Monitor callibration

ThOnda

Yes - I have to print some pictures.
And here comes the question about callibration my display. I am ready to spend a lot of my lazy time working on the pictures, however I would like to achieve some ballanced tonality and colours.
What could you recommend to me, your callibrated displays included?

CraggyIslander

hmm, well I splashed out on the GretagMcBeth Eye2one yoke to calibrate the sRGB profile for my samsung flatscreen (main monitor) and 2 laptop screens. Still need to tweak the brightness of images before sending em to photobox.ie (which uses sRGB) or they get printed bit dull or darker than intended.

That's just printing tho, the calibration across the screens is perfect....... no shades of grey, green or blue to mark a difference

Borderfox

Thonda I got a shot printed out and calibrated my monitor accordingly.

ThOnda

So I could print that phtotobookes test file and adjust my monitor according to it. Good thinking! I'll do that tomorrow!

rockbeer

You might find this useful

Borderfox

Its cheap and cheerful but I get all my stuff printed in the same place so if one is right then more or less they all will be, and so far it has worked for me.

JMcL

I got the EyeOne Display2 from Colour Confidence a while back and it does a great job. They've got a bunch of solutions at all sorts of prices (usually quite good on the price front), and have fairly frequent free shipping offers.

If you don't want to go to the expense of a hardware solution, try Adobe Gamma (installed with Photoshop), or QuickGamma, which does the same thing. These are better than nothing, but I did find a big difference when I installed the EyeOne after having used QuickGamma, mainly colour cast related

leinsterman

I got the Pantone Huey Pro for about UKSTG 70 at Photofest earlier this year ... it does the job well enough to keep me happy ... the colours are generally spot on between my printer, the web and screen ...

rahtkennades

I wonder, is it possible to bodge some device using a webcam or similar and software for monitor calibration? I suppose it would need a known standard light-source for calibration of the printer, but if it's possible, has anybody come across such a thing?

rahtkennades

rahtkennades wrote:

I wonder, is it possible to bodge some device using a webcam or similar and software for monitor calibration? I suppose it would need a known standard light-source for calibration of the printer, but if it's possible, has anybody come across such a thing?

Well, I did a search and found this: http://tomyeah.com/monitor-color-calibration-for-free-using-your-dslr/
It sounds plausible, but I'm not entirely sure. Anybody got any opinions on this?

JMcL

rahtkennades wrote:

Well, I did a search and found this: http://tomyeah.com/monitor-color-calibration-for-free-using-your-dslr/
It sounds plausible, but I'm not entirely sure. Anybody got any opinions on this?

Bloody hell, that sounds like a lot of work! I'd guess it'd give you a result better than the gamma methods, but not as accurate as a true colourimeter. This sounds like it would equate to about half the calibration process with the EyeOne which get the native white point set. The rest of the calibration process involves the software making adjustments to the LUT tables of the video driver to get 100% accurate colour.

Stephen

Pixmania are doing a special on the Pantone Huey at the moment. €100.
http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/189249/art/pantone/huey-calibration-kit.html?tag=mail_ie_uk_2007-08-15_17410&srcid=3666

ThOnda

Out of my budget.
I'll try my best meanwhile.
I was thinking about some variants of tonality, than make a cut from some cruical parts of the image, make a picture from it and print it. And after seeing the print, choose the roght tonality.
Sounds pretty complicated :-(

DaireQuinlan

I did mine by hand using a couple of different calibration tools I downloaded from the net (similar to Adobe gamma). I forget what they were called. I'm reasonably happy with it. Honestly, I think 90% of it can be done with one of those free tools just be eyeballing the results. If you're worried about the final 10% then you're going to have to shell out for one of those calibration devices. I get prints from photobox and my monitor and the prints match up well enough in terms of colour and contrast for me to be happy.

Fionn

i tried doing it by eye but apparently my eye isn't what it used to be so eventually i had to stump up and get a Spyder thing - it does exactly what is says on the box

Roen

JMcL wrote:

I got the EyeOne Display2 from Colour Confidence a while back and it does a great job. They've got a bunch of solutions at all sorts of prices (usually quite good on the price front), and have fairly frequent free shipping offers.

If you don't want to go to the expense of a hardware solution, try Adobe Gamma (installed with Photoshop), or QuickGamma, which does the same thing. These are better than nothing, but I did find a big difference when I installed the EyeOne after having used QuickGamma, mainly colour cast related

You might be getting a call sometime soon...got a new monitor on the way

JMcL

Roen wrote:

You might be getting a call sometime soon...got a new monitor on the way

No problemo, anytime!

Fenster

We picked up a used Spyder 2 on Ebay for $40 - worked an absolute charm.

mathias

The inevitable has happened to my Spyder 2 ,
The Unit was working fine till last calibration time , and now it calibrates and leaves a red hue over everything ,

Looks like the calibrator needs calibrating ! It had to happen eventually I suppose.