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Author Topic: Screen/Print matching: Which monitor luminance/kelvin settings work for you?  (Read 21327 times)

tho_mas

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Quote from: LarryBaum
I'm curious as to whether you find the colors on your wide gamut LCD or standard gamut LCD more closely match what you see on your CRT.

I have to say that the color look awfully different to me between each display type even if calibrate them all with the same probe.

I think the fact that some miss and some hit sRGB primaries and even moreso the different spectral characters of the native primaries of each make things look differently the eye.

At least if i compare wide gamut to wide gamut and standard to standard things look reasonably, if not exactingly similar. But it seems like wide gamuts and standard gamuts and perhaps CRTs and probably oled, not too mention scenes in the real world, etc. all have a rather different balance and apparent look to the eye. It doesn't seem so good if you want to edit your images once and then have them look the same on any display.

Maybe a 1nm spectrophotometer would make everything look the same? Or maybe it still wouldn't quite....
see here... first PDF on the top of the list ("Color Matching Between sRGB Monitors and Wide Color Gamut Monitors"):
http://www.eizo.com/global/support/wp/index.html

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tho_mas

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Quote from: Nill Toulme
Where might we find such reference images (preferably free or something I already have... I vaguely recall perhaps seeing one in the C1 install...)?
you can create one by yourself based on the Gretag Color Checker Color patches.
For monitor calibration - i.e. to get a visual match of luminance and white point - I am finding it easier to start with "white" only, resp. with white and b/w shades. Color patches or "real world" color images may affect your perception of "white".
In the second step it's fine to compare to colors...
Of course, there's nothing wrong with other reference images... just tought to show a slightly different approach.
Attached a screenshot of my custom made reference images.

[attachment=23241:calchart_bw.jpg] [attachment=23240:calchart.jpg]
« Last Edit: July 20, 2010, 06:56:21 am by tho_mas »
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John R Smith

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I beg to differ on the usefulness of test images or colour charts or whatever. The best comparitive device of all is a fine photograph with a long tonal range.

Pick out one of your own photographs which has an excellent black, some just-visible shadow detail, an extended tonal range through the mid-tones, and some delicate highlight detail (clouds are good). Choose a picture which you know well and have printed many times in the past. Print it with a wide (3/4 inch) border so that you have paper white as a constant reference.

Then when you have to set up a new monitor or printer or paper you are dealing with an old friend, and one which you are so familiar with that any weak link in the chain will be self-evident.

John
« Last Edit: July 20, 2010, 07:54:48 am by John R Smith »
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tho_mas

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Quote from: John R Smith
I beg to differ on the usefulness of test images or colour charts or whatever. The best comparitive device of all is a fine photograph with a long tonal range.

Pick out one of your own photographs which has an excellent black, some just-visible shadow detail, an extended tonal range through the mid-tones, and some delicate highlight detail (clouds are good). Choose a picture which you know well and have printed many times in the past. Print it with a wide (3/4 inch) border so that you have paper white as a constant reference.

Then when you have to set up a new monitor or printer or paper you are dealing with an old friend, and one which you are so familiar with that any weak link in the chain will be self-evident.
I wouldn't say one way is "better" than the other. Simply find out what works best for your personally... as long as you follow the basic principles outlined by "digitaldog" above. Working with a well known print/image is also great - in particular with a white border as reference (which works fine for print related editing in any case... IMO).
Me I also adjust the 6 color-setting in the monitor hardware to match the color reproduction of my favorite paper (in a second profile). So for me the color patches work very well.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Keith Cooper has a link to a wide variety of test images here.  I like to use his B&W test print and the one Jack Flesher created from some of the Bill Atikinson images (this one is good as there is a large black square in one corner for measuring Dmax) as a start and then move to two of my standard prints (one for B&W and one for color) to make a final judgment on any new paper/ink setting combination.

Alan
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Steve Gordon

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This whole question of screen to print match has confused me for some years. Like Nill, I have believed you have to match the monitor to the viewing conditions where the print will be displayed. I think now I am starting to see the light (or should that be brightness?)

But based on the above comments, can I conclude that it doesn't matter under what light you view the print in your "booth" (temp and luminosity), as long as it matches your display, the print will look the same no matter where it is displayed (museum, gallery, kitchen or toilet)??

If so, why is it necessary to spend so much money on "booth lighting"? As long as I get a "match" can't I just use a 40W incandescent bulb in a rampant dolphin holder with peacock blue shade (as long as it it shielded from the display?)??


Thanks for any illumination!

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John R Smith

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Quote from: Steve Gordon
But based on the above comments, can I conclude that it doesn't matter under what light you view the print in your "booth" (temp and luminosity), as long as it matches your display, the print will look the same no matter where it is displayed (museum, gallery, kitchen or toilet)??

If so, why is it necessary to spend so much money on "booth lighting"? As long as I get a "match" can't I just use a 40W incandescent bulb in a rampant dolphin holder with peacock blue shade (as long as it it shielded from the display?)??

Steve

There is a very important consideration with your booth (or room) lighting, and that is one of print metamerism. Any old bulb won't necessarily do. I use tungsten lighting in my studio because I prefer its natural warmth, but it does not enable me to easily judge very subtle hue shifts. I work solely in B/W, and the Epson printers in ABW mode can and do wander a bit in absolute hue as the ink cartridges get low. Under tungsten it is very hard for me to see these shifts (usually towards blue-green), however daylight will reveal them quite mercilessly. As I print mostly in the evenings, it is only too easy to find out next day that the print metamerises quite badly under daylight. So now I have a 6500 kelvin light in another room where I do my print trimming, and a calibrated grayscale card to check the print against. Once you see a shift under the 6500 lamp, it is easy enough to compensate in the ABW mode by (say) adding +1 red or whatever. I would imagine the same thing would apply to colour printing, too.

John
« Last Edit: July 20, 2010, 10:46:56 am by John R Smith »
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digitaldog

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Quote from: Steve Gordon
But based on the above comments, can I conclude that it doesn't matter under what light you view the print in your "booth" (temp and luminosity), as long as it matches your display, the print will look the same no matter where it is displayed (museum, gallery, kitchen or toilet)??
Not completely. Not all man made illuminants are created equally. I use Fluorescent boxes like the GTI seen above because I work with others who use similar booths. The dimmer is nice as it allows control without affecting color. Fluorescent lights can produce issues when viewing some printed materials with high OBA content. They have a spiky spectrum. Solux are preferable but the downside is control and heat. You can’t dim them without affecting the color. But they produce beautiful results.
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bjanes

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Quote from: John R Smith
Steve

There is a very important consideration with your booth (or room) lighting, and that is one of print metamerism. Any old bulb won't necessarily do. I use tungsten lighting in my studio because I prefer its natural warmth, but it does not enable me to easily judge very subtle hue shifts. I work solely in B/W, and the Epson printers in ABW mode can and do wander a bit in absolute hue as the ink cartridges get low. Under tungsten it is very hard for me to see these shifts (usually towards blue-green), however daylight will reveal them quite mercilessly. As I print mostly in the evenings, it is only too easy to find out next day that the print metamerises quite badly under daylight. So now I have a 6500 kelvin light in another room where I do my print trimming, and a calibrated grayscale card to check the print against. Once you see a shift under the 6500 lamp, it is easy enough to compensate in the ABW mode by (say) adding +1 red or whatever. I would imagine the same thing would apply to colour printing, too.

John
Excellent points, but the term metamerism is not appropriate for the change in color with different illuminants. The terms metameric failure or metameric mismatch are more appropriate. The ink set has a lot to do with metameric failure, and early pigment inks for inkjet printers were notoriously prone to metameric failure, but newer inks have reduced the problem. Rather than calibrating for various viewing conditions, one could use inks exhibiting less metameric failure, but information concerning metameric failure is hard to come by.

http://photoshopnews.com/2005/04/20/metame...-friend-or-foe/
http://www.macworld.com/article/54216/2006/12/inktype.html
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WombatHorror

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Quote from: tho_mas
see here... first PDF on the top of the list ("Color Matching Between sRGB Monitors and Wide Color Gamut Monitors"):
http://www.eizo.com/global/support/wp/index.html

Well if I use the NEC metamerism toggle it brings the look closer to look of the sRGB displays but things still don't look quite the same (perhaps this does the same things as the 2 vs 10 degree options).

Also using the metamerism toggle makes quite a few patches on a color checker chart look farther off from what they look on a real-life color checker chart.

In fact displaying a CCC chart on a wide gamut monitor with no metamerism toggle actually looks to my eye closer like a closer match to a real-life CCC than when it's displayed on one of the sRGB displays.

Maybe it's the sRGB LCD that are the ones that actually look off?

(OTOH if many proof photos and especially movies/tv on sRGB LCD then maybe the toggle needs to be
on to better match third party content.)

I wish I hadn't dumped off my Mitsubishi Diamondscan CRT yet. I wonder whether an sRGB LCD or wide gamut one look closer to it.

Reading some other articles it sounds like the differences differ person to person too. The only way to get matches might be to use full spectral matching at 1nm instead of the tristimulus model.
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John R Smith

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Quote from: bjanes
Excellent points, but the term metamerism is not appropriate for the change in color with different illuminants. The terms metameric failure or metameric mismatch are more appropriate. The ink set has a lot to do with metameric failure, and early pigment inks for inkjet printers were notoriously prone to metameric failure, but newer inks have reduced the problem. Rather than calibrating for various viewing conditions, one could use inks exhibiting less metameric failure, but information concerning metameric failure is hard to come by.

Yes, you are absolutely right. I was using the term "metamerism" far too loosely, as you point out. Reading the links you gave, I think the effect I am describing would be more correctly called Gray Balance Failure, perhaps. Of course, the way I work the one thing I am not doing is matching the colour or hue of the print to the screen, only the luminance values. The printer provides the warmth or coolness or (as near as dammit) neutrality in the ABW mode, according to the tone I set in the print driver and the white point of the printing paper.

I have to say that I have virtually zero experience with colour printing on my Epson. Whenever I do try it, in the past I have got into all sorts of trouble    

John
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