On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:12 AM, John Hermanson <omtech1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I'm wondering what monitor calibration tool people are using or what
> they are happy / unhappy with.
Funny you should ask. My CRT at home has deteriorated and my device,
an old ColorVision/PhotoCal pre-Spyder thingie, is supposedly suited
only for CRT-type monitors. I substituted an older Dell LCD monitor I
have and worked with the web site that C.H.Ling posted a few weeks ago
to see how good it is. It's not great, but it is close. I used it to
make some adjustments, but that site is really more for determining
whether a monitor is in the ballpark before purchasing. My next
thought was, "Golly, now that I've got this monitor that is worth next
nothing in place, should I spend $300+ to get the equipment and
software to calibrate and profile it?" I decided just to see if I
could get my old pre-Spyder device to work? I mean, why shouldn't it?
Color is color, right?
While I was running the profiling software, I was asked whether the
monitor was CRT or LCD. I thought, "Wonderful, I CAN use this for
this monitor," but when I selected "LCD" it said "This device doesn't
work with LCD monitors." So I lied to it and said it was a CRT and it
took off doing its thing.
My belief is that it "won't work" with LCDs only because you would
destroy your screen if you tried to attach it with the rather large
suction cups. I just held the thing in place when it needed to take
measurements, and it worked fine. It instructed me to make huge
changes in the RGB "guns" and once I had done so I had good color.
It's subpar as far as luminance goes, but since the price was nothing,
I will hold out until I sort out which new monitor I really want. But
I don't think I will buy a new Spyder thingie.
It seems to me that the lion's share of the profiling task is done
through achieving an appropriate balance of RGB, contrast, and
brightness. These are, on any sort of decent monitor, physical
settings on the monitor itself. I have a new Dell widescreen at work
which I just hated beyond measure until I found the RGB guns and went
to work getting a decent color balance on a couple photos I was
familiar with. Getting a natural-looking blue sky is a good place to
start; also skin tones. A gray scale is helpful too. On an
over-saturated monitor some of the grays will look a bit pink and some
a bit green. Pull those down so the grayscale looks really gray and
you've probably gotten your monitor closer to calibrated settings.
Adjust contrast and brightness to get the evenest distribution of
values on the grayscale and you help yourself out a lot too.
I have a Huey at work. It was not worth a darn with this monitor
before, but now that I am strictly on the RGB guns, I may try it
again. The monitor itself just had too many options in play. One
thing I don't like about the Huey is that it also offers too many
options -- cool, warm, suitable for the web, graphics, etc. I want
only one thing: faithful color and correct luminance (OK, that's two
things). I'm a little unsure what to select with the Huey that it
totally neutral.
I may just bring in my old PhotoCal proto-Spyder and see what it can
do. Now that I've got this monitor in the ballpark, I appreciate it
and enjoy it and that's using nothing but my tired old eyes to get it
tuned up. But it may now be that the Huey will provide that last bit
of refinement too.
In any case, even the old made-for-CRT type spectrometers seem to work
with LCD monitors, as long as you don't mind holding them to the
screen while they are working and don't let the suction cups attach.
Joel W.
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