Calibration: Problems with my laptop screen

[4personnen]

Hi! I finally got a proper kick in the bottom to calibrate my monitor. Thanks to a generous patron, I now own a Spyder2 express which is not new but I'm sure it doesn't make any difference.

I used the software provided, and I was not happy with results, so I checked on various help forums and some people advice using "Argyll CMS" instead. It gives better result although not perfect but it takes me between 3 to 5 hours to calibrate .

http://www.argyllcms.com/


It's not really that I don't have the time to do this but it just doesn't makes sense....

My colours are way too warm with a slight blue cast on the highlights...
the overall is too dark.

The main problem is that I don't really know where to find the specifications of me display, in order to fill the blanks in the software windows, I filled some at random but it doesn't help (It's obvious ).

I'm absolutely not a technical person even if I try to understand what I'm doing. I've noticed, looking for some advices in the threads, that many people are quite in the same hell than me.

If someone can point me to some advices. I don't mind doing some experiments but I need a clue from where to start.

My laptop is a toshiba A500 17x
With a truebrite display (16") HD TFT 16/9 LED backlight
Don't know any thing about the colour temperature...
There no commands to "physically" make some settings...


Thanks in advance,
Cheers!

Here are attached a printscreen of the retouch pro window (forgot to include the black and white gradient at the top )

And a set of 3 shapes of grey I made in PS, with a gradient...Still a print screen.

If it makes sense...

[4personnen]

Stupid I am It doesn't make any sense that I provide some screenshots
But whatever, in addition to the above, could anyone tell me, looking at any image on my website, if they really look as horrible as they look to me now.
I made another attempt of calibrating with the software that comes with the spyder. I really think that all the gradients and shades I'm seeing either in PS as in the websites or on my hard drives looks very neutral to me.. Just the post prod I made on image look horrible now!
thanks for your input,

[creativeretouch]

4personnen - I am on Mac and most of your pix look OK.
Pc's screens are nod good- they usually turn to magenta ...

You should find a proper manual which explains you how to do (step by step) your calibration.

[4personnen]

Thanks for your input...
I've worked on crappy Mac displays and also on very good PC screens and also the other way round, so, not sure it's issue there . But since I'm alone (understand, not in an office full of colleagues anymore) I struggle to have feedbacks...

What puzzled me is that people have worked for didn't notice what I am seeing now....

And for the manuals, I have plenty of online tutorials dedicated to this particular device, as well as the manufacturer's one (pretty useless in fact) But the software is soooooo simple (I mean no options at all) that it's hard to tell what I've done wrong.

I hope I'll get something around there. (I still have my old profile, just in case...)

Cheers!

[Tony W]

4personnen, have had a look on your website (nice images!) and obviously cannot comment on if the images look "horrible" to you as I cannot see what you see. However I would say that those that I looked at are fine some colour well saturated some a little pastel like. Your B&W images look pretty good as well. So I suspect that it is just the way your laptop is set up at the moment. Viewed on a PC with NEC Monitor.

Not familiar with your laptop but in general most are not designed/intended for critical colour editing work. As you have found out there are very few things you can actually control therefore calibration will likely be very limited. AFAIK most laptop LCD's do not have contrast or white point control so it is usually best to use the default setting (whatever they are!) and just use the brightness setting (backlight setting) to adjust screen brightness to suit.

Have you looked at the screen display software application that should have been included with the laptop - it may just help to fiddle with the settings to get your system back to default? Then try to recalibrate with the Spyder software rather than the system you mentioned.

In any event monitor calibration should not take 3-5 hours (probably under 1hour max with Spyder2!)

EDIT: Just found a couple of links that may be of some help:
http://colorwizzard.com/lcdtest/index.html#_top Run this using IE (does not seem to like Firefox)

Try this free software http://www.imagingassociates.com.au/color/software.jspx

Very good techie stuff here if you have the time http://www.normankoren.com/makingfin...tml#gammachart

[4personnen]

Thanks a lot, I eventually dropped the "argyll" stuff but what is confusing is I see "more" things with the new profile...eg. i am able now to see all the shades of grey in the RetouchPro interface . The greys looks "neutral" now. I knew that before my screen (without a calibration) was too bright and too blue so in a sense I used to set my colours accordingly (with my eyes only). Now all the photos I'm looking at through PS (with the new profile assigned) are orangey while my background grey colour (The interface background) seems very neutral. the samples of greys I attached in the former post looks grey now... (they looked brown/sepia in the first attempt of calibration with Argyll)


There is one picture there of one of my retouches I made before calibrating

http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/a...Mayfield-1.jpg

and one I made of the same photo with the colour adjusted to look more natural on the new profile (even if not completely convincing)

http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/a...ew-profile.jpg


Just for you to see the big difference that exists between the two.


I've made the calibration process about 6 times now...


Thanks to everybody.

[4personnen]

I'll have a look at the links but at least, so far, I figure out how it goes: The colours are wrong in the shadows, are quite right even if there's a tiny bit magenta something in the HL but the contrast is far better than before....

[mistermonday]

4personnen, the Before image colors look close to normal. The skin appears to be somewhat oversaturated and parts of the hair are too dark (brightness value = 0 = no detail). The After image looks awful. It has an overall blue cast, it is much brighter than the before (hair has gone from 0 to 55 and has turned almost gray. Saturation is weak and she looks washed out. Skin is missing yellow. If you set your eyedropper tool to LAB for viewing only, you will see that A values in skin are about 1/2 of what they should be and the B values are almost 0.
I also notice that both your profiles are not tagged with any profile. I assume that you have your color management policies and workspace set up properly but you may want to check because I would have expected your files to have been tagged with a profile.
I have stitched the before and after together into one image and have left it untagged so you can hopefully see what I see. When you open it, make sure in your Color Settings that the box for missing profiles is checked before you open the image or all the colors will be altered by whatever colorspace PS is working in.
Regards, Murray

[4personnen]

OK I still have some issues but I understand that, as my laptop display haven't got any hardware settings, it will be difficult. I'll trash all the previous profiles, set the display with the Nvidia software (contrast etc...) check it with those test available over the net

http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php

and afterwards

I'll do my calibration, as said, the simplest way possible.

Tony W,
Your links helped me, I'll take some more time to digest all these...

And MisterMonday,
I'll have a look why the images are not tagged, sounds strange...

thank you very much!

[PoppyCock]

the spyder should work flawlessly. You do have to choose a manual white point though. Wait 30min before calibrating to let your screen warm up. Also get a huey pro. They are cheaper and work better IMHO.

[4personnen]

I cannot choose any white point, any black, any contrast and so on...with the software provided with the box (it's an old product though). So I launch the software and let the device read the coloured squares.

I love the "get a Huey pro", so easy... (doesn't help to understand the problem, does it?)...I you have read my first post properly, you'll know that nothing can beat my stuff...

just teasing....

[Tony W]

Have you checked for any software updates from Datacolor? The reason I ask is that I use a Spyder 2 and some updates have been issued. No idea if this will help but from Datacolor site:

http://support.datacolor.com/index.p...emid=104&nav=0

Installer for Spyder2express 2.3.6
Requirements: Spyder2express sensor

Operating System Support
32-bit and 64-bit versions of: XP and Vista

Features:
There are no new features in this update.

If you are currently running 2.2 then do not install this update.

If you are running Windows XP x64 or Vista x64 and you purchased the retail product that does not include 64 bit support then please download and install this version.

If you previously updated to 2.3.5 and then encountered a color cast when calibrating an LCD monitor then install this update.

Fixes:
Added 64-bit Spyder driver to support Windows 64-bit systems.

[4personnen]

Thqnk you very much, I hope that'll help!

[4personnen]

So now, thank you all, I think I got the clue...

Something in my initial sets up weren't good (though I had reset the standard values, but I think I forgot one from the Nvidia software) and I made again the calibration, and figured out that I had a problem with the device doesn't stick properly to the screen (The display is not thick enough to fit the "hanger") so I had to hold it all over the process to make it fit. Now it's far better. I also checked my colour profiles assignments in PS and I think I got one or two issues that I need to sort out...

So I thank you all for all your help and ideas...
Because it was really a pain....