.

 I'd read that leaving it alone makes PS's profile default to whatever the monitor is, as already set up.

 So what do I have to do according to the rest of your above?

Michael
Title: Colormunki etc, with Vista (Home)
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 14, 2008, 07:07:12 am
Quote from: mbalensiefer
" You do calibrate and profile your display, you do not calibrate Photoshop. All you do with Photoshop is set the preferences correctly, give them a named preset and set that as a newdefault. "

 Got it. Display    =calibrated.
          Photoshop=left alone.

 I'd read that leaving it alone makes PS's profile default to whatever the monitor is, as already set up.

 So what do I have to do according to the rest of your above?

Michael

EDIT>Color Settings> Working Spaces>RGB> (select Pro Photo for the widest available space here, if that is what you want). Further down in Conversion Options select the ACE engine, Relative Colorimetric (if those are what you want -usually good general settings), and check Black Point Compensation and Use Dither. Save this group of settings as a custom preset with a name you will recognize and make sure this preset is loaded when you open Photoshop. Normally it should remain sticky from a previous session.