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CynthiaM

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Wide gamut monitor questions
« on: March 07, 2009, 02:42:40 pm »

In the process of feeding my head with info on a complete new system, including new monitor.  Ironically, my 5year old Dell system with a not so great Dell monitor (but it's calibrated) produces gorgeous prints on an Epson r2400 while choking its way through Photoshop, Lightroom and the Bridge.  Just hoping I can say the same when I have a new system.

I know that people are very happy with the nec monitors (multisync series) and that they profile beautifully especially when using the spectraview kit.  But what about the HP 2475w?  I have the Monaco XR colorimeter and the XRPro software.  Does this software work on the wide gamut displays or am I asking for a problem?  Do I have to consider the purchase of a new calibration system?  If you are using either the NECs or the HP2475, it would be helpful if you post for me what colorimeter you are using , if you are PC or Mac, and your operating system.

Also, I have a question regarding the specs on the HP.  The HP website says that this monitor produces a 102 % color gamut, but it doesn't say 102% of what color space?  I can't find anything that says what percentage of the adobe color space it is capable of producing.  Can anyone point me to documentation in this regard?

Thanks,
« Last Edit: March 08, 2009, 09:13:31 am by CynthiaM »
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sandymc

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« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2009, 01:27:19 am »

Quote from: CynthiaM
In the process of feeding my head with info on a complete new system, including new monitor.  Ironically, my 5year old Dell system with a not so great Dell monitor (but it's calibrated) produces gorgeous prints on an Epson r2400 while choking its way through Photoshop, Lightroom and the Bridge.  Just hoping I can say the same when I have a new system.

I know that people are very happy with the nec monitors (multisync series) and that they profile beautifully especially when using the spectraview kit.  But what about the HP 2475w?  I have the Monaco XR colorimeter and the XRPro software.  Does this software work on the wide gamut displays or am I asking for a problem?  Do I have to consider the purchase of a new calibration system?

Also, I have a question regarding the specs on the HP.  The HP website says that this monitor produces a 102 % color gamut, but it doesn't say 102% of what color space?  I can't find anything that says what percentage of the adobe color space it is capable of producing.  Can anyone point me to documentation in this regard?

Thanks,

The 102% is of Adobe RGB; if you look at a profile plot of the HP vs Adobe RGB, they are VERY close together.

For what it's worth, I'm very happy with my 2475.

Don't know about the Monaco XR colorimeter I'm afraid - I use an Eye1

Sandy
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neil snape

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« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2009, 04:15:34 am »

The standard colorimeters are not well adapted to profiling monitors where the colorants are so far outside a " normal" LCD.
HP have a modified i1D2 with a software package called APS.
The other solution is : use an i1 Pro or ColorMunki.
So far the i1PRo and ColorEyes is making the best profiles. APS profiles are a finer tune but the personailsed settings are limited, too limited for me. There is also a color cast towards yellow that I don't like.

I have always liked NEC montitors. I do feel the QA on NEC is superior to the HP ( I don't know who makes it) especially in uniformity across screen.
I do know for a fact if you want the farthest reaching colour HP Dreamworks goes so far beyond anything else I've seen , it puts it on it's own.
At this time it's a bleeding edge though as the software running it, documentation, QA is not doing any favours for users.

If I had to choose it would be very difficult to make such a decision. I would sadly miss the colours and range, and technology in the HP but would appreciate the reliability, very solid software, and overall polyvalence of the NEC. Since I am a little privileged with help on using  devices to tune colour on devices like these, although it's a hack , it lets me access colour I never knew I had in imagery, especially raw through Lightroom.
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CynthiaM

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« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2009, 09:16:47 am »

Quote from: sandymc
The 102% is of Adobe RGB; if you look at a profile plot of the HP vs Adobe RGB, they are VERY close together.

For what it's worth, I'm very happy with my 2475.

Don't know about the Monaco XR colorimeter I'm afraid - I use an Eye1

Sandy

Sandy:
You are referring to the Eye1 Display2?  Are you using their software to drive it?  What operating system are you on?
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CynthiaM

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« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2009, 10:00:08 am »

Quote from: neil snape
The standard colorimeters are not well adapted to profiling monitors where the colorants are so far outside a " normal" LCD.
HP have a modified i1D2 with a software package called APS.
The other solution is : use an i1 Pro or ColorMunki.
So far the i1PRo and ColorEyes is making the best profiles. APS profiles are a finer tune but the personailsed settings are limited, too limited for me. There is also a color cast towards yellow that I don't like.

I have always liked NEC montitors. I do feel the QA on NEC is superior to the HP ( I don't know who makes it) especially in uniformity across screen.
I do know for a fact if you want the farthest reaching colour HP Dreamworks goes so far beyond anything else I've seen , it puts it on it's own.
At this time it's a bleeding edge though as the software running it, documentation, QA is not doing any favours for users.

If I had to choose it would be very difficult to make such a decision. I would sadly miss the colours and range, and technology in the HP but would appreciate the reliability, very solid software, and overall polyvalence of the NEC. Since I am a little privileged with help on using  devices to tune colour on devices like these, although it's a hack , it lets me access colour I never knew I had in imagery, especially raw through Lightroom.

Neil:

Is the i1Pro the same as the i1 Display2?
What do you mean by "QA" with regard to the NECs?  Something in regard to quality conrol?
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sandymc

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« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2009, 11:02:59 am »

Quote from: CynthiaM
Sandy:
You are referring to the Eye1 Display2?  Are you using their software to drive it?  What operating system are you on?

Yes, the Eye1 Display2, and I just use their standard software - I actually have both a Mac (running Leopard) and a PC (running XP), attached and calibrated. For historical reasons, I run LR on the PC and Aperture on the Mac.

Sandy
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neil snape

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« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2009, 11:31:24 am »

Quote from: CynthiaM
Neil:

Is the i1Pro the same as the i1 Display2?
What do you mean by "QA" with regard to the NECs?  Something in regard to quality conrol?


i1 Pro is the spectrophotometer and the i1Display 2 is the colorimeter. A spectro records the light it sees in narrow bands throughout the visible spectrum. A colorimeter measures the light intensity through a known filtration.  Hence on a wide gamut monitor , the new colorants exceeding the older less capable monitors are not well matched for the standard i1D2, whereas a spectro can still measure the actual colours of light produced.


Yes QA is an abbreviation of Quality assurance which is mostly accredited to quality control.
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CynthiaM

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« Reply #7 on: March 09, 2009, 10:41:26 am »

Quote from: neil snape
i1 Pro is the spectrophotometer and the i1Display 2 is the colorimeter. A spectro records the light it sees in narrow bands throughout the visible spectrum. A colorimeter measures the light intensity through a known filtration.  Hence on a wide gamut monitor , the new colorants exceeding the older less capable monitors are not well matched for the standard i1D2, whereas a spectro can still measure the actual colours of light produced.


Yes QA is an abbreviation of Quality assurance which is mostly accredited to quality control.

Thank you
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2009, 04:59:44 pm »

Quote from: neil snape
i1 Pro is the spectrophotometer and the i1Display 2 is the colorimeter. A spectro records the light it sees in narrow bands throughout the visible spectrum. A colorimeter measures the light intensity through a known filtration.  Hence on a wide gamut monitor , the new colorants exceeding the older less capable monitors are not well matched for the standard i1D2, whereas a spectro can still measure the actual colours of light produced.


Yes QA is an abbreviation of Quality assurance which is mostly accredited to quality control.

Nice explanation.  I knew the i1D2 didn't work too well on some of the newer monitors so the i1 Pro was recommended, but I really didn't understand why.  Thanks for the insight.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2009, 05:00:00 pm by Wayne Fox »
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tho_mas

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« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2009, 06:04:05 pm »

I think there is some confusion about the measurement devices for wide gamut displays.
The DTP94 and the i1Display (2 or LT) can measure wide gamut displays.
A friend is graphic designer and lithographer and is profiling a CG221 and a NEC SV Reference side by side with an i1display (he takes the i1pro just for verification). He uses Basiccolor Display (in the US "coloreyes" as far as I know).
Me I use the DTP94 for the CG241W with the Eizo-Software (sometimes an i1display, too).
Thing is: all devices have errors. But the manufacturers know them. If the software contains correction curves for the display and the measurement device then color deviations will be corrected.
But if one takes e.g the i1match software of the i1display to calibrate a wide gamut display it will look a bit off (typically oversaturated).
Downside of the spectrophotometers for calibrating displays is that they may cause faults in dark tonalvalues.
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Czornyj

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« Reply #10 on: March 10, 2009, 07:05:32 pm »

Quote from: tho_mas
I think there is some confusion about the measurement devices for wide gamut displays.
The DTP94 and the i1Display (2 or LT) can measure wide gamut displays.
A friend is graphic designer and lithographer and is profiling a CG221 and a NEC SV Reference side by side with an i1display (he takes the i1pro just for verification). He uses Basiccolor Display (in the US "coloreyes" as far as I know).
Me I use the DTP94 for the CG241W with the Eizo-Software (sometimes an i1display, too).
Thing is: all devices have errors. But the manufacturers know them. If the software contains correction curves for the display and the measurement device then color deviations will be corrected.
But if one takes e.g the i1match software of the i1display to calibrate a wide gamut display it will look a bit off (typically oversaturated).
Downside of the spectrophotometers for calibrating displays is that they may cause faults in dark tonalvalues.

I don't know about ColorNavigator, but I calibraterd Spectraview 2690 with my i1pro, and then I measured the white point with the i1 colorimeter - it was over 400K off, and cosnidering CIE x,y coorinates it was even worse. So I'm not convinced about these "correction curves".
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neil snape

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« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2009, 01:39:45 am »

Quote from: Czornyj
I don't know about ColorNavigator, but I calibraterd Spectraview 2690 with my i1pro, and then I measured the white point with the i1 colorimeter - it was over 400K off, and cosnidering CIE x,y coorinates it was even worse. So I'm not convinced about these "correction curves".



This is precisely where you would see a large difference in reporting. Software in all cases has to correlate the data from the instrument through the filtration coordinates to have tristimulus values. The spectro has more information being band measured but is not necessarily more precise nor more accurate than the filtered colorimetric values off the puck. Yet if the monitor phosphors and or colorants are far off the colorimeter's filtration there is no way that the reporting can be better than the amount of differential of the said colorants.
Software has many items coming from manufacturers EDID information through VESA but I wasn't aware that there was software level color matching formulated from this information.


Yes the dark counting is better adapted to colorimeters than spectros in emissive modes, well at least what we commonly use. X-Rite did a pretty good job though , and most developers correctly used the SDK to have good dark counting with a reasonable refresh frequency.
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tho_mas

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« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2009, 04:20:29 am »

Quote from: Czornyj
I don't know about ColorNavigator, but I calibraterd Spectraview 2690 with my i1pro, and then I measured the white point with the i1 colorimeter - it was over 400K off, and cosnidering CIE x,y coorinates it was even worse. So I'm not convinced about these "correction curves".
Yes, that's regular.
Every calibration software has the option whether to calibrate CRT or LCD. This is based on the most simple correction curves.
For example: I calibrate to, say, 5400K with Eizos Color Navigator.
Then I measure (just validation) with Quatos iColor Display - set to "LCD" - and the measured whitepoint is arround 5000K.
Then I switch iColor from "LCD" to one of Quatos Wide Gamut Displays ... and the measured whitepoint is 5800K.
So it's obvious that there is much more than just measuring colors 1:1.
Color Navigator even displays a warning if you want to do validation of the display profile with another device than the display profile originally was measured with.
This is why the internal validation of calibration is nothing more than measuring the current profile quality to compare it with the originally measured profile.
And BTW this is why the best way to adjust the white point is basically to set it manually by comparing display and paper white in the lightbox.
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neil snape

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« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2009, 04:29:44 am »

The settings for display types don't have any color correction curves that I am aware of but do have setting adjustments and different controls for the interface, things like expected luminance, dark point, other limit controls.
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tho_mas

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« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2009, 04:56:21 am »

Quote from: neil snape
The settings for display types don't have any color correction curves that I am aware of but do have setting adjustments and different controls for the interface, things like expected luminance, dark point, other limit controls.
Hi Neil.
Yes, you are probably right that the switch "CRT" to "LCD" is not properly described with the term "correction curves". Nevertheless the measured colors are different.
But in Quatos iColor there are correction curves for every single Quato monitor model (you choose the model from a pulldown menu). Color Navigator directly adresses the monitor so you don't have to choose your model from a menu but the correction curves are loaded automatically. In Color Navigator in addition you can choose the so called preferences "color management", "multi monitor matching" or "no compensation". Every setting leads to different results based on the correction curves (in the case of "no compensation" correction curves are not applied).
As far as I know NECs SV contains correction curves for their displays, too (but I'm not sure about NEC/SV).
Anyway... in case of doubt it's probably the best to use the specific manufacturers software (whereas with Basiccolor results match very good, too).
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Hermie

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« Reply #15 on: March 11, 2009, 06:53:56 am »

Posted by Peter Karp from Quato on Colorsync list:

*** Begin quote ***
> What is the purpose of your correction matrix? You use
> top-of-the-line instruments to correct the display relative to what?

We use the Minoltas to create a calibration matrix for the
colorimeters for a _specific_ display model. Especially the DTP94 we
still bundle with our displays will need/benefit from a custom
calibration to a specific display model.

A perfect colorimeter would simulate the response of our eye (CIE 1931
standard observer color matching function to be more specific)
perfectly. Real world colorimeters will not reach this goal totally --
one exception for example is the colorimeter from LMT, Berlin which
uses many tiny filter elements to match the CMFs very close. Low-Cost
colorimeters will have filters which will not match the CMFs. The
subject of building measuring devices for "color" is very interesting
and challenging.

So most colorimeters for desktop usage like the ones used in our
industries must be calibrated to a specific device. _Then_ and only
then the measurements will be very accurate. For other devices the
measurement accuracy will be worse. Because the monitor is not known
at first hand the manufacturer has to choose some sample monitors and
create an average calibration which matches the average of the sample
monitors -- therefore you'll get "average accuracy" on your average
display. The accuracy will be improved much, when the specific device
is known and is used for the calibration of the device.

Those facts are the reason why you need to choose "CRT" vs. "LCD" in
several monitor calibration packages. One setting will load the
calibration for an average CRT and the other for an "average LCD".
For CRTs the calibration was fairly accurate because most CRTs had a
similar gamut, but for LCDs the differences are much broader --
threngthening the need/benefits of a custom calibration.

Best regards
Peter Karp
*** End quote ***

http://lists.apple.com/archives/Colorsync-...b/msg00145.html

and

*** Begin quote ***
> "Calibration matrix"? As in "correction matrix" perhaps? If that's
> what you're refering to, the only such animal that approaches this
> concept is Eizo's ColorNavigator v5 instrument-specific correction
> matrix.

That's wrong. Quato uses a correction matrix (or specific calibration
matrix as you might name it too) for quite some time. This feature was
introduced with the wide-gamut "Intelli Proof 230 Excellence" Displays
in January 2007. Our reference measurements are made with a Minolta
CS-1000 and CS-200, so the display specific calibration matrix will
give far superior results in comparison to a default calibration
matrix which must match a "default standard display" whatever the
manufacturer of the colorimeter chooses this to be.

Every display will benefit from a custom calibration matrix, but
wide-gamut displays will benefit especially, because the colorimeters
are normally calibrated to one or more sample "standard" displays.
Maybe Tom Lianza can tell us more about the displays X-Rite chooses
for that purpose.

Best regards
Peter Karp

www.quato.com
*** End quote ***

http://lists.apple.com/archives/Colorsync-...b/msg00124.html
« Last Edit: March 11, 2009, 07:34:55 am by Hermie »
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neil snape

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« Reply #16 on: March 11, 2009, 07:42:36 am »

Okay so there is a color matching function on CRT vs LCD at least in Quato soft with a presumption of the monitors gamut. As said above it is an approximation and only one that can be done if the information is available in the software itself. It is not going to be able to calibrate with any more precision than the measurements filtration correlation can permit though! If the filters are out no amount of software presumed correction is going to make up for this mismatch. This is not the same thing as the firmware in the measurement device which is tuned to the filters, nor device lodged LUT at higher bit which is done on all the software for specific calibration software intended to be used with monitors that upload the LUT.
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Hermie

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« Reply #17 on: March 11, 2009, 08:08:59 am »

The software approach (Quato/EIZO) is basically the same principle and as good as a customized colorimeter with built-in calibration matrix IMO (I'm not talking about custom filters like the Artisan's puck had).
In addition, the software approach doesn't limit the use of the colorimeter to a specific display.

> It is not going to be able to calibrate with any more precision than the measurements filtration correlation can permit though!

Absolutely correct, but I guess Quato had a reason to chose the DTP94 for their wide gamut displays. I read somewhere that the DTP94's filters are actually pretty close to CMFs.
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Czornyj

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« Reply #18 on: March 11, 2009, 08:45:31 am »

Quote from: neil snape
This is precisely where you would see a large difference in reporting. Software in all cases has to correlate the data from the instrument through the filtration coordinates to have tristimulus values. The spectro has more information being band measured but is not necessarily more precise nor more accurate than the filtered colorimetric values off the puck. Yet if the monitor phosphors and or colorants are far off the colorimeter's filtration there is no way that the reporting can be better than the amount of differential of the said colorants.
Software has many items coming from manufacturers EDID information through VESA but I wasn't aware that there was software level color matching formulated from this information.


Yes the dark counting is better adapted to colorimeters than spectros in emissive modes, well at least what we commonly use. X-Rite did a pretty good job though , and most developers correctly used the SDK to have good dark counting with a reasonable refresh frequency.

Thanks, that's very interesting - now I remember that something about it was mentioned in Fogra Softproof Handbuch - I'll make another test as soon as I'll have oportunity. Spectraview software is rebranded basICColor, so it should work, at least it should "do something".

Quote from: Hermie
Absolutely correct, but I guess Quato had a reason to chose the DTP94 for their wide gamut displays. I read somewhere that the DTP94's filters are actually pretty close to CMFs.
I wonder what they'll do when they'll run out of DTP94s...
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tho_mas

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« Reply #19 on: March 11, 2009, 09:00:28 am »

Quote from: Czornyj
Thanks, that's very interesting - now I remember that something about it was mentioned in Fogra Softproof Handbuch
yes, pages 17+18.
in addition see: http://www.quato.de/german/04.php (German)
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