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Author Topic: Visualizing Different Monitor Profiles  (Read 2258 times)

Robert Boire

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Visualizing Different Monitor Profiles
« on: April 30, 2010, 11:58:02 am »

Hello,

I recently updated my monitor profile using my Spyder 2 since I have been having the classic problem of reproducing in print what I see on screen.

As I test I experimented by looking at several photos on screen using the current profile and some previous outdated ones.  Even the generic monitor profile provided with Windows XP did not seem to make any difference. The photos cover a wide range of conditions and colors. I was surprised to see no discernable difference. I simply went into Window Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Color Managment and selected from among the profiles.

Am I missing something here?  Does the profile get loaded only into the LUT during computer boot-up, which maybe explains why I cannot see a difference.

Thanks for the help.

Robert

terrywyse

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Visualizing Different Monitor Profiles
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2010, 02:10:42 pm »

Quote from: RobertBoire
Hello,

I recently updated my monitor profile using my Spyder 2 since I have been having the classic problem of reproducing in print what I see on screen.

As I test I experimented by looking at several photos on screen using the current profile and some previous outdated ones.  Even the generic monitor profile provided with Windows XP did not seem to make any difference. The photos cover a wide range of conditions and colors. I was surprised to see no discernable difference. I simply went into Window Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Color Managment and selected from among the profiles.

Am I missing something here?  Does the profile get loaded only into the LUT during computer boot-up, which maybe explains why I cannot see a difference.


First, are you viewing the images in a color management-aware application like Photoshop? Are the images tagged with a profile currently?
The viewing application needs to be aware of monitor profiles.
Images need to be tagged or have an embedded profile. If you're only making different monitor profiles but not changing the calibration settings, an untagged image in a color management-UNaware application would not change in appearance.

As far as switching profiles on-the-fly in WinXP and/or whether it requires a re-boot, I'm not sure. I know on my Mac running OS X 10.6.x, you can switch monitor profiles on the fly, even while Photoshop is running and with the image open, and you'll see the effects of the monitor profile as soon as you bring Photoshop back to the foreground.

Regards,
Terry
« Last Edit: April 30, 2010, 02:11:49 pm by terrywyse »
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Terry Wyse
Color Management Specialist, Shutterfly Inc.
Dabbler in the photographic arts.

Pat Herold

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Visualizing Different Monitor Profiles
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2010, 02:18:18 pm »

Your guess is correct Robert - with Windows, the LUTs in the video card generally only get updated when the OS starts up.  You can find the small program that performs this refresh and run it manually after you've made a change (It should be in the same folder as your Spyder program.)

The X-Rite site also has a very simple program for Windows that allows you to change/click on the monitor profile you want to use, and it instantly loads it into your graphics card. It sounds like a very simple fix to your issue. It's called "DisplayProfile":

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx...;SoftwareID=539
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Robert Boire

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Visualizing Different Monitor Profiles
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2010, 08:24:00 pm »

Quote from: pherold
The X-Rite site also has a very simple program for Windows that allows you to change/click on the monitor profile you want to use, and it instantly loads it into your graphics card. It sounds like a very simple fix to your issue. It's called "DisplayProfile":

Thanks.

I tried the program and I could in fact see a difference between some of my previous profiles. I assume that if I could not see a difference among some of them, its because the profile has not actually degraded.

Curiously, I could see no discernable difference between sRGB and  Adobe RGB. Does this make sense because they are "device independent"?

Robert

Jonathan Wienke

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Visualizing Different Monitor Profiles
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2010, 08:37:03 pm »

Quote from: RobertBoire
Curiously, I could see no discernable difference between sRGB and  Adobe RGB. Does this make sense because they are "device independent"?

No it is because they do not have a LUT and cannot be loaded as a monitor profile. When you select one of these profiles on DisplayProfile, nothing happens.
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mjdl

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Visualizing Different Monitor Profiles
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2010, 01:37:41 pm »

Just a small clarification to what Jonathan has already said:

When you installed the Spyder software, it should have added a shortcut in your "Startup" folder to the little program that 1) looks in the Windows registry for your currently defined "monitor profile" (the Spyder profiling software should have set that for you) 2) loads the video card's lookup tables with the monitor calibration curves (these are the RGB curves that yield nice looking neutral greys). Make a copy of that shortcut on your desktop, so that if you have doubts whether the monitor calibration has been loaded, you can quickly remedy that.

It is then up to colour management aware programs to invoke the Windows (or their own) "colour management module" to use the colour matrix/look-up table part of the monitor profile (this was created when the Spyder profiling software "characterized" the colour behaviour of the calibrated monitor) to transform the RGB numbers from the independent colour space (say sRGB or AdobeRGB) to the equivalent RGB numbers of the monitor's device colour space.

If there are no monitor calibration curves defined in a profile, there will still be colour transformations by colour management aware programs, but unless the RGB number transformations are really extreme, they will be all but unnoticeable on most ordinary monitors.

If you are still using Windows XP, then go to the Microsoft.com Downloads website and find their "Colour Management" Control Panel applet, which can be useful to verify that a monitor profile is well and truly defined as the default monitor profile. And the X-rite application Jonathan is also very useful for quickly switching monitor calibrations--Colorvision Spyder also has something similar on their downloads website.
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