Is your monitor calibrated?

[ricktas]

A discussion by Dlyan on colourspaces got me to wondering if members have calibrated their monitors.

So here you can choose to tell us in our poll

If you do not know what hardware calibration involves, see our colour management forum (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/forumdisplay.php?163-Colour-Management) and this thread (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?91096) details calibrators that are available

[rossco]

no its not, i just assumed my mac is so awesome that it produces the color used throughout the universe

[ricktas]

no its not, i just assumed my mac is so awesome that it produces the color used throughout the universe

oh dear (where is the shakes head emoticon)

[Dazz1]

I have mentioned this before, but know of no answer. How do people account for the huge shift in gamma calibration with vertical viewing angle? Whether you calibrate using hardware, or by eye, it seems the calibration is only true at one angle. If you sit up higher, or stand up, or slump down, or adjust your computer chair, then it changes.

My only relief is that when I adjust an image, then get it printed (telling the printers NOT to adjust it in any way) it comes out looking good, and pretty much as I see it on the monitor in my usual editing position.

[ricktas]

I have mentioned this before, but know of no answer. How do people account for the huge shift in gamma calibration with vertical viewing angle? Whether you calibrate using hardware, or by eye, it seems the calibration is only true at one angle. If you sit up higher, or stand up, or slump down, or adjust your computer chair, then it changes.

My only relief is that when I adjust an image, then get it printed (telling the printers NOT to adjust it in any way) it comes out looking good, and pretty much as I see it on the monitor in my usual editing position.

quality of viewing angle degradation relates to the quality of your monitor: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?89862-The-different-types-of-monitors-available-for-photo-editing

[Dazz1]

quality of viewing angle degradation relates to the quality of your monitor: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?89862-The-different-types-of-monitors-available-for-photo-editing

I know, but most discussions about viewing angle talk about viewing from the side - i.e. angle in a horizontal plane. I am talking about vertically. It seems that the gamma adjustment alters the optimum vertical angle for viewing. If you adjust the gamma down a bit, then just sit higher in your chair, you end up back where you started. If you look at one of those gamma charts that are vertical, you can "slide" the apparent point where the columns look the same, up and down, as you view it from different vertical angles, without touching the adjustment controls.

When looking at one of my images a while back, another member noticed the change when standing, and others have since also noted it. As a beginner, I read I should calibrate my monitor, so I did, but quickly found this problem. So while, in the poll, I answer, yes, I wonder how useful it is, when (at least with cheap monitors like mine) the calibration is as fickle as this.

[Lance B]

I think you'll find it still applies to viewing higher or lower viewing angle as well as side to side. They generally quote side to side as that is where most people may sit when viewing if they are not the primary viewer, like when sharing images with someone etc. I find basically no difference with my screen when viewing higher or lower, but then mine is a top level IPS screen.

[Dazz1]

I think you'll find it still applies to viewing higher or lower viewing angle as well as side to side. They generally quote side to side as that is where most people may sit when viewing if they are not the primary viewer, like when sharing images with someone etc. I find basically no difference with my screen when viewing higher or lower, but then mine is a top level IPS screen.

Thanks, yes, I wish I had such a screen. I recall how simple monochrome LCD displays adjusted contrast. This was purely vertical angle, and you adjusted them for the normal viewing angle. I think this is behind the effect I see on cheap screens.

Those of us with cheapies just have to bear it in mind, and know that our 'calibration' can be suspect.

[Starvin Marvin]

No I haven't calibrated mine since I bought it. It is a top of the line IPS monitor but lately I have been thinking I should calibrate it. I really want to print some shots up big but I'm worried if I don't calibrate before sending a job off to the printers that the colours will be off.

[ricktas]

I few points to note here:

1. A hardware calibration tool creates a profile of COLOURS that it then installs into the graphics card upon computer start-up to ensure colour accuracy.
2. Brightness is not adjusted by the calibration device in most instances. During the calibration process the software generally asks the user to reset brightness and contrast levels to their defaults manually, before proceeding with calibration
3. Some calibrators can monitor room brightness levels and compensate for them, but not all calibrators do this.
4. Only some NEC and EIZO monitors have a hardware calibration built into the monitor
5. Doing a visual calibration using a tool like this one (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?85025-Probably-the-best-non-hardware-calibration-information), can improve your colour accuracy, but it will not replace a hardware calibration for true accuracy.
6. Prints will always look different to your screen, even a calibrated one. Prints are a reflected light image, screens are a transmitted light image. When you combine red green and blue in print you get black. When you combine red, green, blue in a monitor, you get white. You can work at rendering the colours of a print accurately to a screen image, but due to reflected and transmitted light differences you will not get a print that looks exactly the same as a monitor image.

Others are free to add more to this discussion.

[arthurking83]

Some further info to Ricks reply:

4. Dell also make some screens with the built in hardware for calibrating the monitor directly. There are also others too, just can't remember them all. In general these '10bit' screens are much more expensive than an equivalent screen without this internal hardware.

6. The reason your prints can look different to how the image looked on screen is due to the ambient lighting when viewing your print. Whether you notice this or not, viewing your print under incandescent lighting compared to, say, fluoro lighting .... will always make the print look different.

[chappo1]

I few points to note here:

2. Brightness is not adjusted by the calibration device in most instances. During the calibration process the software generally asks the user to reset brightness and contrast levels to their defaults manually, before proceeding with calibration
3. Some calibrators can monitor room brightness levels and compensate for them, but not all calibrators do this.

6. Prints will always look different to your screen, even a calibrated one. Prints are a reflected light image, screens are a transmitted light image. When you combine red green and blue in print you get black. When you combine red, green, blue in a monitor, you get white. You can work at rendering the colours of a print accurately to a screen image, but due to reflected and transmitted light differences you will not get a print that looks exactly the same as a monitor image.

Others are free to add more to this discussion.

I have only kept the points I want to comment on.
I use the spyder 4 pro to calibrate my monitor which is not a top level one.
Recently we had some electrical work done and I had 3 LED globes on a track added to the computer room. The is gives a bright even light and I have re-calibrated the monitor taking room lighting into account.
As I print my own images on an epson R2400, I have an action which runs in photoshop as the final layer before printing and adds a screen layer at 35% to lighten the printed image to match the brighter screen
For digital projection or web, you turn this layer off before collapsing the image and sizing.
I save a .psd file of this image so can reprint the image at any time..

john

[freelancer]

I had to use mac's screen-shade as have most people I know with mac's to tone down the brightness (on an imac). My screen is also very uneven, with a handheld meter there is a difference of 2-stops between the left and right side of the screen.

Can anyone tell me if the newer led screens are better (more even)?
Jon

[ricktas]

I had to use mac's screen-shade as have most people I know with mac's to tone down the brightness (on an imac). My screen is also very uneven, with a handheld meter there is a difference of 2-stops between the left and right side of the screen.

Can anyone tell me if the newer led screens are better (more even)?
Jon

It is not so much whether the monitor is new or old, though brightness levels do degrade over time, but more importantly it is the type of screen : http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?89862

[CapnBloodbeard]

What do you guys do to test your calibration? I've had some weird behaviour sometimes with calibration, so it'd be nice to know at the end of the process if I've actually calibrated it or changed from weird colours to weird colours.....especially given a slight change in settings can result in a completely different calibration result.