color calibration monitor

[mrdinh]

i cal my monitor...the colors look slightly diff then the default from apple but the brightness still does not match my prints from the local lab....

help please...also i will include more info as needed

thanks

hardware:apple 30" lcd, spyderpro

[ClickNSee]

I've had similiar problems with my DELL after calibrating with Spyder. The montior seems to be just about dead on right out of the box according to the Spyder calibration, but prints are never the same...no matter what printer they come from. Is it necessary to calibrate a printer (all printers) to a given monitor? Even when I use the profile for my monitor provided by labs, prints still never match. It's a crazy world, this digital color...seems like it could be made much easier if there were some standards out there everyone was using.

[Dave.Cox]

Yes, your printer needs to be calibrated as well as your monitor. The color output of printers can very as much as monitors. Even two printers of the same make and model will print differently do to differences in the print mechanisims.

I believe you will need a scanner to calibrate your printer. I too use a version of Spyder calibration, and it creates a print out, and scans it back in to determine the profile needed for the printer.

I had trouble getting my printer to print the colors correctly until I performed a calibration on it. Once I completed the calibration, my colors were printing very close to the colors displayed on the monitor.

It isn't that you need to calibrate your printer to a monitor, but you do need to calibrate your printer so that the colors will print acurratly. You can probably locate the correct profile for your printer from the manufacture, and that will help, but as the printer ages, its print characteristics will change. There are standards for color, and most print shops understand those standards, For instance you can get very accurate colors by selecting pantone colors, and then sending your work to a profession printer to be printed. But to get accurate colors from home printers, you will need to calibrate.

[pixelzombie]

not to be redundant, but your monitor needs to be calibrated and profiled in order to get accurate color matching...

[TommyO]

Dave and pixelzombie are right on. From your comments, we should steer you into a different thought process....

Don't try and calibrate your monitor to make your prints look better. That is not the problem. The problem is you do not have a profile to allow you to soft proof your image before sending to the printer. If you did, you could tell (with about 95% accuracy) what they would look like. The other 5% would depend on how well they maintain their equipment, inks, etc.

Photoshop allows soft proofing through the View > Proof Setup > Custom menu. If you use a reputable print shop, you should be able to obtain a printer profile for both the printer and the paper you'll be printing on. Simply download, add to your profile folder (different for Windows vs Mac), and then customize a soft proof.

All of this is simply numerical. There are not any changes being made to your monitor, your printer, their printer, etc. It's all just a manipulation of numbers to allow each device to change how they present or print an image for your viewing. For example, when you calibrate your monitor, you are not calibrating the monitor. But rather, you are modifying the look up table (LUT) in the graphics card... when one color is sent to it (i.e.red>135, green>138, blue>200) the LUT will change it slightly based on your calibration (i.e. red>132, green>137, blue>205). The same goes for a printer, using the profile you download and insert into your workflow using the color management properties of the print dialog.

Best of luck and let us know if you need more explanation.

[Damo77]

Originally Posted by mrdinh

i cal my monitor...the colors look slightly diff then the default from apple but the brightness still does not match my prints from the local lab....

help please...also i will include more info as needed

thanks

hardware:apple 30" lcd, spyderpro

Does your Spyder allow you to choose your calibration targets? If so, what is your luminance (brightness) target? Anything over 100cd/m2 is too bright for matching prints, IMO.

If you can't seem to get your luminance low enough, there's an app called "Shades" which helps, apparently. I haven't used it myself, but it's available here: http://www.freemacware.com/shades

[girlsfather]

Originally Posted by mrdinh

i cal my monitor...the colors look slightly diff then the default from apple but the brightness still does not match my prints from the local lab....

help please...also i will include more info as needed

thanks

hardware:apple 30" lcd, spyderpro

I agree with the need to calibrate the monitor and your printer.
(I use a Quato Intelli Proof 213 Monitor and the software Quato iColor display 2.5.4 together with Silver Haze Pro & DTP94. Target is 5000°Kelvin and gamma 1.8 luminance set to 140 cd)
The monitor I use does most of the calibration within the monitor itself - not the graphic-card.
For the calibration of the printer - Epson 4800 - I used the service of an external expert - that cost me about 70 Euros/apx. 100Dollars for each custom paper-profile.
I use fluorescent D50 light tubes on my overhead luminaire proof light.
I reduce ambient light to a minimum. When I look at the print under the prooflight it really looks like the photo on the display.

I am very pleased with my calibrated workflow.

I was disappointed when giving the pictures to a (semi-) professional lab.
When I give away my private snapshots that are in sRGB everything is fine.
But using for example the european standard eci-RGBv2.icc the trouble is programmed.
In my Opinion this has to do with the person that does the job, that has to properly convert the profile for the right paper - printer combination.
I never had these problems when I sent a file to be contract-proofed for offset printing - to the same lab. The person doing this job is the best skilled they have ;-))))


Just want to say that there are still enough possibilities to make your print look bad.

[realaqu]

I think apple's monitor is a little brighter than pro level monitors like Eizo, Lacie or NEC, but that is not the main reason you don't get accurate color, after you calibrated your monitor, you have to calibrate your printer as well, and load the correct profile, either convert to or assign profile and do softproof in photoshop, for pros, you have to pay attention wich method you pick to convert your profile, the color intention, I recommend a book "color management for digital photographers", the book helped me a lot in color management

[TommyO]

Mrdinh,
I thought I would get back to on this and show you an example of some images. These are scans of actual prints, each with different embedded profiles. My soft proof mirrored the actual print (with the proper embedded profile) exactly.

The image below represents four different profiles:
Top left is printed using the ECI-RGB profile;
Top right is.... the sRGB profile;
Bottom left is.... the ProPhoto profile;
Bottom right is.... the Fuji Frontier Gloss paper profile.

Note the color differences (Don't bother looking at the pixelation, as this has been resized to allow posting here).

Again, the bottom right matches the soft proof exactly, and it was printed by converting the image to the Fuji Frontier Gloss profile prior to sending it to the printer. This was printed on a brand new Fuji Frontier printer at a local Wal-Mart. They are not considered Pro-level, maybe semi-pro. But, it's the exact same Fuji Frontier as is our local "pro" lab.

Anyway, this simply illustrates that you will see differences if you do not convert to the proper printer profile prior to printing. (This is not relevant if printing at home, as PS will convert on the fly during the print process... assuming you set it up right.) Note that sRGB is pretty close, looks good and maybe even looks better if you like darker saturation of color. However, ProPhoto looks awful, yet is a common working color space for many users. If you were a ProPhoto user, and you don't convert the file first, your prints could vary a lot.

I realize you may have been having issues somewhat opposite.. screen darker than prints. However, I just wanted to illustrate the importance of color management. Anything goes when CM rules are not followed or sometimes misunderstood.

Altona Test Suite Images provided by © 2004 by European Color Initiative - www.eci.org

[Tareq]

I was asking about calibration too much in many websites as well, to get the accurate printed results as much as i can.

Now how i can be sure that i have the correct or accurate colors? i printed many photos and only 2 or 3 prints were bad due to using different profile of the paper, but the rest prints were all great and i like the results, maybe some were slightly darker [a bit] than the monitor but the colors to be honest in some cases were better even than what on monitor [but not less], so is that means my calibration or colors are fine and accurate?

*I calibrated my monitor [only and not printer] with Spyder 3 Studio and not sure if i did correct calibration ignoring my printing which are good enough to my eyes*

[TommyO]

Tareq,
It does not mean your calibration or colors are fine and accurate. But, it sounds like you are referring to prints from your own printer. In that case, it sounds like the profile you are using for your printer (if any) is certainly close enough for your use and your liking. In many instances, that is good enough.

If you are referring to a third party's printer, then you should at least be using a printer profile for their printer. That is part of a normal color management workflow. Most third parties have profiles available from their website. Others, like basic department stores that use Noritsu or Fujitsu printers, don't post them. However, adequate profiles are obtainable from other websites.

[Tareq]

So if i am just printing my photos myself with my printer then it is fine? In fact i just created my own profile for my printer for different papers, but i can't be sure if i try to print that on another printer, in any case, if printing at home and with some kind of calibration and adjustments is it enough to say that everything is fine? or let's say, is it must to do printer calibration for accurate work?

[TommyO]

Originally Posted by Tareq

is it must to do printer calibration for accurate work?

For accurate output, a printer should be calibrated. You calibrate yours, everyone else calibrates theirs. That is the only way you can be assured that a print will look similar anywhere in the world.

[Tareq]

Originally Posted by TommyO

For accurate output, a printer should be calibrated. You calibrate yours, everyone else calibrates theirs. That is the only way you can be assured that a print will look similar anywhere in the world.

Ah ok, so now i understand it, otherwise it may be good enough on my printer but not good on another printers.

Thanks!

[itsallgoode9]

I know it's late, but I just purchased the Colormunki from X-rite and have really loved it so far. It does both monitor and printer calibration...as well as projector calibration. I had previously used the eyeOne 2 from xrite for my monitor, and although the Colormunki is very entry level for color mangement, I like using it better than the eyeOne

It's very cheap, it retails for $400 and you can find it for around 300-350. One day I will upgrade to a "real" printer calibration setup, but it's worked surpisingly very well for me so far.

[snapperanton]

Try this site, check out the downloads section and 'monitor'. You can download a test strip for your desktop which will help gauge the correct luminance for your monitor. Just keep it on all the time as your desktop.
http://www.eci.org/doku.php?id=en:downloads

hope that helps?

[Walmone-Hadwor]

We have come a long way since the days of film and darkroom developing but the digital photography age has brought upon us some important issues that need to be addressed and understood by everyone that desires accurate color rendering and accurate print outs.

Most photographers are familiar with the light table used to view negatives and slides in old days of film. Today we have monitors and computers that have replaced the darkroom. However one of the most common and least understood problems related to the digital work flow is that you must have your system profiled in order to be able to achieve predictable color output on your monitor.

[Flashtones]

Lots of good advice here. Just a couple of points I think need to be reinforced.

1. You don't want to calibrate your monitor to your printer, or your printer to your monitor. Each get calibrated to their own independent standards, that when done right, will have them match up fairly well. The problem with matching one to the other is, which is the standard? Which one is right? If the "standard" you are matching to is poor our efforts will lock you into working solely with that equipment (a closed loop) as your results will only match it, but not other printers or other viewers on the internet.

IOW, don't automatically assume your local lab's prints are accurate. Matching your monitor to a bad print is a disaster waiting to happen, as is matching a print to a badly calibrated monitor.

That said, most monitors are usually set too bright and prints are often viewed in uncontrolled and unpredictable lighting environments. Prints will look different if viewed under tungsten, daylight or florescent lighting. And of course, the bruightness of the lightsource matters too. Ideally, your print viewing conditions will also be controlled and (somewhat) calibrated (ie, daylight balanced, high color rendering index (CRI) lighing).

2. Even if the monitor, printer and viewing environment are well calibrated, it's important that the file being sent to the printer be in the right colorspace with the proper profile attached. Most prosumer print shops expect an sRGB file. If you are editing in AdobeRGB or ProPhoto and don't convert your file to sRGB (or their supplied custom printer profile) you wont get good results.

So, short answer is, lower the brightness of your monitor, calibrate it (start with D65 gamma 2.2), and convert your images to sRGB before sending them to the printer. Also consider getting something like an OTT light or Solux for print viewing.

If all that fails, you can try sending to a different lab, or making additional monitor calibration adjustments (like lower luminance or white point).

[Flashtones]

This is a good site to see how your monitor is performing:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/all_tests.php