Trouble with eye-one LT

[Brad Proctor]

I'm new to monitor calibration and have been having a lot of trouble trying to calibrate.  I convinced my boss at work that our graphic designers needed calibrated monitors so we bought an x-rite eye-one LT.

First, While going through the steps in the software it asks to check ambient light and apparently our lighting is way to warm (as in orangish).  I the i1 home to see what it thinks appropriate room lighting should be and had to color a lightbulb blue.  I gave my home office a ridiculous blue color to make it the "correct" ambient lighting.  I can't imagine that's the correct lighting for a work environment.

Second, I follow the instructions to calibrate the monitor and I always get a slight purplish tint on every monitor I've tried to calibrate (7 so far).  White should still look white on a calibrated monitor right?

My best attempt at calibrating came when checking ambient light I pointed the i1 back at the monitor instead of into the room like the instructions said.  I kept moving it around until tricking it into thinking that the ambient lighting was perfect and then calibrating.  This gave fairly good results at home but this trick didn't seem to work very well at my work.

Any suggestions?  It seems like it should be a fairly simple process.  It says to set the contrast to 100% but doesn't say anything about where to set the brightness.

Thanks

[ChasP505]

OK...  I'll bite.

The LT is not the preferred version of the iOne as it doesn't permit setting of custom luminance targets.  The LT is the X-Rite equivalent of DataColor's Spyder3 Express.  If you still can, I'd return it and get the iOne Display 2.

But for the time being, some suggestions.  Ignore/disable the ambient light function.  Just make sure the monitors are not right in front of a glaring office window or a strong incandescent lamp.  Reset your monitors to their respective factory default settings and then use the OSD control to lower the brightness to about 25% (just an arbitrary starting place).  Photographers who are printing photos typically go with a very low brightness/luminance, but graphics design is a different animal.  You're primarily aiming for color accuracy.

Try that for a start.

[Brad Proctor]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll give them a try.  I hadn't considered just ignoring the ambient light thing.  Unfortunately getting the better version of the i1 probably isn't going to happen since it was like pulling teeth just to get the one we got.

[ChasP505]

I work in the corporate marketing department of a very large real estate company.  My primary part of my job is compiling and editing photos which are submitted for our fat glossy catalog plus some ad work.  We don't even have a calibration device (I use my own) and the graphic artists use much of their own software.  Things are tough all over!

[dogear]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll give them a try.  I hadn't considered just ignoring the ambient light thing.  Unfortunately getting the better version of the i1 probably isn't going to happen since it was like pulling teeth just to get the one we got.

FYI: You can upgrade the LT to the i1 Display 2 for $99 at the X-Rite site.

[Brad Proctor]

I figured out what my problem was.  A case of pay-attention-to-what-you-are-doing.  While going through the software you click the arrow to move to the next step.  At one point it asks you to select RGB controls or RGB presets and I foolishly would select one then press the arrow without noticing that this time you need to press the "start" button to get you to a couple more settings that I was missing.  

Makes one feel kinda stupid, but I guess I should be happy it was such a simple fix.