Color Accuracy Comparison, Calibrated and Uncalibrated

[CDTobie]

I did some testing today of the color accuracy of a display in a default state, and with a custom display profile, and thought that some here might find the results interesting.

http://cdtobie.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/interesting-comparison-monitor-accuracy-with-and-without-calibration/

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Imaging Color Solutions
Datacolor
CDTobie@datacolor.com
www.datacolor.com

[Mark D Segal]

Actually, I didn't find the results all that "interesting" because I kinda know that a properly profiled display will exhibit lower dE errors than an unprofiled display. So if the main purpose of this demo is to show that your products can profile displays and achieve better fidelity than not using your products, well we kinda "been there-done that" regardless of whose profiling package and hardware. The aspect of it that I did find interesting, however, is the comment you made differentiating Apple displays from other high caliber displays you intend to test. Those results will be of considerable interest to those seeking to optimize a high-end display purchase.

[CDTobie]

Actually, I didn't find the results all that "interesting" because I kinda know that a properly profiled display will exhibit lower dE errors than an unprofiled display.

You know that, Mark, and I know that... sadly, I still see a whole lot of uncalibrated displays out there, so clearly not everyone knows that. Since I needed to run this test today anyways, and it produced simple, clear results showing what calibration does, that seemed worth posting. I agree that I'm personally more interested in the standard grade versus graphics grade results. I run those regularly, when I calibrate my MacBook Pro, plus an Eizo, for use in a tradeshow booth. Eizo has about half the max and average Delta-E error, over 48 patches, that the MacBook Pro does. Thats a laptop to high end desktop situation though, so I need to do a Cinema verus Eizo comparison here in the studio to get desktop to desktop results. And uniformity is where i expect to see the largest difference in that one, though color accuracy will certainly show a difference as well.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Imaging Color Solutions
Datacolor
CDTobie@datacolor.com
www.datacolor.com

[Mark D Segal]

OK David, point taken. I also use a MacBook Pro and good as it is compared with many others, I've given-up on laptop display profiling because it's just a mugs' game. Apart from the inherent limitations, every time the angle of vision between the screen and your eyes changes a bit so does the image appearance. I'd be very interested in seeing how the results vary between roughly equivalent specified Eizo and NEC (the PA series), because there is a very large price difference between these two high-end range of displays and I've seen a fair bit of "hemming and hawing" on the part of prospective purchasers over whether the price difference really shows in performance difference.

[CDTobie]

OK David, point taken. I also use a MacBook Pro and good as it is compared with many others, I've given-up on laptop display profiling because it's just a mugs' game. Apart from the inherent limitations, every time the angle of vision between the screen and your eyes changes a bit so does the image appearance. I'd be very interested in seeing how the results vary between roughly equivalent specified Eizo and NEC (the PA series), because there is a very large price difference between these two high-end range of displays and I've seen a fair bit of "hemming and hawing" on the part of prospective purchasers over whether the price difference really shows in performance difference.

Yes, viewing angle is the enemy of laptop image editing. Given the excellent screens Apple is now putting in the new iPad, it begs the question of when high rez, IPS screens will come to the MacBook line... eliminating the viewing angle issue.

As for the comparison of displays; Datacolor is actually working on a website to do exactly that. Since we have what must surely be the world's largest collection of display data, sent to us anonymously from any of our users who select that option in our software, its just a matter of developing an appropriate method of displaying that data to allow users to compare what different display models offer for contrast, uniformity etc. This will be a good comparison tool for those looking to purchase a display of a given type or in a given price range, and also to compare your display's specs against the model in general, to see if you have a lemon, as well as to get a sense of when your display is nearing the end of its useful life for color managed work.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Imaging Color Solutions
Datacolor
CDTobie@datacolor.com
www.datacolor.com

[howardm]

I can't recall offhand which vendor that had put some verbage in their EULA that essentially said 'the user cannot share any performance or diagnostic data with anyone'.   You may get tripped up on that but it'd be open to wide interpretation and thus just burn up lawyer money.

[Mark D Segal]

I can't recall offhand which vendor that had put some verbage in their EULA that essentially said 'the user cannot share any performance or diagnostic data with anyone'.   You may get tripped up on that but it'd be open to wide interpretation and thus just burn up lawyer money.

If my memory serves me correctly, this may have been X-Rite, and perhaps the "incident" that generated a huge fuss with the inauguration of i1Profiler.

[howardm]

I think you're right.  I had originally thought it to be Apple but after posting, I realized it was probably XRite.

Off topic:  So what do color professionals think of XRite being purchased by some other company?  No one has said a word.

[CDTobie]

I can't recall offhand which vendor that had put some verbage in their EULA that essentially said 'the user cannot share any performance or diagnostic data with anyone'.   You may get tripped up on that but it'd be open to wide interpretation and thus just burn up lawyer money.

I won't comment on what other company that might be, but I can assure you it's not Datacolor. We are free to use out own collected data in providing information to the public, and others are free to do so as well.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Imaging Color Solutions
Datacolor
CDTobie@datacolor.com
www.datacolor.com

[Mark D Segal]

Off topic:  So what do color professionals think of XRite being purchased by some other company?  No one has said a word.

I'm not commenting in the guise of a "color professional", but as an observer of corporate behaviour, it looks pretty much like a standard kind of strategic commercial decision, likely based on the reasoning they provide:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/04/12/Danaher-to-buy-X-Rite

[digitaldog]

Actually, I didn't find the results all that "interesting" because I kinda know that a properly profiled display will exhibit lower dE errors than an unprofiled display.

So I suspect would most people who frequent this site. The data points might be useful to the super amateur market, maybe DP Review forums? But here? Nope.

As for X-rite being acquired, I could care less unless the new structure provides them more engineers to work on i1Profiler.

[Mark D Segal]

As for X-rite being acquired, I could care less unless the new structure provides them more engineers to work on i1Profiler.

Hi Andrew, this gets pretty "OT", but I infer from that remark perhaps you think i1 Profiler wasn't ready for prime time when they released it and forever since, or that it simply could benefit from more feature development?

[digitaldog]

Hi Andrew, this gets pretty "OT", but I infer from that remark perhaps you think i1 Profiler wasn't ready for prime time when they released it and forever since, or that it simply could benefit from more feature development?

No, it is quite ready for prime time and what I use for profile creation. But there is functionality from say MeasureTool that isn’t yet in i1Profiler and having to boot into 10.6 to use it is a real drag! Most of the missing functionality is the data diagnostics from MT that I need.

[Scott Martin]

Off topic:  So what do color professionals think of XRite being purchased by some other company?  No one has said a word.

Actually there's been a lot of talk within the community - the merger is seen as a very positive move and will help support a bunch of the new initiatives and products coming to market soon. But, you're right, none of that has been very public. An open letter to their customers (or something like that) might be smart.

[digitaldog]

If my memory serves me correctly, this may have been X-Rite, and perhaps the "incident" that generated a huge fuss with the inauguration of i1Profiler.

I can’t find anything like that in the EULA for i1Profiler.

[Mark D Segal]

Either I'm mistaken, or they amended it. Been some time ago.