Newbie question here, but I have been spinning my wheels on this for a week and an completely overwhelmed at this point...
I have always successfully calibrated my (very old) monitor with my i1D2. But I got a new computer and a new monitor (an HP ZR24w with a ATI Radeon HD5770 video card), and I can't get the new monitor to calibrate correctly. (I used targets 6500, 2.2, 110, and at the end of calibration they were spot on, and the red green and blue lines looked smooth and together, but the OSD settings in the red green and blue channels were red 88, green 50, and blue 66.) I edited a few photos on it and they looked GREAT on-screen, but when I got the test prints back from WHCC they were VERY cool.
So I ordered a new calibrator since I'd read the pucks can go bad and under-read the red channel, but the new one arrived today, and OF COURSE that was too simple an answer, because it did all the same things my old i1D2 did.
So where it stands right now, I have my monitor back on the default profile (in my Color Management window, for the monitor, I have it set back to the "default HP ZR24w LCD Monitor" profile, called HP_zr24w.icm), but the OSD is at the settings I set last time I calibrated (I used Target 6500, Brightness 110, and Gamma 2.2, and ended up with brightness 29, contrast 99, and RGB at 72/30/47). But that was still too red, though, so I gave in and just manually eyeballed the RGB channels in the OSD with my photos open in CS5, and when I move the red slider down to 56, green at 30, and blue to 52, and it's pretty darned spot on to those photos. So that's where my OSD settings are now.
I am completey overwhelmed and realize I don't even understand what a profile IS and how it's important, if I can adjust the monitor by hand and have it look good, when calibrating makes it look bad.
I have until Thursday morning to send my monitor back, but is that the right thing to do? Or is the fact that it "looks" right now per my prints, should I leave it? It's a beautiful monitor, now that the colors match.
Every time I take a step, I realize I am in WAY over my head. I would love to hire a consultant to help me, but don't even know what to look up in a phonebook to do that, PLUS I am very nearly out of time if I DO need to return the monitor. So in my tons of research I came upon you guys several times, and decided to post and see if any of you brilliant folks have any suggestions?
I really want to do this right!!!!