Any wise words regarding calibrating the new LED MacBookPros?

[Wayne Fox]

Interesting, the charts appear with dominant gray but visible striping. Calibration only seems to affect the RGB banding; the CMYK remains fairly constant

- Under the original calibration (out of the box), you get a fairly light gray and light stripes
- Under 2.2 Native you get a much more intense gray and slightly more contrasted RGB banding
- D65 remains a joke

As I'm note sure what I am looking for it's hard to tell if calibration makes things worse or not!

As has been mentioned by others, the Spyder 2 cannot accurately calibrate a display using an LED backlight.  I don't remember the technical reasons, but remember a post by Andrew and a couple of others that explained why the Spyder 2 technology fails with LED backlit displays.  I'm afraid you're banging your head against a wall if you are trying to profile your new powerbook accurately with the spyder 2.

Here is a quote directly from their website

"Spyder2express uses an earlier generation of Spyder technology. It is excellent for calibrating CRTs and typical LCD displays. For laptops with very narrow viewing angles, LCDs with gloss finishes, and new LCD technologies such as LED backlight and Wide Gamut displays, we recommend Spyder3-based products, such as Spyder3Pro."

(The spyder2express generation of technology mentioned is from the spyder 2)

The i1 Pro works fine, and the Spyder 3 reportedly works.

[Jeremy Payne]

Spyder 3 reportedly works.

Yup ... I have several laptops and a LED backlight panel profiled using the Spyder3.

[Mosccol]

Yup ... I have several laptops and a LED backlight panel profiled using the Spyder3.

One day... all gear will be self-calibrating !

[TimG]

Spyder 3 works like a champ - just calibrated a colleague's 4 monitors; 2 LCDs, 1 LED, and 1 CRT.  The StudioMatch feature is a dream for color matching across two screens.

[Mosccol]

GO FIGURE...

I noticed in the release notes of Snow Leopard that Apple had at long last decided to adopt 2.2 as its default value instead of the now rarely used 1.8

So after installing the new OS today, I had a look at the onscreen calibration and - guess what: I obtained a more natural/neutral result using Apple's onscreen calibration with SnowLeopard than with my Spyder2

Now all I need to do is to find some prints to compare...

[JessicaLuchesi]

I'm facing one tricky problem here. Am on a room, with only a single window open. The light that comes into my Macbook Pro is the ambient light from that window, facing the lid of the notebook ( 13" mbp ), so, that the only light that comes into it, is indirect light reflected by a white wall. I do this, because I am not into turning up the ceiling d65 lights during the day, I'd rather re-calibrate ahead of any work.

Anyway, am giving this MBP it's first calibration, and the Spyder 3Pro asks me to tune the desired brightness of the LED display. And I never manage to get it into the desired target. It's either halfway down, or halfway up, depending on the brightness level I set. I'm using the ambient light compensation, and seems like I would need to set the brightness up or down by 1/2 point in the F1/F2 settings.

Maybe this is a really silly question, but is there a way to fine tune the backlight brightness on a MacBook Pro other than using the lighting setting keys on the keyboard? And RGB settings? This isn't my first mac, never managed to find these controls myself.

[Mosccol]

I'm facing one tricky problem here. Am on a room, with only a single window open. The light that comes into my Macbook Pro is the ambient light from that window, facing the lid of the notebook ( 13" mbp ), so, that the only light that comes into it, is indirect light reflected by a white wall. I do this, because I am not into turning up the ceiling d65 lights during the day, I'd rather re-calibrate ahead of any work.

Anyway, am giving this MBP it's first calibration, and the Spyder 3Pro asks me to tune the desired brightness of the LED display. And I never manage to get it into the desired target. It's either halfway down, or halfway up, depending on the brightness level I set. I'm using the ambient light compensation, and seems like I would need to set the brightness up or down by 1/2 point in the F1/F2 settings.

Maybe this is a really silly question, but is there a way to fine tune the backlight brightness on a MacBook Pro other than using the lighting setting keys on the keyboard? And RGB settings? This isn't my first mac, never managed to find these controls myself.

Hmm, I don't think there is a way to go 1/2 notches even if the current ones are very crude. Obviously you need to set up your system prefs not to adjust brightness with ambient light (display pane) and not to dim (energy saver pane). You may try to play with the slider in the display pane but I don't think it will give you a more subtle adjustment. As I am only calibrating with an ill-adapted Spyder2, I have to adjust luminosity manually. I find that 2 off the max works well. What's your Spyder 3 telling you?

[JessicaLuchesi]

Hmm, I don't think there is a way to go 1/2 notches even if the current ones are very crude. Obviously you need to set up your system prefs not to adjust brightness with ambient light (display pane) and not to dim (energy saver pane). You may try to play with the slider in the display pane but I don't think it will give you a more subtle adjustment. As I am only calibrating with an ill-adapted Spyder2, I have to adjust luminosity manually. I find that 2 off the max works well. What's your Spyder 3 telling you?

Thank you, when I went to disable the Ambient Light on the Mac ( I didn't know the notebook had this control ), I also found a brightness slider that allowed for a very finely tuned control, and with that, I was able to keep the ambient light calibration ( Spyder ) turned on and calibrate the display

Spyder actually asked me, with Medium ambient light, to keep the brightness at around 95%, a notch between the max and one dot lower than the max, brightness. Considering most said they achieved ideal with 60%, I found it very odd. :| Is it spyder that is calibrating with a faulty setting, or something else?

[JessicaLuchesi]

Am also downloading the latest Spyder 3 software update, to see if it helps improve this calibration somehow.

[Khurram]

I just posted on the same issue - new macbook pro with Snow Leopard (anti-glare display), I'm also getting garish colors over saturated and bright.  I tried using the brightness control, but of course that doesn't do anything for the over saturation.

Sounds like Spyder2Pro is not a good option.  is there any other calibration software someone could recommend.  Is there any issue with Snow Leopard and calibration systems??? I read the issue may be with calibration softwares may not be compatible with snow leopard??? Does anyone know if there is any truth to this???

[dctech]

Hello Jessica,

if you adjust your backlight slider to get an ambient light fitting luminance and the setting is somewhere between two of these settings (the scale on your display), then please use the step which is a bit too bright. Spyder will correct the colors and the white point. Therefore the profile will clip one or two color channels and this will reduce the luminance as well.

If you have further questions please don't hesitate to contact us via support system on our website.

Oliver Mews
Datacolor AG

[gdh]

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me.  

Your printing paper held up to the screen will be as white or dark as the reflective (ambient) light dictates, which will have very little affect on the transmissive blank white document shining through from the computer screen, so how does this give you an accurate standard to calibrate brightness of your LCD monitor?

I'm facing a similar issue with my Apple wide cinema screen.  I'm used to truly calibrating my old LaCie CRT monitor with Eye-one and while I can calibrate the Apple Cinema screen to some extent, I understand it just makes some video card adjustments rather than the true calibration I was used to.  I'm tempted to go back to the LaCie since what I saw I actually got on my printer--not so now.  I'm assuming you're facing similar issues in attempting to calibrate your laptops--correct?  Or am I missing something here?  I'd appreciate any help from a more knowledgeable source than I  

Thanks Wayne!

[dctech]

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me.  

Your printing paper held up to the screen will be as white or dark as the reflective (ambient) light dictates, which will have very little affect on the transmissive blank white document shining through from the computer screen, so how does this give you an accurate standard to calibrate brightness of your LCD monitor?

I'm facing a similar issue with my Apple wide cinema screen.  I'm used to truly calibrating my old LaCie CRT monitor with Eye-one and while I can calibrate the Apple Cinema screen to some extent, I understand it just makes some video card adjustments rather than the true calibration I was used to.  I'm tempted to go back to the LaCie since what I saw I actually got on my printer--not so now.  I'm assuming you're facing similar issues in attempting to calibrate your laptops--correct?  Or am I missing something here?  I'd appreciate any help from a more knowledgeable source than I  

Displays are working in a limited dynamic range. Therefore you should try to set the luminance as best as you can. Normally the luminance of CRT screens is 85-95 cd/m2 and of LCD screens it's 120 cd/m2.

The difference between white and black on a screen is much higher than a print-out. If you would illuminate a print-out really bright until the reflected paper white is the same level than your monitor white, then black of your print-out wouldn't be as dark as the black of your monitor. The reason is that the print-out would have a higher rest reflection because of the very bright light source. Therefore you should try to decrease the luminance of your screen to these levels.

By the way: Photographers are using a norm light box to illuminate their print-outs and to judge the colors. A desktop lamp or your monitor itself is not a light source to illuminate a print-out. Your monitor simulates a view with 6.500 Kelvin light (which is app. daylight at noon, depending on where you located in). That's a global standard for AdobeRGB(1998).

Hope this helps a bit.
Thanks,
Oliver
Datacolor AG

[digitaldog]

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense to me.  

Your printing paper held up to the screen will be as white or dark as the reflective (ambient) light dictates, which will have very little affect on the transmissive blank white document shining through from the computer screen, so how does this give you an accurate standard to calibrate brightness of your LCD monitor?

There are two factors here. The luminance of the viewing conditions of the print versus the display and the dynamic range of the display. When someone says “ you should set the display luminance to XXX cd/m2” the alarm should go off because that’s just silly. Your mileage may vary. What’s the luminance of the viewing booth next to the display? The correct cd/m2 value is the on that produces a visual match to the viewing booth. To the same degree, that’s true for the white point.

Next is the huge disconnect in the contrast ratio of displays versus print. We hear in the advertising that this or that LCD has an 800:1 contrast ratio or 1000:1 contrast ratio as if this is something good. For the work we do here, its not. The best you’ll get out of a print is maybe 250 to 300:1. So you view the image on an 800:1 contrast ratio and wonder why it doesn’t match the print in the booth. The “fix” (and I use quotes because its not the best approach) is to let the combo of display profile and output profile simulate the contrast ratio when you invoke the Simulate check boxes in the customize proof setup. Problem is two fold. First, when you view the image currently previewed as 800:1 redraw to 250:1, it looks awful. If you don’t watch that redraw, its not as bad as you give your eyes a second to adapt to the new preview. But worse, the UI doesn’t undergo this simulation. So menu’s, palettes etc remain at the white of the display and since your eye adapts to that instead of the correct white simulation, it looks off as well. So you pretty much need to view the simulation in full screen mode (no palettes or menu items, it the F key twice). Makes editing the image difficult to say the least.

The better approach is to actually control the contrast ratio of the display. Few products allow this because you need precise control over the panel to do so. The NEC SpectraView, Eizo running their software and older reference display CRTs like the Sony Artisan allowed the user to set black and luminance values to produce a fixed contrast ratio. This is a far more ideal situation but again, not something most users can do.