Monitor calibration

311

My monitor is off colour ,I printed off images a while ago and they were dark.
Is there anyway of doing a simple calibration at home ,I was thinking of taking a photo of a few items around the house and then compare them to the monitor.
Is there any simple way of improving the quality?

aFlabbyPanda

this thread has a link to an exe which helps you calibrate the monitor. there is also a guy in the services section that does this for you using a spyder I think.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054941623&referrerid=59211&highlight=calibration

DotOrg

you take some pictures, get them printed, (you've already done this part) then adjust your monitor till your monitor looks like the prints.

then, any pictures you edit and get printed out, will look like what you saw on your monitor, easy.

311

I might have to get the service guy thanks brian ,Dotorg the prints I got done were darker so I can't use them as a guide

The reason I asked the question again is on the off chance someone has come up with an easy solution, I've not started to use photoshop yet .But I am going to have to start now and I want to try and have the monitor right.

Thanks
Brian.

real_484

I am only starting to figure some of this stuff out, i think one of the ways around this is to load an ICC profile from the printer and then use this to adjust your photo's in photoshop. I am hoping this is automatic. I am still reading up how to do this.
I think another way is to use a test print from your printer and then use this to calibrate your monitor.

Roen

@ BrianjG, how did the colour spyder thing work out?
I couldn't find that lad in the services section though.

real_484

there was a review in digital photo august addition, reviewed colourvison plus, spyder2, pantone huey, for colur calibration it suggested the adobe gamma gave as good results.
On the free cd there was calibrate guide pdf. tried to upload it but too big so just a jpeg of it. hope it can be read

311

thanks 484 .

tab126

I did the whole calibration thing a while ago, but because I only had LCD's and my dirt-cheap online printer didn't provide profiles, it wasn't 100% right (it did help slightly, though).

You need to build an ICC profile for your monitor using one of those things that attaches to it and reads colors. It doesn't really matter how your monitor is adjusted, though it would help to see as many shades as possible. Go to http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos350d/ and scroll to the bottom for a set of greyscale colors you can use to adjust.

Okay - now you have your monitor's ICC profile built. Go download the ICC profile from your printer of the printer(s) you'll be using. Better print shops have these (I'm not being elitist - print shops that have them are generally too expensive for me to use). Install these (I think your monitor one goes in a Windows system dir and the printers go in some specific photoshop directory -- I found it on google when i did it).

Now, when you go into photoshop, go into the "view" menu, "proof setup" and choose one of the profiles in at the bottom of the list (the ones you installed). That will do the math of converting what you see on screen to what will be printed by the printer (soft proofing). People say to keep it in "your color" until the end, then soft proof it and tweak the color so that it matches what you want. Easy way to do that is duplicate the image, soft proof one, then make it match the "your color" original.

For me, it was loads of work, and the printer was ususally "close enough." So I don't do it anymore.

Redundo

I had a post up here earlier, but for some reason it doesn't look like it survived. Not sure why.

Anyway, I agree with tab126. Colour profiling is a lot of work for very little reward, my humble opinion on the matter is that unless you need profiling for professional reasons - don't bother with it.

Sometimes 'close' is good enough.

JMcL

I've used Quickgamma, with OK results, as in what I get back from the printers (in this case Foto.com) looks pretty much like what I have on screen. The real problem with this, and Adobe gamma, is that they're both subjective, and you'll get different results depending on ambient light, how tired your eyes are etc, but they're better than nothing. At the end of the day, I really want to get my hands on a hardware calibrator. These are becoming quite reasonable price-wise with the Pantone Huey, and Spyder 2 basic version (Express?) coming in under £60

tab126

A more expensive photo-development business actually let me borrow theirs for free (they took my credit card number just in case). My reds were still a bit off, though. All of the work mentioned above and my bright reds turned out a deep magenta. I'll blame it on the LCD...

Roen

I posted this up a while ago, it's one of Microsofts power toys for windows xp.
It basically installs an applet into your control panel to allow for easy control of colour profiles.
Grab it here.