Need calibration help

[Schwartzie]

In the past i have had monitors that didnt have a profile and I calibrated with Adobe gamma and everything turned out just about dead on.

My monitor died and I got a Viewsonic Graphics series. It comes with a profile of its own which is what photoshop lists in the adobe gamma. Now for the problems and questions.

Should I use this profile as is and not change at all with Adobe Gamma?

Now in photoshop, when I go to print or save for web, the view in print preview and web save thingy are darker than on the work screen. Files I had that printed correctly before now print much darker same as the print preview shows.

If I use monitor profile for a working space in php, then both file and print preview are much closer altho print preview is a bit darker yet.

So any ideas how I go about calibrating things here? I'm not too good at explaining things so ask questions if its not clear. I think I just get straightened out in understanding color calib and something like this pops up.

[Schwartzie]

This is what the unaltered monitor profile reads in adobe gamma. The 2.90 gamma is rather strange.

[Stephen M]

Schwartzie, I can help here - as you say...all is not well!

Yes, I would use the supplied profile to load into Adobe Gamma [AG] - and yes I would edit this profile and then resave it with a new name like 'Schwartzies Monitor Cal' - I don't use dates as it is easier to overwrite the same file each time, but you can obviously add dates if this is helpful and manually delete old profiles to save space/app load times etc.

AG needs something to start the whole process off with, calibration (software or hardware monitor controls) and characterization (profiling) take place after a profile is loaded into AG to start with.

If on a Mac I would choose 1.8 gamma as a target, or 2.2 for Win (you can have 2.2 on a Mac or 1.8 on a PC but it is probably best not to play these games).

The raw sate of a monitor is often 2.5 or higher gamma - that is uncorrected with no calibration etc. As far as I know, the same for the Mac - the monitor itself is dark, but the Mac graphics card applies a 1.8 gamma correction, which the PC does not (I would love to be corrected if this info is wrong).

So, there you have it simple.

Er, perhaps not so simple.

Here's the quick steps:

1. If possible set the hardware/software control on the front of the monitor for colour temp of 6500K
2. AG to be used in assistant/wizard mode
3. Load supplied canned profile for monitor
4. Set white and black point
5. Accept the phosphor info if you trust the loaded profile
6. Select 1.8 or 2.2 and visually calibrate so the gamma is right
7. Set the AG colour temp to 6500K to match the setting that you selected by hand in step1 (there are often four temps to choose)
8. In the next step, don't adjust, whitepoint same as hardware or 6500K
9. Toggle the before/after radio buttons and save the profile of the characterization (should default to the base ICC profile folder for your system and OS version).

By default the OS colour management system should now understand that Adobe Gamma has set this profile as the monitor profile (AG takes care of this).

The BEST site on manual eyeball monitor calibration is here:

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfin...tml#gammachart

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfin...html#gamadjust

Of course, Adobe offer help too:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techgui...amma/main.html

Please let me know if you need more help, you should be able to fix the brightness problems you are having - but I don't know if you will get the previous level of natural colour matching with this specific unit without custom hardware profiling/calibration via a spyder etc.

Stephen Marsh.

[Schwartzie]

Steven at least I understand what you are saying. For some reason with this monitor Adobe Gamma will not let me open or save to any other profile than the original Viewsonic. That isnt much problem as i have an original of it tucked away. I can change and save the original to the same file name.

I also find that now the controls to adjust color do not show any change in my epson print preview.

And something else that i never noticed before but maybe this is normal. This monitor definately can capture more greyscale range than the others I have had. Anyway to get something very close to monitor I have to open the file in my working space which is Bruce RGB for print work. Then i have to use assign profile and assign my epson driver, then convert to profile. If i just convert to profile without assigning it first it doesnt change the color at all to correct for printing.

Why would files already saved with epson profile print diferently now? Is photoshop now changing colors because of the new monitor and its profile?

I have read everything I can find on using profiles. I still dont think I have it down pat.

You are right about PC not assigning gamma automatically