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Author Topic: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?  (Read 9627 times)

mbalensiefer

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As noted in another post, my Dell Studio XPS 1645 has a full-RGB screen. This in itself is fine.

I have an NEC Spectraview SVII external monitor (that is wide gamut) plus its SVII puck/software set.

I would like to profile both monitors under one system, as this is ideal.

Is there a recommended RGB profiling tool-or-set that I can ideally use for profiling both?

Thank you!
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WombatHorror

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2012, 07:35:23 pm »

As noted in another post, my Dell Studio XPS 1645 has a full-RGB screen. This in itself is fine.

I have an NEC Spectraview SVII external monitor (that is wide gamut) plus its SVII puck/software set.

I would like to profile both monitors under one system, as this is ideal.

Is there a recommended RGB profiling tool-or-set that I can ideally use for profiling both?

Thank you!

What do you mean by saying that the Dell has a full-RGB screen?
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Schewe

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2012, 08:34:07 pm »

I would like to profile both monitors under one system, as this is ideal.

You will get better control over calibration and profiling the  NEC Spectraview SVII with SpectraView. However, SpectraView won't profile a non-NEC display so you'll need to get a separate software–not sure about the puck though, it may be supported in other software. No two different displays will ever match so trying to use the same solution for two displays won't get you to the point where both are identical.
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mbalensiefer

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2012, 08:45:40 pm »

My Dell's monitor is HD and full RGB. It has the full gamut.

Thanks for the response, Schewe. I doubt that my results would be identical; but I should want one system to profile both! :)

Since the NEC Spectraview is wide gamut, I know that it has RGB as well. Since I never use wide gamut in my workflow, I would like one solution that gives me just RGB. For this reason, I don't think that I need to use any profiling system that is Spectraview-specific.
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Schewe

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2012, 09:24:20 pm »

Since the NEC Spectraview is wide gamut, I know that it has RGB as well. Since I never use wide gamut in my workflow, I would like one solution that gives me just RGB. For this reason, I don't think that I need to use any profiling system that is Spectraview-specific.

Just so ya know, if you use any other profiling software, you won't get the advantage of on the display 10 bit DACs. I think it's a waste to get a wide gamut display and then not use the best option for calibration and profiling–specially since you already have the SpectraView software.
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Steve Weldon

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2012, 10:24:49 pm »

As noted in another post, my Dell Studio XPS 1645 has a full-RGB screen. This in itself is fine.

I have an NEC Spectraview SVII external monitor (that is wide gamut) plus its SVII puck/software set.

I would like to profile both monitors under one system, as this is ideal.

Is there a recommended RGB profiling tool-or-set that I can ideally use for profiling both?

Thank you!
a.  It's nice that you have the best software and colorimeter for your NEC monitor which is a totally different animal than ANY laptop screen.   

b.  Why?  Other than only  having one software and colorimeter vs. two.. I can't think of why this would be ideal.  I can think of several reasons why it isn't, but Shewe has already covered them.

I think you're putting too much into the single specification that both monitors share, an RGB gamut.  There is much they don't share.  The NEC uses a 10 bit external LUT which is far superior to the laptops 8 bit internal LUT, the NEC has "sRGB Emulation" mode which you'll find to be way superior to just a monitor that covers the sRGB gamut.  And then of course there's the quality of back lighting between the two, the screen surface (matte vs. glossy), size, contrast, are just a few more differences.

In short, the two monitors couldn't be more different..  And if you attempt to get them to "match" you're either in for severe disappointment, or your expectations are low.

I'd recommend using the NEC as your primary display monitor profiled with the SVII profile and puck, and the laptop screen to hold your tools/etc and if you like, profile it with any of the popular packages available.   And if you're making images for the web or a low end print service, stay with the sRGB gamut.  Otherwise, go with Prophoto on both and you'll probably get a closer match than if you chose sRGB.

Good luck setting things up, you have some nice gear.
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WombatHorror

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2012, 12:34:23 am »

My Dell's monitor is HD and full RGB. It has the full gamut.

Thanks for the response, Schewe. I doubt that my results would be identical; but I should want one system to profile both! :)

Since the NEC Spectraview is wide gamut, I know that it has RGB as well. Since I never use wide gamut in my workflow, I would like one solution that gives me just RGB. For this reason, I don't think that I need to use any profiling system that is Spectraview-specific.

(Most digital displays have RGB inputs.
I think you are confusing various terms.
RGB is just a colorspace and doesn't really tell you much at all. You could have a device RGB space that covers much of the visible gamut or but a tiny trace of it.
Sending 255,0,0 to one screen might make a fairly saturated red but a crazily saturated red on another screen.

Saying the full gamut is very vague since it is impossible for any three color monitor to display the full visible gamut so this could mean anything from it has a gamut similar to a near sRGB screen or to a semi-near AdobeRGB gamut or a very close to AdobeRGB and yet also greater than AdobeRGB gamut or who knows what.

You could have a wide gamut but a device that accepts say CMYK input and not RGB or vice-versa.)

Anyway one thing is that you probably do not want to use one system to handle both screens since the NEC is unusual in that it has a fancy 14bit 3D internal LUT and ONLY (in the US that is, in Europe I think you can get BasicICOlor to control it internally) Spectraview II can calibrate it internally which is something that you really, really want to take advantage of. SV II won't work on your non-NEC screen.

So either you give up much of what you paid for when you got the NEC or you use two different programs (or order BasicIcolor or whatever it is called and inform it that you don't live in the US, I tried an early version a good while back and I didn't really care for the profiles it made for non-NEC screen so not sure this does a lot for you although I think they have changed it since then so who knows now and as for how it handles the NEC some say it's not worth the time it takes and that many probes are less linear in response than the NEC PA series is so you end up wasting time and perhaps even getting a worse or no better profile for it, to be fair, some say it does give a better result by measuring many points up and down the scale instead of just one, who knows).

You NEC i1D2 won't have any special calibration files for use with the HP screen and since their basic off the shelf calibration tends to be all over the place and that laptop apparently has either white LED backlight or perhaps an RGB LED backlight it might slightly or particularly throw that probe off, respectively. And if by RGB and full gamut you mean it's wide gamut then it would surely not work well at all with that puck.

If the Dell is white LED backlit and you have a decent copy of the i1D2 it might work out ok, luck of the draw, and then you can use it with whatever software you want just about since most programs support it.

An i1 Display Pro might be the best overall bet though. You'd have to the the xrite software with it for now for the HP screen until other software starts to support it. You could also use it with your NEC screen with SV II software and sell the current puck. It seems to read many different screen types (assuming the software knows which internal profile to use) very well and there are early, tentative signs that it may be among the most accurate pucks on average without going to like $2500+.


(If the Dell is not wide gamut (and even if it is if it comes from LED backlights instead of CCFL you might have the same issue anyway) then a side-by-side 100% visual match would be especially tricky due to metamerism issues and how the eye interacts with the very different spectral spikes of the primaries on the two screen types, plus it won't make use of a 3D LUT and most profilers can only correct saturation trackings on so on so well. You'd need color management that ran on spectral distributions and a $$$$$ spectro (like way over $10,000 the $900 spectros probably read too wide bands but maybe they could work, maybe, especially with special software and special tricky reads of raw input processed painstakingly) to measure them but I don't believe the former exists outside of the lab at this point and the latter as I said is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.)

« Last Edit: January 18, 2012, 12:49:01 am by LarryBaum »
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WombatHorror

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2012, 01:09:12 am »

OK i looked it up. It seems that you have an RGB LED backlit display on the laptop and it's wide gamut (maybe all of the RGB LED backlit sets are actually?). Dell has tons of very confusing messed up terminology all over their website saying random stuff like it has complete 100% gamut (100% coverage of what gamut? sRGB, AdobeRGB, NTSC? etc.) anyway it seems it covers 100% of AdobeRGB plus some more (the NEC PA covers something like 98% I think AdobeRGB plus some more).

Anyway there is no way in the world your 1iD2 could calibrate the Dell screen unless you use software that allows for compensation.

The SV II does but it only works with NEC monitors.

CEDP does not.

I don't believe x-rite software offers compensation for the i1D2 for wide gamut, but I could be wrong.

I think you'd have to use argyll and borrow an i1 Pro spectro or i1 DIsplay Pro (And software) to train your i1D2 or maybe you can find some generic compensation values for the matrix n some argyll forum perhaps (I believe argyll allows for compensation matrices, i've never actually used it myself, but apparently it has lots of options, I think it is open source, donationware and runs by command line only although there may be some third party GUIs for some of it) or try to get a hold of Basicicolor, i'm not sure if that program has added RGB LED Wide Gamut generic compensation yet, last time I looked it had it only for CCFL wide gamut, but that was a while ago and it had been all but impossible to get in the US back then. With the high copy to copy variability of that probe it's hard to say how well a generic wide gamut compensation would for it, probably luck of the draw.

I'm actually thinking of writing my own stuff but it would be quite a ways off at best so forget that.

Anyway either try one of the above or sell the probe and grab an i1 Display Pro kit for $250. That probe does have RGB LED wide gamut profile built-in and the x-rite software makes use of it (I didn't like the old xrite profiler software but it has been redone, it might be better now). I believe CEDP says they will support it relatively soon too (who knows what relatively soon means though).

Most of windows is not color managed so unless the Dell has a quality sRGB emulation mode the desktop icons will look a bit radioactive as will IE and most programs, all games, video unless you use special programs even after calibration and profiling. EDIT: it seems like many, maybe even most or all, certainly all of the most recent models from Dell with RGB LED backlighting do offer built-in sRGB emulation modes.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2012, 01:20:19 am by LarryBaum »
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Czornyj

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2012, 02:23:54 am »

I'd get i1Display Pro colorimeter. It will work with SpectraView II profiler, so it will calibrate your NEC in an optimal way, but it will also let you calibrate your RGB LED backlit Dell using i1Profiler software.

If you already have NEC SpectraView kit with new "NEC SpectraSensor" colorimeter, you can use free ArgyllCMS+dispcalGUI to calibrate your laptop as well.
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WillH

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2012, 12:34:04 am »

NEC Spectraview SVII with SpectraView. However, SpectraView won't profile a non-NEC display so you'll need to get a separate software–not sure about the puck though, it may be supported in other software.

Just to clarify - SpectraViewII will let you profile any display, however it will only calibrate NEC displays.
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Will Hollingworth
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howardm

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2012, 09:09:29 am »

Interesting.  While I never actually tried to calibrate my iMac w/ SV software, it seemed (from very cursory examination) it would.
I can get SV to muck w/ the iMac's white point in order to get it to visually match the PA241

Just to clarify - SpectraViewII will let you profile any display, however it will only calibrate NEC displays.

shewhorn

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2012, 09:36:21 am »

Just so ya know, if you use any other profiling software, you won't get the advantage of on the display 10 bit DACs. I think it's a waste to get a wide gamut display and then not use the best option for calibration and profiling–specially since you already have the SpectraView software.

You get some benefit. If you adjust the white point via changing the RGB settings in the monitor's OSD, those changes take advantage of the 14 bit monitor LUT and pseudo 10 bit panel. Those are often the biggest changes where one of the channels has to be brought down by a significant amount to hit a certain white point so it should still render a better overall result in the end. Unfortunately you don't get the benefit of uploading the profile into the monitor's LUT so the TRC and color corrections all go to the 8 bit video LUT.

I agree though, no point in getting a PA series panel and not running it with either Spectraview II or Spectraview Profiler. It's like having a Ferrari and putting snow tires on it.  ;D

Cheers, Joe
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2012, 02:34:09 pm »

And then there's the possibility that the color management app will do slightly funky things to color through the matrices written into each display's profile even though you've visually got both displays to look identical in WP and gray neutrality.

I've run into this with a 2004 G5 iMac attached to a Dell 2209WA calibrated with the same X-rite i1Display in OS X Tiger. See the attached images with the first being the original image viewed on both calibrated/profiled displays in Photoshop.

I've ditched the iMac now because it finally died but the Dell is still showing the slightly greenish version which happens to match closer to the original object. So I guess it was good I got rid of the old iMac.
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WombatHorror

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2012, 04:40:50 pm »

You get some benefit. If you adjust the white point via changing the RGB settings in the monitor's OSD, those changes take advantage of the 14 bit monitor LUT and pseudo 10 bit panel. Those are often the biggest changes where one of the channels has to be brought down by a significant amount to hit a certain white point so it should still render a better overall result in the end. Unfortunately you don't get the benefit of uploading the profile into the monitor's LUT so the TRC and color corrections all go to the 8 bit video LUT.

I agree though, no point in getting a PA series panel and not running it with either Spectraview II or Spectraview Profiler. It's like having a Ferrari and putting snow tires on it.  ;D

Cheers, Joe

You could use multiprofiler to set the TRC internally and to set the primaries and white point internally as well.
You would need something else to let you measure the probe's readings so you'd know what to dial in for the white point in multi-profiler.
However the .icc profile multi-profiler would make would then use the white point (and primary) settings you dialed in so the profile would counter again the calibration you did so for color-managed stuff it might not work out so well (you could probably edit the produced profile to have the right white point stored though, kinda of a pain though hah; for the sRGB emulation mode I guess you could just kill the profile it assigns and just assign a stock sRGB.icc as the monitor profile).
But yeah SV II certainly makes it easier and you wouldn't have to also use an outside program for measurement (and most of those would give bad readings for anything other than i1 Pro or i1 Display Pro unless maybe you messed around with argyll or something and found the right compensation to add).

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shewhorn

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2012, 04:43:55 pm »

Just to clarify - SpectraViewII will let you profile any display, however it will only calibrate NEC displays.

Will,

How would one go about doing this? There doesn't seem to be any button that I can press which will initiate this process. If I select anything other than an NEC monitor it simply says "unsupported" and the calibrate button (obviously) gets greyed out. When selecting a different monitor, if you could actually profile with SVII I would expect the name of that button to change to "Profile". I would also not expect it to get greyed out. Is there something I'm missing. I have Spectraview Profiler and it DOES allow you to profile anything but SVII seems to be limited to NEC monitors only. This is with version 1.1.0.9.

Cheers, Joe
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mbalensiefer

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #15 on: January 27, 2012, 08:39:42 am »

In reviewing the I1 Display Pro, it's manual says "Dual display support requires either 2 video cards or a dual head video card that supports dual video LUTs being loaded..."

Will my laptop be able to push two profiles? I have the 1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670.
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howardm

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #16 on: January 27, 2012, 08:48:00 am »

should not be a problem for that video controller.  AMD's website spec's say..............

Two independent display controllers

    Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls and video overlays for each display
    Full 30-bit display processing
    Programmable piecewise linear gamma correction, color correction, and color space conversion
    Spatial/temporal dithering provides 30-bit color quality on 24-bit and 18-bit displays
    High quality pre- and post-scaling engines, with underscan support for all display outputs
    Content-adaptive de-flicker filtering for interlaced displays
    Fast, glitch-free mode switching
    Hardware cursor

WillH

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Re: Dual monitor cal: RGB Laptop plus (wide gamut) external Spectraview?
« Reply #17 on: January 27, 2012, 11:30:34 am »

How would one go about doing this? There doesn't seem to be any button that I can press which will initiate this process. If I select anything other than an NEC monitor it simply says "unsupported" and the calibrate button (obviously) gets greyed out. When selecting a different monitor, if you could actually profile with SVII I would expect the name of that button to change to "Profile". I would also not expect it to get greyed out. Is there something I'm missing. I have Spectraview Profiler and it DOES allow you to profile anything but SVII seems to be limited to NEC monitors only. This is with version 1.1.0.9.

File menu -> Generate ICC Profile...
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Will Hollingworth
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