Which monitor I should trust?

[workharder]

Hi Folks,

I'm using Dell U2711 calibrated with Spyder color, one thing that make me confuse is because my work seems very different when I open it in different computer, but in other hands, people works still fine when I open in Dell or other monitor.

I already happy with the color and gradation when I retouch, but when I open in other computer it looks terrible... But the bizarre thing, it doesnt happen with people work that I grab from webs, it looks different but still look nice when I open in Dell or any monitor.

Which monitor that I should trust?
And one thing, I think clients are using standard monitor (uncalibrated) so it really confused me...

Please help

[DJSoulglo]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Trust the calibrated monitor. And the printed proof. You can't control what other people are looking at, just what you do.

[skoobey]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Even two calibrated monitors have differences between them, calibration only means they are as true as they can be. You should trust the monitor you're working on, and U2711 is a decent one, when calibrated there is no reason to go opening your work on bunch of bad displays just to ensure compatibility.

About, other's people work looking great everywhere... well... that's just never the case. It always looks like original+whatever the way monitor displays it.

So, if some laptop screen is very blue, all the things are gonna look more blue, and if some cheap desktop has algorithm to saturate the reds, it will saturate the reds in everything it displays.

Trust your monitor and remember: if you can't achieve the color you want, it's because the tone is off.

[Tony W]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

AFAIK the Dell is a wide gamut monitor. If so it is close to Adobe RGB. Images viewed by others are likely to be on screens closer to sRGB therefore unless the viewing application understands the differences and can compensate this may be the reason you are seeing poor images on other systems. If your workflow is already sRGB centric then differences should be much less but is so dependent on users viewing conditions as others have stated Some wide gamut monitors have the option to switch to sRGB, if yours does what changes do you see?

What happens if you Convert to Profile a copy of your images to sRGB and view on other monitors - assuming that you are going to be viewing via a colour managed application and colour management is turned on.

EDIT: You say calibrated monitor with Spyder which version? Prior to Spyder 3 there was no support for Wide gamut monitors so a calibration would be suspect in this case

[workharder]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Okay guys. Thanx for the input.

But how about online portfolio, how can it be decent in every monitors?

[Isedo]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Trust the calibrated as said above. Be sure to use the monitor in the same or similar light setting as it was when calibrated. The light is different by night and by day.

[Tony W]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

But how about online portfolio, how can it be decent in every monitors?

It cannot be as once it has left your hands you have zero control over users viewing conditions.

You cannot trust your monitor calibration until such time as you have proved that the calibration and profile produced is correct for the conditions you are working in and this will still not guarantee that others will see the same as you.

Read this http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...too_dark.shtml

[Isedo]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

You can try to make the situation better saving the color profile in your images and HOPE that the final user has the color management in their new version of browser turned on. But still...to many variables inside this process. There is no 100% accuracy.

[workharder]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Thank you guys, I will trust mine

I know it never be the same in every monitors, but I just wondering how people work is still look nice even when I open it on my phone, or at least it doesnt make me surprised with the differences.

[Isedo]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Imagine you are shooting in Adobe Rgb, working with an Eizo Rgb and sending that file to a client with an Acer which is far away from what a calibrated monitor is. No way he can see the right colors.

The best thing is to show a print or the file from your computer. If this is not possible just tell the client what kind of problems he can expect.
On the other side I have to say that most of the mobile devices as iPhone and iPad deliver a quite good quality images and color similarity to the original image.

I usually "test" my images in iPhone or iPad because most of the clients see then on these devices in these days.

There us nothing you can do when a client have that nice bluish color cast from not calibrated monitor.

[andrewrodney]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

You should trust a calibrated display but not all displays are correctly calibrated! All those possible settings for backlight intensity, white point, they play a huge role. Which one is correct? The one that matches the print next to the display. And the same settings that produce that match with your Dell, will likely not produce a match on my SpectraView using vastly different software and instrument. Even the same software product driven with two different instruments but set to the same calibration will likely produce different results.

This should clear up what you need to do to ensure YOUR display is properly calibrated:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...too_dark.shtml

And if you want other's in your group to see what you see, they too need to use the same reference system ideally: same display, puck, settings, control over environmental conditions near the display and as important, print viewing conditions.

[Aladdin]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Hi Folks,
But the bizarre thing, it doesn't happen with people work that I grab from webs, it looks different but still look nice when I open in Dell or any monitor.

I had this issue years back, what you see on the web, was saved under Photoshop using "Save for Web" command under the File menu. Save for web, not only compress removes extra info, it saves it "really" for web viewing, meaning, sRGB. Try it.

Don't even attempt to do it yourself by converting to or assigning sRGB, let Save For Web deal with it.

[andrewrodney]

Re: Which monitor I should trust?

Assigning sRGB would indeed be a bad idea if the data isn't in sRGB. But converting should provide the same functionality, as far as color is concerned as Save for Web. And if the web browser isn't color managed, sRGB isn't a guarantee the color will appear correctly, on your system. Impossible to know what the image will look like on other's systems without going there and actually looking at the display.