Monitor Calibration

I am using an eMac(tube) with FCE2 and a brand new standard 13 inch tv as a second screen showing the canvas window. This is all the system I can afford right now.
Do I need to calibrate for color or is that even possible with this configuration? The tv looks way different than my canvas both color and brightness out of the box.
Thanks in advance!
Frank

Once you have the TV connected through your firewire,
here are a couple of sites that will help you calibrate it.
This is a very good explanation w/ useful visuals:
http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm
A good explanation of the process but without good illustrations:
http://www.bluesky-web.com/colorbars.html
More an explanation of why you want to calibrate:
http://www.synthetic-ap.com/tips/calibrate.pdf
Good luck.
x

Similar Messages

Help with monitor calibration - simulating NTSC on computer monitor

I know the proper way to monitor video is using an external NTSC production monitor. Since I don't have one I'm wondering how I can get the closest to simulating an NTSC monitor on my Apple Cinema Display. I have made a monitor calibration using gamma 1.4 that seems pretty good except the shadow areas are too dark. If I can resist the temptation to lighten the dark areas, based on what I see on my computer monitor, my results look pretty good on a TV played from a DVD. If there was some way I could set up my Cinema Display to be closer to an NTSC monitor it would help me a lot. Any ideas?
As a related question: If my video project is not destined for TV but played on a laptop and shown on a screen using a projector maybe I can use my computer monitor as more of a guide to what it will look like on screen.
Another related question: How do the modern flat screen TVs relate to the older CRT variety in terms of calibration. Do the new flat screens still use the same NTSC calibration? The flat screens seem more like computer monitors to me.

If there was some way I could set up my Cinema Display to be closer to an NTSC monitor it would help me a lot. Any ideas?
The Matrox MXO: http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo/
If my video project is not destined for TV but played on a laptop and shown on a screen using a projector maybe I can use my computer monitor as more of a guide to what it will look like on screen.
If the program won't be viewed on TV, using the computer monitor should be fine ... but keep in mind that Windows system's use a different gamma.
How do the modern flat screen TVs relate to the older CRT variety in terms of calibration. Do the new flat screens still use the same NTSC calibration? The flat screens seem more like computer monitors to me.
They aren't. They are designed to reproduce the NTSC/ATSC color space and gamma. However, like most later model consumer CRTs, flat panel TVs have built-in circuitry designed to artificially enhance/correct the image. That's the primary reason to use a professional monitor, be it a flat panel or an older CRT.
-DH

I have been having a issue with getting the colors on my monitor to match the colors fro my print lab. I now have the monitor calibrated to match the prints but when I open elements it doesn't use the same colors. If i have it use the calibrated profile b

I have been having a issue with getting the colors on my monitor to match the colors fro my print lab. I now have the monitor calibrated to match the prints but when I open elements it doesn't use the same colors. If i have it use the calibrated profile by changing the color management settings, the color picker no longer shows true white or black. How do I get elements 12 to honor the new calibrated settings?

Ok so I've done what you said and this is what it's come back ....
I don't know that these are the errors , but they're the things which don't look right ...
Throughout the shut down there is a recurring line ;
It says ;
Com.apple.launchd 1 0x100600e70.anonymous.unmount 301 PID still valid
Then there are 2 more which I think are related ;
Com.apple.securityd 29 PID job has I overstayed its welcome , forcing removal.
Then the same with fseventd 48 and diskarbitrationd 13
Oh and on Launchd1 : System : stray anonymous job at shut down : PID 301 PPID13 PGID 13 unmount...
Then the last process says "about to call: reboot (RB_AUTOBOOT).
Continuing...
And stops ...
Hope this means something to you ... Thanks again for your help so far :-)

24" iMac - Dual monitor calibration

Just curious...
I have a 24" iMac Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz, I am thinking of attaching an extrenal monitor to the system (non-Apple) and also borrowing a friends monitor calibration unit.
I've never had an external hooked up before and before I go buying one... my question is...
If I have a dual monitor setup (non-mirrored) can I assign each monitor its own monitor colour profile? or would I only be able to pick one and it applied it to both?
Thanks

Hi 75
Yes! Open the Display Preference and go to the NTSC/PAL panel for the attached display, then calibrate it just like you did the Internal.
Dennis

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

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).

Monitor calibration. Please help!!

Aloha,
I just downloaded the free trial of CS5. I am trying to use Adobe Gamma to calibrate my screen so that everything will print as I see it. I have already searched all about it. I CANNOT FIND IT TO USE IT. I cannot find where to download it.......I cannot find it already installed with the CS5. Instructions say that I have it when I download CS5 and for me to go under control panel and double click on the icon for it. I DONT HAVE IT. I only have the "Color management" icon which is already on my computer.
I am using Windows Vista 36bit.
A really appreciate your time with reading/responding to this tedious problem. Thanks!
-Brianna.

Not sure if you already found this answer somewhere else, but I found this article...the link for the entire article is...http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps12_colour/ps12_1.htm I was also looking for the same thing, but I guess Adobe no longer provide Monitor Calibration...
Section 2 - Monitor Calibration and Characterisation
Monitor calibration and characterisation (profiling) is probably the most important aspect of a color managed workflow; yet many users seem oblivious to issues poor monitor calibration, etc can have on their documents. So, what is calibration, why is it so important, and why is it different from characterisation?
Calibration is a process whereby a device is brought to a standard state (e.g. a color temperature of 6500K and gamma of 2.2), whereas characterising the monitor is the process of determining how the monitor represents or reproduces color. We characterise the monitor by measuring how it displays known color values, then creating an ICC profile. The ICC profile is simply a data file that includes a description of the monitorsí color handling characteristics (i.e. its gamut). The calibration data will also be written into the ICC profile. As I've already mentioned, Photoshop then uses the monitor profile to automatically optimise the display of documents. It does so by carrying out an on-the-fly conversion between your document profile (e.g. ProPhoto RGB, Adobe RGB, sRGB, ColorMatch) and your monitor profile. This conversion does not alter the actual document in any way; just its appearance on the monitor.
Adobe stopped shipping Adobe Gamma with the Mac version of Photoshop a few versions back, but for a while kept it for Windows. This was because there was no software only alternative. Since Apple Display Calibrator Assistant was still installed within System Preferences Mac users never really found the absence of Adobe Gamma to be a problem. However, given that Windows Vista and Windows 7 don't play well with certain utilities, it was inevitable that Adobe Gamma would eventually be dropped from the Windows version of Photoshop. So, it came as no surprise that as of Photoshop CS3 Adobe stopped shipping Adobe Gamma, and it's still absent from CS5. For what it's worth, I think we can safely assume that Adobe will never again ship a monitor calibration utility with Photoshop.
Obviously, software only monitor calibration applications use the human eye to determine tone and color differences between a series of white/grey/black/color patches. However, it should go without saying that the eye isn't the most accurate method of measuring these differences. Therefore, my recommendation would be to use a hardware based system such as the DatacolorSpyderPro3, X-rite Photo ColorMunki or X-rite Photo i1 Display 2.
Tip for Mac OS X users: a tutorial describing the process of calibrating a display with the Apple Display Calibrator Assistant can be found here.
Useful Information on location of ICC/ColorSync Profiles
Photoshop CS5 is only compatible with Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Windows Vista or Windows 7 on the PC platform and OS X 10.5.7 or higher on the Mac platform. The upside of this is that the ICC and ColorSync profiles are more easily found.
Profile locations:-
Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 - sub-folder named Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color
Mac OS X - ColorSync profiles are generally located in either the Library/ColorSync/Profiles or Users/~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder

Monitor Calibration & Lightroom 2

Hello, I have a problem. Normally I shot in RAW, edit the image, save a jpg (with sRGB Color space) resized for an on-line printing service and another jpg in full size and resolution.
Recently I bought a Spyder express monitor calibrator, so I have my calibrating profile called "spyder2express.icc" and I configured in windows xp my display to read this profile.
I edit a raw file with lightroom, but when I export to jpg and I look it with another viewer it doesn't look like the edited raw file, but it is mure saturated and different.
The same thing happened with Photoshop, looking the photo with the software is ok, but the jpg looked with xp viewer, ot faststone capture, or irfanview the jpg is different.
I'm sure that the profile is sRGB, so why this difference?
Is there anyone who can explain me what to do, and how to configure my computer?
Many thanks in advance

Just to clarify above the explanation by the others. Monitor calibration consists of two parts. One part is the calibration of the gamma curve. Gamma basically corresponds to contrast. This part is picked up by all applications and is handled by a correction table (called a LUT for LookUp Table) that is sent to your videocard. The second part is the correction for the gamut of your monitor. The gamut is basically the range of colors it can display. The gamut is determined by the actual wavelengths of red, green, and blue your monitor uses to mix the colors. This is different for every monitor out there and often quite different from sRGB. Some monitors have a much narrower gamut (most laptops) and some have a much wider gamut (the wide gamut displays that lots of people have now made by NEC, Samsung, Dell, etc.- my guess is that you have one of these). So even if you use sRGB, you still have to correct for this in order to display the right color on such displays. ONLY color managed apps do this. Lightroom is color managed as are many other apps such as Photoshop, Firefox 3.5, Safari, etc. However, many apps on windows are not, such as internet explorer, image viewer before vista, etc.

Pictures too dark - not a monitor calibration problem

I believe this is some kind of color space or EXIF data issue I'm having. The jist of it is this: if I view one of my pictures (they're in jpg format) in Windows Explorer, they look fine. But when Lightroom opens the picture or displays it in the library, it looks too dark. (Important note: this is not a monitor calibration issue. Searching on Google reveals tons of advice along these lines, but that's not what's happening here. Lightroom is simply displaying things differently than anything else.)
Photoshop had this problem also, but Adobe supplied a patch that made Photoshop ignore the color space EXIF data so my pictures would display "correctly". There does not seem to be any such equivalent fix for Lightroom. I'm using Windows XP - perhaps there's something I can do in the OS to fix this issue? I believe most of my pictures are sRGB.
How do I get Lightroom to display my pictures correctly? They are, of course, impossible to edit while they display like this. Thanks in advance for any help!

Thanks for the responses. I freely admit I don't understand color management. I also admit I have not calibrated my monitor. I know, therefore, that my colors are not perfectly synchronized across all my devices - and I'm fine with that for the moment, because they are close enough. What comes out of my camera, what is displayed on my monitor, and what comes out of my printer are all pretty close. I will calibrate soon and get even closer, but for now perfect color isn't my chief concern.
My problem is not that the colors don't match, it's that the pictures are too dark when displayed in Lightroom. By "too dark", I mean several stops of exposure too dark. A picture will display a certain way on my camera and in Windows, and the histogram reflects this. Then I load it into Lightroom, and while the histogram looks the same of course, the picture itself is being displayed like I took it at night. Hence, as far as I can tell, it's not a monitor calibration issue. If I were to calibrate the monitor to display the pictures in Lightroom correctly, everything else would look too bright, wouldn't it? Including Lightroom itself. Besides, it wouldn't be possible to brighten my monitor to the point that the pictures looked acceptable - that's how dark they are.
Here's another clue: if I'm at work, and I RDP to my PC at home, and open Lightroom in the RDP session, everything looks great. So, I'm thinking it's a Windows color space issue of some kind. The question is, since I admit I don't know much about color space, what might be the problem and how might I fix it?
So to summarize: incorrect color calibration isn't my problem (though I know it's something I have to do if I ever want to perfectly match output on my monitor and printer). The colors across all my devices are close enough for my purposes. Incorrect color isn't my problem at all. The problem is that Lightroom on my PC displays pictures as if most of the histogram was on the left, even when that's not the case. The pictures in Lightroom look nothing like they look on my camera, in Windows Explorer, or when printed on my printer. Why is that, and what can I do to fix it? Thanks.

Monitor Calibration question

Hi, I sarted a new job and they have an Apple 23" cinema HD monitor and a 12" Sony Triniton PVM-14N5U NTSC monitor. The computer screen looks fine but everything in the NTSC monitor looks aweful green.
Is there any kind of service for monitor calibration that you guys are aware of? like a company which will send professionals to our office to calibrate all the computer displays and all the NTSC monitors?
or should i buy one of those mousy calibrating thing. Is it possible to calibrate the sony NTSC monitors?
Please suggest me what should i do. Thank you people in advance.

Well... VERY early on in the fcp manual is a whole section on how to calibrate ntsc monitors.
No charge.

Choosing a monitor calibration tool

I realize this topic has been discussed before - but the products do get updated and change periodically, so I am asking for advice here on the current state of opinion - I am looking to calibrate dual Appple 23" monitors that work side by side.
They are pretty close right out of the box, but to improve things I have been considering the Monaco XR or XR Pro, ColorEyes & Eye One Display 2.
I imagine they all do a decent job of calibration, though I read somewhere that calibrating 2 monitors is not run of the mill for all calibrators.

I used the Monaco for several months before buying the Eye-One Photo. It worked well for the monitor calibration, although I didn't find that it was as especially good at matching my laptop screen to my Apple Cinema Display. The real problem for me was the method Monaco uses for calibrating the printer. I was not reliably able to print what I saw on my screen. Therefore, I bit the bullet and got the spectrophotometer (Eye-One Photo), which has done a very good job with both monitors and printer. While the Eye-One Photo measures the printer output (the print) directly, the Monaco relies on a scanner to tell it what the print looks like. This "indirect" measurement (necessary because it is not a spectrophotometer) led to inconsistent and inaccurate printer profiles.
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9) 30" Apple Cinema Display, Nikon D2XS

Monitor Calibration for Photobook

Hello Forum:
I going to work on a hardcover photobook using Aperture 2.1 on my 2nd generation Apple MacBook (2 GHz Intel Core Duo)
1. Which monitor calibration product do you recommend?
2. What adjustments in Aperture should I make to my images to ensure best results?
+Info about images:+
Camera: Canon 30D (8 megapixel)
File type: JPEG (at the largest JPEG mode)
Color Model: RGB
Pixel Size (prior to cropping): 3504 x 2336
Thanks,
Steve

I've heard good reports about Colorvision Spyder 3 Pro and I was impressed at a recent demonstration of the product. Also, it does not seem too expensive (about £100 here in the UK). There is also a higher spec version called Spyder 3 Elite.
I find it hard to answer your second point. Once you are happy that your monitor is giving you faithful colour representation, colour management is in the hands of the the processing lab that Apple has chosen to use, and this varies with region, of course. if it's any comfort, I have always been very happy with the results that I get back. However, the Photobooks that I have put together have all been for non-critical social and family purposes, rather than for any serious or professional use.

What exactly does monitor calibration do?

I have used a monitor calibration software (with a hardware colorimeter). I know it makes the display image "better". But I want to know more detail.
There seems to be two stages of improvement.
The first stage benefits everything that displays anything, including photos in browsers.
The second stage benefits only software with color management like photoshop.
What are the benefits for the for the first stage?
It changes the gamma or linearity of the display to 2.2 (for PC)
It removes color cast so that grey do not have a color tint.
Anything else?
I assume it is at the second stage (inside color managed software) that a photo would look the same across different computers and different monitors.
Why not turn on color management in windows so that all software are automatically color managed?
Does this also mean that inside a non color managed web browser (which is most of them), the same photo on a web page could look differently on different monitors, even if they are all calibrated by the same calibration software? But they still look more similar to each other than if they were displayed on un-calibrated monitors, right?

The correct terms for what you described as first and second are Monitor Calibration and Monitor Characterization or Profiling.
Calibration brings the monitor to a desired state by changing the behavior of the monitor or said in other words, alters how the monitor displays colors.
During the calibration process the monitor calibration software first changes directly or through the user all that is possible with the hardware controls of the monitor to bring its display to the desired state and then whatever was not possible with the hardware controls will be accomplished automatically also as much as possible by using the video card.
Profiling is first checking and then describing the display characteristics of the monitor in a monitor profile file. A monitor profile file, among other things, describes how the monitor displays color values like the RGB numbers. Profiling doesn't change the monitor behavior. The profile file is used by the color managed programs to change the color appearance of the images they use by sending the appropriate color values to the video card. These color values may be different from the actual color values of the image.
On theory, you don't need calibration in order to have properly characterized monitor. All the color managed programs need, is a monitor profile that describes how the monitor displays color values. However on practice if the monitor is calibrated as much as possible to a desired state, it can have much more and better display capabilities than a monitor without calibration. A desired state of a monitor is when its full capabilities can be used with certain display targets. These targets are specified by the user and are usually the white and black points, color temperature, and gamma.
To illustrate how a monitor without calibration can be a problem, I will give the following example. If you reduce only one of the RGB signals significantly, lets say the Blue, by using the hardware controls of the monitor then all neutral colors will become yellowish. With such monitor display, to get neutral colors, the color managed programs have to reduce also the other two signals Red and Green using the video card to the lowest denominator of the reduced Blue and this in general will limit the range of the entire color space available on your monitor. And since color management is about simulating on your monitor other color spaces (device and non-device specific) if you have limited display capabilities your monitor will not be able to adequately simulate other color spaces no matter how well the color managed programs try to achieve that. And also, as you already guessed that, in this example the non-color managed programs will display everything yellowish on such monitor because they don't have color management capabilities to correct it.

Monitor Calibration Issue?

When I'm in Develop or Print the brightness and color of a harbor that I photographed look just fine. They also look fine when I call up the printer's print preview window. However, when I print out the photo, the blue water in the shadows takes on a greenish tint and other areas of shadow come out darker than what is shown on the screen. Could this be a monitor calibration problem?

No that is the correct profile. the SP indicates glossy photo paper. The MP
is because this is a multifunction printer. Alas this also indicates the
likely issue. The drivers for many of these cheapo printers simply do not
turn off their color management even if you tell it to do that. My guess is
that what is happening is double color management. The driver is expecting
data in sRGB and coverts that to a printer profile. However, it got data in
the profile already so it gets applied twice. This bug in the drivers only
shows up in more modern apps such as Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 as they
only use the most recent method to send data to the driver and the drivers
haven't been updated to allow the more modern method (and likely never
will). You can sometimes get these printers to print correctly by setting
the driver to expect adobeRGB or sRGB and telling Lightroom to send data in
that colorspace (select show display profiles in the other dialog and enable
those). Sometimes the sequence of when you go into the print settings dialog
matters and the driver will suddenly decide to cooperate as long as you go
by business in the exact same way every time.

Help - monitor calibration-color management disaster!

I'm hoping someone can help me with this problem that is driving me nuts. I'm trying to get my monitor calibrated so that what I see on the screen, in terms of color hue/tint/saturation and overall brightness, is what I get out of the printer when I print a photograph. Right now, what I see on my screen has no relationship to what comes out of my printer. In order to get one decent print, I'm having to print 3 or 4 test runs to adjust color, brightness, saturation and balance. It's ridiculously time-consuming and wasteful of paper and ink. There has to be a better way.
Here's my situation: I have Photoshop Elements 8, and am running it on Windows 7 OS. I have a ViewSonic flat screen monitor and an Epson r1900 printer that is dedicated to photographs only. I've bought and installed HueyPro to calibrate the monitor, but the results were not good. After installing HueyPro and running the calibration, the results it gave me are useless for both viewing the monitor and printing pictures. There is an obvious blue cast to the monitor screen image, and the oranges and reds are oversaturated and neon bright. The image on the screen looks like the dog's dinner. When I try to print with that screen profile, the pictures are overly dark, and the skin tones have a grayish and bluish cast that makes them look like the work of a beginning embalmer. I have PE8 set to always optimize for print and my camera is set to Adobe color management.
In order to adjust, I've turned the HueyPro calibration off. For every picture I want to print, I have to open it in RAW, select the Vivid or #3 calibration, max out the fill shadows and adjust the exposure. Then, I save it to Photoshop, where I use layer-screen to lighten the picture - sometimes twice. What I see on my screen is a washed out, faded image that looks horrible in every respect. But, when I print it, I get a good if not great picture with decent brightness and colors.
I'd rate my results as a C - maybe a B- on a very good day. That's after all of the jiggling and tweaking. Before, the results are an F, but only because that's the lowest score possible. This can't be the best that is possible. There has to be something out there that I'm not doing right, or something that I'm not doing at all. I'll take any and all help/advice.

Would that cause the disconnect between what I see on my screen and what the printer produces?
It should not.
Is either PE8 or the printer the better option, or does it matter?
I would experiment with both. As long as it is just one of them at a time. Good luck!
Juergen

Is monitor calibration the same as setting color profile in System Preferences Monitor Color?

I understand monitor calibration using something llike X-Rite or Gretag, but what about the sRGB/Adobe RGB/Generic thing in System preferences>Monitor>Color? Is the latter for printing purposes? What should I select when doing post processing on Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop Elements?

{quote:}After working on my photographs in Lightroom and setting them to Jpegs, I take them to a printshop (semi professional). Would the personal setting on my iMac make any differences to him for printing???{quote}
Yes your Display Profile will slightly affect your finished product, but if that RGB profile is working for you then don't try and fix it. However if you do professional or semi professional work, then you might want to consider using professional calibration tools to calibrate your display.
See > http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/
{quote:}What do you use most on your iMac?{quote}
I only do amateur photo work and then print them on an Epson printer. When editing and printing photos, I use the Epson sRGB Display Profile that was installed along with my Epson software and always get great results.

Monitor Calibration

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