Profile variance on 2 displays - help

[boysennumba5]

I'm using a Mac Pro with a 20" Apple Cinema Display and a Dell 2007 WFP display (out of the ATI X1900 card), and I have profiled them both to 6500 Color Temp, as well as Gamma 2.2 (I had to tell the Dell to aim for gamma 1.8 to get this figure), using a GretagMacbeth i1 profiling kit, and numerous attempts have not given me a good profile.

The first problem, as I mentioned before, was that I had to tell the i1 software to target a gamma of 1.8 to even get the gamma to be 2.2 on the Dell display. Any ideas why, and how to remedy this? (Of note, I think it's because I'm supposed to manually calibrate the contrast, however when using a DVI connector on this display the built-in contrast controls are removed, while the rest of the color and brightness controls remain.)

Also the colors on the Cinema display are far more saturated than the Dell is showing, which makes me wonder which is correct (regardless, I'm inclined to make the Dell match the Cinema display, because the ad company that I do most of my work for is viewing my photos on Cinema displays). Anybody have this problem, or know of a way to fix it?

Thanks for your time.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Do you have the luminance set the same for both? If the white and black levels are not the same you're wasting your time. Set the white point for the lowest of the two monitors, and the black point for the highest.

[boysennumba5]

Do you have the luminance set the same for both? If the white and black levels are not the same you're wasting your time. Set the white point for the lowest of the two monitors, and the black point for the highest.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=92237\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yeah, I calibrated the white point of the dell to match the cinema, which has a lower max brightness value. The software didn't present an option to calibrate the black point, however, so I'm not sure if there is a workaround for that somehow. (I'm using Eye One Match 3).

[digitaldog]

Try native gamma and white point on both. Then, when testing a match, you MUST be in an ICC aware application so it uses the Display Using Monitor Compensation architecture (don't try to compare the two by viewing your desktop as an example).

The above will allow the ICC profile to do all the display compensation which might help (rather than forcing some crude controls on the two units).

You may need to highly mess with the luminance as suggested.

[jackbingham]

What you really need to do is calibrate the first monitor to d65 and then measure it and load those chromaticity coordinates into the second monitor. This will be far more accurate. Second you may need to calibrate to absolute black instead of relative if these monitors are drastically different. Most software now use relative black to avoid blacks plugging up on less expensive monitors. The added black detail may be welcome but the difference between two monitors may become more pronounced. Everything is a compromise! The answer to the next question in ColorEyes Display.