Screen calibration

John

I'm slowly implementing a fully calibrated workflow.
I already have the "camera calibration" taken care of with a Spyder Colorchecker.
(This creates an adjustment preset that can be used to correct the adobe camera profiles in Lightroom 4)
The next step will be to calibrate my monitor.
I'm looking at both colormunki as well as datacolor (Spyder 4 Elite) products and am looking for advice, suggestions, stories,...
So feel free to share.

Symphotic

I use the X-Rite i1 system when going to print with my Canon 9500 mkII. It saves a lot of time and money.

Ironheart

Lens rentals rents the colormunki for $40 for 4 days:

http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/calibration/colormunki

obajoba

I use the X-Rite i1 Display Pro and occasionally the ColorChecker Passport. One thing I really like about having purchased the i1 Display Pro is the "Ambient Monitoring" which keeps the display updated for the ambient light in the room. I can't tell you how many times I exported, or tried to print, photos that were too dark or too bright because the brightness of my monitor was off.

The one beef I do have, however, is that I've never been able to find the correct specs of my display (HP LP2465)

Msmoto

Huey Pro on my MacBook Pro...easy...

Now to see what happens in the prints...

spraynpray

I had a swine of a time with ColorMunki not working with twin screens. I had to uninstall it all and use the Spyder in the end.

JJ_SO

Strange. ColorMunki (old and new version) is working on twin screens, at least with windows. And on iMac, too.

Some weeks before I was on Colormanagment training, after that I felt different proportions:

Camera Profiles are really difficult - they need to be done with each body, each lens on each body and different shutter times, in each light your shooting in. Very quickly it became clear, this is something for specialised tasks, but then it is really fast and reliable. Otherwise I don't bother too much, as some lighting situations need to be interpreted in any case.

As for screens: hardware calibration is the only real thing, although a ColorMunki (or EyeOne and some more sophisticated devices) on an iMac or other screens is better than no CM at all. Hardware calibration monitors have a wider color space while the other monitors already can do maybe sRGB, but not fully Adobe RGB and by calibration this space doesn't get bigger - worse, it's usually narrowing it.

And since screens and printers need additional software help to show what a camera with 14Bit captures, it is essential to calibrate both, screen and printer. As for me: I don't run a big printer yet, so all the "trouble" at the moment is a bit useless to me. there are not much copy labs respecting colorprofiles. I decided afterwards, I will go on with CMS at the moment I've more space to set up twin monitors, one of them an Eizo and of course a big printer. Also, there's a need of controlled light (this device is expensive, too) and constant lighting conditions.

Altogether, I got the impression there's not much to gain if my screen is already not the cheapest and I still have no decent printer. Since I don't make "destructive" color adjustments outside of my RC, I still have all options open later on.

NSXTypeR

Slightly off topic but related how do we know if the monitor on the camera is calibrated?

I mean, there is sample variation even if Nikon is consistent.

I mean, even the D800 had problems with green shifted tones.

John

Slightly off topic but related how do we know if the monitor on the camera is calibrated?

I mean, there is sample variation even if Nikon is consistent.

I mean, even the D800 had problems with green shifted tones.

The monitor on the camera is calibrated to a certain standard by Nikon.
But we don't know exactly what that standard is.

That being said, the monitor on the back of a camera should not be used when trying to determin color accuracy.
Such small displays are just to limited and the impact of the environment/lighting conditions is just to much.
You can use it for general evaluations but you shouldn't expect exact representations of the end result.
(If the entire image is deep blue although you're looking at a white subject then something is probably wrong with the white balance. If the color is only 95% correct then it might very well be a limitation of the screen.)
The main reason we have a display is to look at things like highlight warnings and histograms; not to evaluate exact colors.
And if you need exact colors you should be shooting in RAW and using a gray card and color calibration tool, in which case the jpg preview you see on the camera screen becomes even more irrelevant.

When I talked about camera calibration I didn't refer to the tiny dispay on my camera. I refered to a profile to correct the Lightroom camera profiles to get the exact colors (for a given lens, lighting,...).

High quality publications are edited and evaluated on specialised, calibrated wide gamut monitors with special screen hoods (to limit stray light hitting the screen) in order to get good color accuracy.
Doing the same thing on something resembling a smartphone screen is just not possible.

Ironheart

The screen on the back is good for checking framing, and reading histograms. If you use it for anything else you are asking for trouble. You will be mighty unhappy when you upload and say, "gee these looked properly exposed in the bright sunlight..."

Msmoto

@Ironheart

Amen

WestEndBoy

Does anybody have any experience with the Eizo line of monitors with the colour calibrator that pops out of the bottom of the monitor periodically to confirm colour calibration and reset if necessary?

DenverShooter

I run ColorMunki and it calibrated all three of my Epson printers R260, R2880 and 7900 to exactly match each other. So I can crank out small stuff on the 260 and make the 24 inch by 48 inch on the 7900 and they all look the same..

Denver Shooter

Vipmediastar_JZ

colormunki. There is a problem with Mavericks at the moment for dual screens but there is a workaround found on their website. Basically assign the second screen as the primary then calibrate the switch back.
I like it very much. It stopped my second guessing once that was in my workflow.

DenverShooter

My ColorMunki paid for itself in ink and paper within a year of me purchasing it. No more uncertainty on prints or duplicate prints to try to fix issues or wasted time. WYSIWYG and that saves time and time equals money.

Denver Shooter

Ironheart

The pop-out calibrator will perform essentially the same function as colormunki. The advantage comes in if you have more than one monitor. If you have a team of folks, say 10 that each have 2 monitors, you can use a single colormunki to calibrate each monitor once, and teach the pop out calibrator system what "calibrated" looks like. This way you can have a large group of monitors calibrated to a single standard, and each one can be re-calibrated locally as needed. The pop out calibration can be scheduled to run as frequently as needed (daily, weekly, etc..).

LCDs will change their calibration over time.

WestEndBoy

I will research this Colorminki.