Monitor Calibration

[Rob C]

I was wondering: my BENQ SW240 is clever enough to tell me when it requires calibration; why isn’t it clever enough to perform the act internally, all by itself?

Can any of them do it automatically and autonomously?

[Kyle Jackson]

My hunch is it's not the monitor being "clever enough", it's the software probably just using some set number of usage hours or whatever to prompt that "calibration is due"...

...But I think it depends on how you define "calibration".

To me it requires actual optical measurement of screen output so the monitor can adjust itself to hit the intended target (within its capable tolerance). I've seen some Eizo monitors that have a built-in optical sensor that pops up to do that sort of thing. But ofc most monitors don't have that and they require plugging in an external optical sensor.

The other recent monitor thread here mentions the BenQ 2770U claims to have an "auto-calibration" feature, but it has no optical sensor... I think these other monitors claiming to "self-calibrate" without an optical sensor can only check their internal voltages etc and re-zero them within some defined tolerance spec. (Kinda analogous to a "reset to factory default", but different.) It would basically be controlling the signal/power output to the panel/blacklight, but it can't measure what output the panel is actually producing. To be useful it would rely on very tight manufacturing tolerances/quality between panels, and for any changes in a panel with usage / time... (which seems contrary to the lower price point of these monitors...  )

Tbh I would naively expect all decent monitors already have this basic level of internal control in order to function correctly, so I feel like calling it "self-calibration" is just marketing fluff to claim it as a "feature"  But maybe many monitor models don't even bother with that much...

Also maybe they're milking the reality that many people confuse "calibration" with "profiling", and might buy the monitor thinking oh I never need to profile it because it already does it itself. 

[Kyle Jackson]

... So my thought is that manufacturing and design generally improves over the years so monitors are more consistent between samples and during their lifetime. And advances in panel and backlight control can also improve uniformity across the screen. So that could permit them to operate much closer to intended targets without verifying it with optical measurements.

As long as every copy operates that way, and can maintain it for its life, it may be good enough for most users. I think similar might also be argued for profiling, where a factory colour profile might be sufficient for most users.

I've never done any measurements to know if we're there yet (tho I've seen some test reviews that have, and it generally wasn't good enough). Personally I still use a colorimeter to both recalibrate and reprofile my monitors (prev NECs, now an Eizo), and for my tastes I don't use monitors that don't support that. (Edit: But I'm a dinosaur 🦕 )

[digitaldog]

My hunch is it's not the monitor being "clever enough", it's the software probably just using some set number of usage hours or whatever to prompt that "calibration is due"...
...But I think it depends on how you define "calibration".

Yes (agree) and yes (agree).

[Rob C]

Thanks for the replies!

I no longer print anything, and my real world satisfaction measurement with my snaps being or not being accurate is simply whether the stuff I do on the computer resembles what I see on my iPad. I understand that’s probably shocking to many here, and were I still gainfully employed producing commercial work, I’d not even be asking the question.

On top of that, colour photography is very obviously no longer an arrow in my quiver, and the truth is that I pretty much automatically instantly convert my images into black and white. Of course, I get the philosophy behind calibration as an attempt to create a level playing field where the desire is for the same colours to appear the same on every screen in the world. Perhaps somebody should have told the television set manufactures: those shops still stocking a range of sets demonstrate just how widely different the same programmes look on sets running the same sequences side-by-side.

Thanks again for your responses.

[Kyle Jackson]

Setting aside any lofty concepts of making all screens in the world look the same, calibration basically puts your specific screen into a known state and tries to keep it there, so you have a consistent "canvas" each time you use it. 

How tightly it can do that, and over its lifetime, depends on how it was designed and manufactured. Tech has definitely gotten better (think fading CRTs and LCDs backlights...).

In the days of "manual calibration" I adjusted the brightness, contrast, and maybe white point / colour balance if available, using "Mk. I Eyeball" (and later a Spyder), and that had to do. Many digital screens are still limited to this.

Regardless of what you have, maintaining a known state can help make image consistency easier. For the use you described, there's probably a lot of products to choose from that will suffice, in addition to any mid/upper-end models that have various onboard calibration features.

Ironically if you're mainly doing greyscale you might be more sensitive to calibration consistency, because brightness, contrast, and whitepoint / neutrality are all you have, and those are also the most basic calibration adjustments. I generally don't touch the stuff but from what I've seen B&W people are a really picky bunch lol!