Monitor Calibration Help!

[nicolas505]

Hello Everyone,

I am currently a student at a commercial photography program in Montreal in my first semester. Although we have not touched base on monitor calibration, I think it is critical to any work I do, but I am having trouble getting it right! My issues are extensive and maybe this can be a place where other people with similar unresolved issues can come to.

My problems involve: properly calibrating my monitor, properly displaying the colors in photoshop, and properly calibrating adobe camera raw. Obviously if the first problem of monitor calibration is not solved, the other two are meaningless. So that's what I would need help with.

My setup: WinXPSP2, ATI Radeon X1600, Apple Cinema Display 23'' 2006 Model, Monaco Optix XR Pro with Monaco Optix 2.0 Software.

When I calibrate, I set White Balance Temp. to 6500K and gamma to 2.2, my monitor doesn't support RGB controls to adjust color balance. But everytime I use those settings I visibly see a very slight red color cast. I read on Drycreekphoto that if we had an LCD, that we should set the white point to Monitor Native instead of 6500K because it allows for a greater dynamic range. And to ignore the brightness settings from the software of Monaco Optix which tends to bring it lower than it should be, when the real problem is the actual color balance. But on this forum I found someone saying the white brightness should be at 120cd/m2.

Is there any advice that you would recommend me on using, if anyone is familiar with this software, or if there is another software that may work with my monaco optix that would be better? What settings do I need to change etc...?

I shoot in AdobeRGB1998 with a Canon 30D, and since it has a wider gamut, I find that when I open the files in Photoshop, the colors are a bit desaturated. Is that normal? Does that mean my monitor is not calibrated properly?

Any suggestions would be helpful, or any advice, references, white papers, etc... Would be just great! Thanks

Nicolas

[eronald]

Your color cast might be affecting only one area of the monitor. Check uniformity.

Edmund

[Nill Toulme]

And make absolutely sure that your system is not loading Adobe Gamma.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[nicolas505]

hey guys,

i checked for uniformity, and adobe gamma is disable from startup.

!

nick

[Nill Toulme]

How pronounced is this slight red color cast, and are you seeing it on the monitor or in your prints?  Is it possible your eye had adjusted itself to a cooler setting, and the profiled setting simply looks a little reddish to you in comparison, or is it really more pronounced than that, i.e., clearly wrong?  (My left eye, for example, sees "warmer" than my right eye...)

As for brightness, there's no absolutely right number (although there are lots of wrong ones).  120 cd/m² is a reasonable starting point for an LCD, but it really depends on how bright your working environment is.  I work in a fairly dim room and have mine set to 100 cd/m², and I'm thinking of dropping it down to 95.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Roy]

You should use native white point, which for an Apple 23" display will come out fairly close to 6500K.  Mine came out to 6600K when I calibrated it a few weeks ago. A few hundred degrees difference from 6500 doesn't matter a lot. Use gamma 2.2 as that is close to the native gamma of the monitor.

The viewing conditions you use to evaluate the monitor after profiling will influence your judgement. Ambient of 5000K is standard and the ambient should be dim. That's difficult to achieve.

The monitor brightness you use is somewhat a matter of personal preference. If you have it too bright you'll never get your prints to match your monitor because you'll see more shadow detail on the monitor that in the prints. It also depends on how much ambient illumination you want to use in your work area. I use 120 cd/m^2 because I like a bit of light in the room.

Here's a reference on lighting in a digital darkroom and some discussion of ISO standards:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/11791.html

The ISO standards would keep you in a very dark room with a dim monitor. I like the more relaxed approach Bruce Fraser advocated in his book Real World Color Management, so I go with 120,  and a brighter room.

[nicolas505]

Hi Guys,

Do you know of a software that can utilize the puck simply to measure white balance?

If so, please let me know... thanks!

Nick

[eronald]

Hi Guys,

Do you know of a software that can utilize the puck simply to measure white balance?

If so, please let me know... thanks!

Nick
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112715\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

 If it's the screen white you need to measure, then I think Basiccolor and ColorEyes demos will do that with the Optix puck. They will also measure the ambient light, just point the puck at some reasonably white surface.

Edmund

[nicolas505]

hey edmund,

thanks a lot i'll try that and see how it goes ... crossing my fingers it's close to the 6500K ... apparently the Apple Cinema Displays have a native white point of 5000K ... that's what I read somewhere ... may that be the cause of the problem... but nonetheless when I try to calibrate and choose targt white point at 6500K instead of native monitor ... i get an even warmer white point... anyways i'll try the demos of the recommended softwares and let you know .

thanks again!

nick

[nicolas505]

i measured my white balance using the basiccolor app. (the coloreyes display pro beta for windows is not working!) but it seems like awesome software, may buy the final version in mid-may. but anyways back to my point, and measured the white balance of the calibrated monitor and it was 6125K. At native obviously. I want to be able to get 6500K, or does no one really reach to that?

Thanks

[jackbingham]

i measured my white balance using the basiccolor app. (the coloreyes display pro beta for windows is not working!) but it seems like awesome software, may buy the final version in mid-may. but anyways back to my point, and measured the white balance of the calibrated monitor and it was 6125K. At native obviously. I want to be able to get 6500K, or does no one really reach to that?

First I'd like more information on "not working" What was released was a beta and as such we are actually counting on customers contacting us and helping us find the problems. Not working, and not telling us does not do much to push the process along.
On the subject of color temp and such, there is a trade off here between native color temp with little tonal loss and print matching with some tonal loss. No doubt adjusting color in the video card will cause some loss of tonal values that will appear as banding. However if you want a critical color match between print and monitor you may need to settle for some banding. Rather than assume native is the best choice I would measure the color of your light source, build a profile to match and then choose between color matching and banding levels.