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Author Topic: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display  (Read 3824 times)

llmercll

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Hi everyone,

I've been attempting to properly calibrate my Dell U2311h using an x-rite i1 Display Pro, but am running into some issues regarding black level.

After creating an ICC using the i1Profiler software everything looked great, though darks looked slightly darker. I thought it was nice, as it gave me images a bit more punch/contrast. Colors remained relatively unchanged using the generated profile, as I did RGB white point on the hardware level.

However, I noticed a problem when I began playing Borderlands 2 and watching TV shows. Everything felt TOO dark. I felt like I wasn't taking in as many details as I used to, even if everything looked really nice. Switching back to the default ICC profile fixed the "issue".

Going to lagom.nl showed me that indeed, the calibrated profile has darker darks. I'm not sure if that is actually how displays are supposed to look though, and if my default profile has a black level that is too low, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure what to do. Is the i1Display correcting my overbright panel? Is it darkening it and resulting in a borderline black crush? Can anyone who knows their stuff look at these pics and tell me which one is more correct? One is the default ICC profile and one is calibrated.

http://i.imgur.com/ewrSvHR.jpg?2
http://i.imgur.com/0cHOiM0.jpg?1

thank you!
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digitaldog

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Re: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2014, 02:13:27 pm »

However, I noticed a problem when I began playing Borderlands 2 and watching TV shows.
Got no idea if the method under which you view this is color managed. How does everything look in an ICC aware application like Photoshop?
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llmercll

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Re: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2014, 03:06:30 pm »

There is no color management going on that I am aware of, but even in Windows it appears that the screen is too dark.

What do you think of the pictures? is the ICC profile generated by my i1Display causing black crush?
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digitaldog

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Re: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2014, 03:11:19 pm »

There is no color management going on that I am aware of, but even in Windows it appears that the screen is too dark.
Then you have the choice of futzing around with calibration settings to make this non color managed app look as you wish, the resulting profile isn't used and, in ICC aware applications, the previews will likely look wrong. OR calibrating so ICC app's are OK and living with the too dark video. Bottom line, if you don't have a color managed app, calibrating and producing a resulting profile is kind of a waste.
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Royce Howland

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Re: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2014, 03:50:40 pm »

Within what web browser were you viewing the test images from lagom.nl? If it was Firefox, did you configure it to use colour management? If it was not Firefox, be aware that no other Windows browsers are properly colour managed.

Andrew's meta point is that non-colour managed applications have no knowledge of your profile and are just dumping image or video data straight to the display. You make adjustments to the monitor during calibration & profiling, but non-colour managed apps (including Windows) essentially can't use those results so you can't be concerned how "correct" they are, just whether they look okay. (I'm glossing over some details here.) If gaming and video watching is too dark, just turn up the brightness to an acceptable level.

Calibrating the display, assuming things were done correctly (you don't describe your target settings), won't "crush" the blacks. But obviously it will reset them to some baseline standard of performance for black point, contrast, linearity, etc. However in order to take advantage of this, any application displaying image data would need to be colour managed. If it isn't, then you're potentially working at cross purposes.

Royce Howland

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Re: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display
« Reply #5 on: August 21, 2014, 04:02:32 pm »

As a followup note about web browsers, when I view the lagom.nl black level test page in Chrome, I can't really distinguish black levels below about level 7. When I view the page in Firefox with colour management properly set up, I can distinguish black levels right down to level 2, and level 1 because I'm looking for it. Comparing the two, black level 1 in Firefox shows up about the same as level 7 in Chrome.

A proper colour managed browser is necessary on Windows to evaluate web-based test images like this, and Firefox is the only one. But you have to enable the colour management settings so the monitor profile will be picked up.

My monitor is a NEC Spectraview display, designed for colour critical work, and it's properly calibrated. But image or video data in non-colour aware apps still looks a kind of junky. I don't worry about it.

llmercll

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Re: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display
« Reply #6 on: August 21, 2014, 11:24:00 pm »

Thanks a lot for the replies guys,

I'm calibrating my display mostly so I can fully enjoy games and videos. The overall experience on a calibrated monitor is much more visually pleasing to me. I'm not doing prints or anything, and I am getting an avg delta e of 1.2, which is pretty good. I just wanted an ICC profile that would give me a "default" overall pleasing presentation for whatever I'm doing, be it browsing the web, gaming, watching tv or movies, work, etc. Sorry for any confusion =/

With that said, you guys really seem to have an advanced understanding of color profiling. Do you believe the i1 Display calibration is making my blacks too dark? Or was the default monitor profile, in fact, making my darks too light?

thank you!
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Royce Howland

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Re: Having a hard time calibrating a Dell U2311h with a i1 Display
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2014, 12:31:00 am »

The calibration process is not making your blacks "too dark", that's not the purpose of calibration. As long as there isn't something wrong with your equipment, calibration settings or procedure, you're getting the result that calibration is intended to give you. And yes, the default monitor setup is too bright for colour critical work. A side effect of this is greater apparent contrast & detail in the darkest tones than would be called for in a calibrated display.

But things like browsing the web, gaming, watching TV & movies, using office apps, etc. will not particularly benefit from having a calibrated display or a monitor profile in place. Except for web browsing with Firefox (which I mentioned is the only Windows browser that can be configured for colour-correct image rendering), these applications usually are not colour management aware. So a side effect for them is that, post-calibration, your blacks are appearing too dark. That's because (almost certainly) none of these apps are colour managed and can't make use of the monitor profile to render the correct image or video data before dumping it out to the display.

On Windows, the operating system is not a player in colour management. The fact that you've calibrated your display and have a monitor profile in place means very little to any specific app if that app itself isn't doing colour management internally using the monitor profile.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2014, 12:35:44 am by Royce Howland »
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