LCD Monitor Calibration

There is an vast amount of information on this topic, that topic being LCD monitor calibration. Some LCD have presets, theatre, games, etc. I want to calibrate my LCD so that if someone else is viewing my work on their monitor and they complain it is too light or to dark, I can say it is your monitor. One of my LCD has two presets that are of interest 'standard' & 'sRGB' my other LCD doesn't have any presets. What is the best or near best calibration I can manually set both monitors too, if this is even possible on LCD, I hope it is, atleast I hope they have matured from the past.

I get into trouble with everyone when I suggest using a gamma calibration target and using on-monitor and video card controls to get the monitor calibration close to 2.2 gamma, so I probably shouldn't do it. But hey, it's not absolutely necessary to spend money to get closer to your goal. It really boils down to how good is good enough for you. Better color accuracy than what you have now could be a stepping stone.
One approach - and I'm not saying it's the best one, but it'll get you closer to your goal without spending money - is to set your monitor to the sRGB preset, set your monitor profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 in Windows, then adjust the video driver controls so that the gradients in this target, when displayed at 100% zoom, appear like neutral gray gradients.
This is what you want it to look like:
I wish I could say it's simple to get it to look like this, but unfortunately it's not. However, if you have the ability to set gamma, contrast, brightness for each of the three color channels in your video drivers (ATI Catalyst drivers offer this ability), then with a little elbow grease it is possible.
-Noel

Similar Messages

LCD Monitor Calibration and FCS2

What preset are people using to calibrate FCS2 and their LCD monitor (I'm not talking about the external TV monitor). I've read a suggestion that "NTSC 1953" was the preset to use with FCS2, but it looks too dark on my monitor.
Thanks,
m

I use the pathetic Colorsync utility to calibrate my Dell and Viewsonic monitors and then save profiles. Unless you're doing print work in Illustrator or Photoshop or perhaps web-destined work in FCP, calibrating your monitor for video work is completely irrelevant and useless. For video work, it's essential you use an NTSC/ATSC device and not your computer monitor.

LCD Monitor Calibration Needed

I just purchased a 3rd party 19" LCD monitor, and noticed the the thing is freaking bright!
I need to calibrate this thing before it melts my eyes. I'm looking for either a tutorial on how to properly do this, or a program that will help me with this.
Any help is greatly appricated. Thanks!
--alan

if you've got the money for something worthwhile, the sypder2pro is an excellent monitor calibration tool. it calibrates crt's, lcd's and projectors. it actually allows me to use my 23" cinema display by removing most of the "pink" that the screen evolved to right after it went off of warranty, making it the most overpriced lemon i ever bought ($1799 before taxes).

What target settings for LCD monitor calibration?

I have recently installed Spectraview II to calibrate my NEC LCD 2180WG monitor but have some doubts on which target settings to use as there are different opinions on color temp, gamma and intensity choices.
I use my system purely for photo post-processing and printing on color calibrated printers. I use AdobeRGB color space and have no interest for processing images for web.
- What color temp do you use/recommend? D50, D65 or something in between? I see that some folks use D65 and others swear by D50.
- What about Gamma choice 1.8, 2.2 or L* ? Same here, no common choice here too.
- Lastly what about intensity (brightness in terms of cd/mm2)?
NEC recommends Target Settings for Printing, which are D50, 1.8 gamma and Max. Intensity, but I'm not sure.
I'd appreciate if you could recommend correct settings for my type of work.
Thank You

Charles,
I arrived at 5100K by measuring a few of my favorite printing papers with my spectrophotometer. This was a good compromise (most measured between about 4800K and 5300K). I confirmed the results by trying various calibrations them comparing the monitor to prints (using custom printer profiles). Anywhere near 5000K looked great, but 5100K was the best match of the bunch. I used 5000K lighting for viewing (Solux and Philips light sources).
Luminance settings were done in a similar fashion. First I compared a ppure white Photoshop document (on the monitor) to the intensity of a sheet of white printing paper displayed under my viewing light. With the monitor luminance set to the 85 cd/m2 range, the two documents look about the same brightness of white. I try to view my prints under "moderate" light levels rahter than ultra bright levels, since I know they won't be lit by spot or flood lights when placed on a wall. If you do have spots on your hung prints, there is a case to use a higher luminance level on your monitor. Anyway, on many LCDs, if you set the luminance too high, your blacks can start to look a little washed out. When set to about 85 cd, my tonal range in the print is a great match to my monitor. If I have the monitor luminance set to 100 or higher, I find that my prints look dark and muddy in comparison (unless viewed under unrealistically bright lights). So, a lot of trial and error, plus some initial brightness comparisons.
Gamma is a tougher one. I have a special viewing target that I bring up in Photoshop (Lab based to prevent any possible conversions). When viewed in Photoshop at full magnification, it helps me to set the gamma, which affects mostly the midtone density. On my LCD, I found )again by trial and error) that 2.0 gave me the best tonal distribution. My old CRT worked best at 1.8 gamma, and other LCDs sometimes work best at other gamma settings, such as 2.2.
The above settings work beautifully given my equipment, my viewing levels, ambient working conditions, etc. My monitor to print match is excellent from both a color and tonal range standpoint. Hope that helps clarify my thinking and approach.
Lou

"monitor calibration software" "LCD color management and conversion" is defective.

My photoshop is not working and A message pops up saying to rerun monitor calibration software. How do I do this?

Which calibration tool are you using? With my Spyder4Elite it's just about running a recalibration with its software...

Dell LCD monitors?

Has anyone had any luck with the Dell line of LCD monitors. I need to purchase two for a professional graphic design setup.
Thanks,
Kelly

sfaulk wrote:
I have been using the new Dell 24" for two weeks so I'm pretty sure it's on sale
The new Dell 2408wfp is a beautiful monitor with the exception of an over saturation of the red colors. I calibrated it today with a eye-one display2 and it is much better but the reds are still a little more neon bright then I would like. I hope Dell does a firmware revision that will correct it.
"On sale" as to less than $699.
Firmware upgrade is not user installable. You'll need to get a new monitor.

LCD Monitor Recommendations

As prices fall, I'd like to buy an LCD monitor and reclaim some desk space occupied by my Sony Trintron 19" CRT monitor these many years.
What are some of the better brands/models for editing (FCE)? I think a 20" or more would give me greater screen real estate, and what about brands? Some online research indicate the Dells are considered pretty good, and so are the Samsungs.
What are some brand and model preferences from this forum, and why?
Thanks,
and Happy New Year to all
Keith

Been using a pair of Dell 2408's for the last 6 months.
Stable color. I'm using a Spyder2Pro for calibration and they both show exactly the same colors.
Lots of connection possibilities. Work in portrait mode if you'd like.
Work with the MXO as a calibrated HD monitor.
Major complaint is I can't drive the monitors with DVI and have a HDMI picture within a picture. It has to be component. Otherwise - no complaints.
x

LCD monitor profiling: getting started

I have a cheap LCD monitor (Gem brand) I bought a year or so ago. It works okay for me but i've never calibrated and profiled it. I'd like to finally invest in a calibrator. I'm a click away from ordering the X-Rite EODIS2 Eye-One Display 2 as my quick research (thanks to this forum) says that's a fine choice.
Once I receive it I will take a serious look at my ambient light conditions and try to become comfortable living with less natural light in my workspace. I will also consider constructing a monitor hood.
Meanwhile I'll keep reading Real World Color Management.
Does it sound like i'm on the right track? Any advice / caveats at this stage welcome. Otherwise I'm sure you'll be hearing from me. :) Many thanks.

The saga continues...
I've been watching Chris Murphy's lynda.com 'Color Management Essential Training' videos, which are very good but i'm still not sure I'm doing this properly. Here's the story:
He outlines a test to determine whether your LCD display's backlight is controlled via the Brightness or Contrast on-screen control: fill a new Photoshop file with black, and adjust each control independently to determine which shows a visible change in the solid black. After resetting my monitor to defaults, and trying this, it was obvious that the Contrast control was linked to the backlight.
Murphy then demonstrates profiling, using the same Eye-One Match software. He skips the 'Set the Contrast' portion in the software, as that relies on adjusting the Contrast control to adjust backlight. I did do it, because my monitor backlight does appear to be controlled by Contrast.
Next is the 'Set the White Point' portion, which involves adjusting RGB values separately. Chris says it's not a good idea for non-high-end LCDs -- that it's better for white point adjustment to occur in the video card LUT. So he skips that portion, and -- although my monitor does allow such independent adjustment -- i skip it as well.
Then it's 'Set the Luminance', where we use the Brightness control. In Chris' case he's adjusting the backlight. In my case, uh, I dunno what I'm adjusting exactly. Anyway, I can't get the current marker all the way down to the target value. With Brightness at 0, it's slightly above my target 90. (I wonder if this means my monitor is burning out, or it's an indicator I should have done the RBG adjustment stage?) But Chris encourages staying slightly above the target so there's a little room to come down later. I settle at 92.6.
Then calibration, correction curve, RGB->XYZ, and a display profile is born!
I learned from Chris that Eye-One Match includes a Monitor Validator feature. I do it and find my DE2000 is 2.56! Seems quite high. (Chris' was 0.78.) Does it mean my monitor just sucks, or is it an acceptable value, or is there something I need to adjust?
In other news, blinds are more closed (except for one window -- this room has lots of 'em), room is darker, I shall start wearing black. :)
Thanks for any perspective on any of this.

Is there a good 17" lcd monitor for under Â£200?

hi
which 17" lcd screen do you think is the best for under Â£200 to go with my new mac mini
any help would be greatly appreciated as i am completely at a loss
charlie

While a better monitor is always, well.....better...I'm not sure that's going to solve your problem. The issue appears to be one of color management, particularly monitor calibration. I would strongly advize investing $25 and taking a one month membership at lynda.com. There you can check out some excellent video training on this subject (and many others).
My experience is that to get anywhere close to matching prints to what you see on screen, be prepared to spend a couple of hundred bucks on calibration software and hardware. I opened this can of worms a couple of years back and it took a while to get my head around the concepts of color spaces, gamuts, soft proofing, hardware profiles etc. etc. But it was worth it in the end. I'm certanly no expert, but I have a much clearer idea of what's going on with my prints color-wise. Screen-to-print is still not an absolutely perfect match (is anyone's?), but close enough for my purposes (weddings, events, portrait photography).
I looked into getting a better monitor, but my research tells me that if I'm paying much less that $1500, the result may not be much better than what I've got (an old View Sonic GS771, a snip at $20 !!).
Seriously, lynda.com, you can't go wrong. Best money I ever spent.

OT: Monitor calibration with a gradient/varying values

This is sort of off topic, but maybe someone knows. I bought a new LCD monitor which I thought was a reasonably decent quality. I did the regular Apple calibration. But the monitor clearly has more contrast at the top, and less at the bottom. I can see the difference in color with a solid color PS document, and in the contrast of the icons in my dock etc. This isn't an issue of my viewing angle, if I change my viewing angles the top is still darker and the bottom lighter, relative to each other.
Is there any screen calibration software that can make a "map" of the screen and adjust contrast across the screen vertically and/or horizontally?

No, there isn't.
That sounds like you may have a bad monitor (possibly somethign wrong with the backlight on one side).

Has anyone used the Acer X223Wbd 22" Wide LCD Monitor with their MBP?

Good afternoon,
I'm currently thinking about purchasing the 22" Wide Acer LCD monitor to hook up to my MBP, so I can have a bigger screen to render graphics and play games on. I was wondering if there is anyone else, who has experience with this product, that can give me their opinion about it. My financial budget is about $200.00, so I need to find the best monitor for my buck. I have read some good reviews on it, but I'm not sure if those individuals had used it with a MBP. I would appreciate any useful information that anyone can give me. Thank you.
AMMOCAN

Thanks J, that's a nice find. I've tried it and it seems to be working seamlessly. As you said, I cannot confirm any multi-touch support and the price that they are asking is certainly not in the private end-user range. Fortunately, according to the terms of use for the evaluation, you only need to calibrate after every 100 touches to keep the driver working indefinitely.
Terms of Use:
TERMS OF USAGE
This software is supplied for evaluation and test purposes only. For use in production systems, driver licenses are required. Please note that click emulation will cease after 100 touches and a calibration or reboot is needed to gain another 100 touches.
This would appear to be a nice work around until acer decides to distribute a Mac driver or someone develops a cheaper alternative.

LCD monitor suggestions...HELP!!!

I have 2 Samsung 910T monitors with my Mac Pro....I want to get 2 widescreen monitors to replace them...I LOVE my color rendition of the Samsungs, they have 1000:1 contrast ratio, and nice brightness....370...My prints look EXACTLY as they do on my monitors...so I am reluctant to change. So I was looking at the Samsung 244T 24" widescreen LCD's, 1000:1 contrast, 470 brightness....so it looks good spec-wise....The Apple 23", which is not quite as good spec wise (but specs are not everything)..The Dell 2407, which looks almost identical to the Smasung...the Benq 24" which may actually be the EXACT same panel as the Samsung, and then possibly 1 30" instead of 2 24"...The options there are the Apple 30" and the Dell 3007 30"...The Dell can be had for about $1300 which is only a few more than a 23"!!! The question is how is the color, the calibration, and accuracy....What is everyone using?

Dell 2405 24" LCD Monitor.
Dell 2405 24" LCD Monitor.
I say that twice, because I have two. And they beat the Apple 23" monitors in performance AND price (Sorry Ken).
www.barefeats.com/lcd.
Shane
Dual 2G G5 (additional 250GB SATA), 2xDell 24 Monitors Mac OS X (10.4.2) Aurora PipePro Studio, 2xG-Raid 500GB, DSR-11, FCP Studio

CRT vs Lcd monitoring

Believe me, I've been struggling with this question for years.
For long I felt CRT monitors were better than Lcd monitors for critical color correction. But feeling the current push in Lcd technology, is the acceptance for professional LCd displays such as the JVC 24"HD ok, or do the people with the golden eyes only see the bvm CRT as the only way for critical color grading?
Knowing I usually color 1080 24p.
If you make a good living coloring, I really would appreciate your comments.
- Eric.

Someday I will be done with this question.
CRT technology fails for a number of reasons over a certain display size, and it is for those reasons that the technology is no longer acceptable,both for the technical and economic challenges. At 24", it is almost not worth the justification for HD in any sense, since that technology really only starts pulling away from what went before it at maybe 36" and beyond.
In years past, the JVC LCD's may have been competitive in terms of rendition, but suffered from massive off-angle viewing problems. It is spectacularly difficult to build a decent LCD -- if you find one in a "reasonable" price category, +caveat emptor+ -- its a $38 Rolex.
Some of the recent plasmas are pretty good. Some high-end post facilities are actually using them, but have conditioned them behind LUT-boxes like Truelight's Northlight system, among others, and have a crack staff of technicians on standby with probes in hand -- and do routine daily/weekly checks, lineups and calibrations. Most of the time, its to make sure the monitor is displaying the AIM values of the day for the associated lab, but its also because they just wander, and not just over time, but with the intensity of the picture that happens to be up.
Consumer TVs are for folks at home to kick back and watch Glee or whatever, or ignore it altogether just to have enough noise in the background to cover what's going on in the foreground.
So if you're making video that people don't watch anyway, LCD is great, and doesn't cost very much either.
jPo
jPo

White Balance - Eye Dropper and Monitor Calibration

Does the eye dropper correctly set the white point even if the monitor is not correctly calibrated? I do calibrate monthly with the XRite but I'm not sure that the calibration is perfect.
I use a grey card, and the eye dropper in LR. So even though I calibrate - must the monitor be correctly calibrated for the eye dropper to work?
... and now tell me what monitor you love for photo editing. Thanks

Thanks for this answer,
I am using a Dell LCD monitor and have been happy with the color, but can not get skin tones right in my prints, they look washed out after I do a grey card white balance. So I just ordered a Eizo CG222WBK, now I'll only have myself to blame if my images don't look right
Dan

A tiny bit OT: Recommendations for Dual Monitor Calibration?

I've owned my little Huey Pro since it was a mere Huey jnr. (You had to give Pantone money and they magiced into a Pro) It’s given decent service for the price (not very much) but has never been particularly flash calibrating a second monitor. Today I upgraded my 19 inch 4:3 Philips with a 24inch 1920x1200 LG, and while the Huey still does a decent job with my 30inch Dell main screen, the is LG miles out!
It turns out to be a known problem, and mine is now too bad to live with. So what do y’all use that can handle multiple screens, and wouldn’t need me to take out a mortgage to buy?

All good stuff 21, but when it has finished doing all that foreign language stuff, will it calibrate my computer screens?
But seriously, thanks for the info. I don't what video LUT is, and I back off double quick when I see Eizo mentioned:
www.bornrich.com/eizo-debut-35000-lcd-monitor-multiple-screens.html
The i1 is being sold for NZ$500 here, and since Christmas I have put >NZ$1600 into sorting my computer out, and I'd prefer to delay this a month or so. Fortunately I have no video projects on the go, so the second monitor is not colour critical right now.
What about the Color Munki Smile? Keith Cooper over on Northlight was more or less positive about it, and he is someone I trust.
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/profiling/colormunki_smile.html
I don't do a lot of printing, and when I do I use Canon's Easy Photo Print Pro, because it always gets it right without and hassle. Perhaps I'll go ask on the PremPro Hardware forum, and on DVInfo, because video is probably the most colour critical use of that second screen.
Thanks for you help.

LCD Monitor Calibration

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