I want to buy a monitor calibrator but not sure what to get

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As above I am interested in getting a calibrator. I have a 24 inch Samsung tv screen as my main viewing monitor + a little basic 15 inch del screen on my XP PC. Also I have a Dell Latitude E4300 laptop with win 7 running.

Would this be a decent choice ? X-Rite ColorMunki Smile LCD Monitor Colour Calibrator

Any recommendations appreciated as its all new to me.
 
Bump it to the top as i am just about to spend some money on this calibrator. Good idea or should I look else where ?
 
Sorry, not used that one but use a spyder3pro with both win 7 and osx and am happy with it.
 
I just recalibrated my 3 monitor setup this morning. X-Rite Color Munki Display did it all in about 15 mins. Never had a problem with it.

Smile appears to be half the price. Not sure why. If in doubt, I'd ring Colour Confidence and ask them. They usually give good advice.
 
i think youll need a device that can calibrate TV screens as they run a different colour profile to regular monitors.

@arad85 knows. i'll tag him here and he can explain hopefully.

Be interesting to hear what arad85 says. Colormunki Smile looks just the job for £60-ish, really easy http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colormunki-X-Rite-Smile-Monitor-Calibrator/dp/B009APMNB0/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1385558030&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=colormunki smile but while Amazon reviews are hardly definitive, there do seem to be a few problems getting it to work with all systems. Have they've sorted all that now? And if you don't like the brightness/contrast, there's no further adjustment with Smile. Good review here http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/profiling/colormunki_smile.html
 
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Oo... eer.. I've been mentioned in dispatches... (!)

It depends on what you are trying to calibrate. Display systems use different technologies - but essentially any LCD screen is the the same basic technology as any other - there's a light behind some pixels that can vary their brightness to give you the user an impression of colour. The problem for calibration comes with what is lighting the screen. Fundamentally, you can only display a colour that is available in the light that is backlighting (for an LCD) so what is important for calibrating an LCD is what is actually creating the backlight. There's two main choices: CCFL (fluorescent light) and LED backlight. They each have different characteristics and what you need to ensure is that your chosen calibrator is capable of covering the colourspace the panel can display. As long as you have that, you're OK - at least from the basic hardware point of view. Having said that and guessing that the Sammy is probably an LCD, you should be OK with any colour calibrator for it - TVs unless esoteric - tend to be "standard". Personally, I use x-rite, but I'm sure Spyder will be OK too.

Although £60-£200 may seem expensive for a sensor, once you understand what you are doing, you tend to calibrate each and every screen you use. I use my i1 to calibrate my TVs as well as all screens here (and in work!)

Not sure if that answers your questions...
 
i think youll need a device that can calibrate TV screens as they run a different colour profile to regular monitors.

@arad85 knows. i'll tag him here and he can explain hopefully.

It will run under whatever profile is created by the calibrator, as it's software profiling... the profile is applied to the graphics card's LUT, not the TVs. Technically, on most monitors and TVs, you're calibrating your video card's output to display properly on the screen, not the screen itself. Only high end stuff allows you to actually calibrate the screen's LUT. Strangely, the Dell U2413 does as well though... but only with the i1 Display Pro colorimeter.

Neil has a point though... a lot of TVs apply a great deal of colour processing, and contrast control that will be fighting against the calibrator. If dynamic contrast can not be disabled on your TV for instance, it will constantly be trying to adjust this as the gamma curve is manipulated by the calibrator's software. They may be fighting one another. Turn ALL processing or presets off on your TV... all of it.

It depends on what you are trying to calibrate. Display systems use different technologies - but essentially any LCD screen is the the same basic technology as any other - there's a light behind some pixels that can vary their brightness to give you the user an impression of colour. The problem for calibration comes with what is lighting the screen. Fundamentally, you can only display a colour that is available in the light that is backlighting (for an LCD) so what is important for calibrating an LCD is what is actually creating the backlight. There's two main choices: CCFL (fluorescent light) and LED backlight. They each have different characteristics and what you need to ensure is that your chosen calibrator is capable of covering the colourspace the panel can display.

It's a TV....and as it's a 24", probably not a high end TV: it's gamut will be quite narrow. Spyder4, i1 Display Pro, Colormunki... all the usual suspects will calibrate to and beyond Adobe RGB, so a TV is well within their capabilities. Even if it uses cold cathode lighting, it will still be easily within the scope of any of those three. There's provision in the software for the colormunki and i1 to profile TVs and projectors. In fact, in the i1 software, it doesn't even differentiate between TVs or monitors. It just asks whether it's a wide gamut LCD screen or not.

For the money, my choice is X-rite Colormunki. Simple, effective software, and works well, and good price. Just remember to turn OFF the setting to adjust the screen to ambient light conditions.

I have to say at this juncture though.... most TVs are pretty rough in comparison with a decent monitor. They're designed for maximum contrast (often at the expense of subtle and accurate colour rendition), and have all manner of processing to deliver smooth movement etc... things that, in short, are not really important to a decent display designed for photographic work. Go in your TV's menus and turn off all processing... sharpness, dynamic contrast, colour presets.. anything you can find before you try to calibrate it. If the TV is adding all this crap, it's just giving the calibrator and software more work to do as they will be trying to lower contrast, and fight against colour processing... as you're at 8bit level here, the less the colour, gamma and luminance needs to be adjusted the cleaner the output. Heavy adjustments at 8bit GPU level (which you'll be at) will result in banding in subtle colour gradients.
 
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It will run under whatever profile is created by the calibrator, as it's software profiling... the profile is applied to the graphics card's LUT, not the TVs. Technically, on cheap monitors and TVs, you're calibrating your video card's output to display properly on the screen, not the screen itself.



It's a TV.... it's gamut will be quite narrow. Spyder4, i1 Display Pro, Colormunki... all the usual suspects will calibrate to and beyond Adobe RGB, so a TV is well within their capabilities. Even if it uses cold cathode lighting, it will still be easily within the scope of any of those three. There's provision in the software for the colormunki and i1 to profile TVs and projectors. In fact, in the i1 software, it doesn't even differentiate between TVs or monitors. It just asks whether it's a wide gamut screen or not.

For the money, my choice is X-rite Colormunki. Simple, effective software, and works well. Just remember to turn OFF the setting to adjust the screen to ambient light conditions.
No I get that, there was just something in the back of my mind about tv displays being different to work on but couldn't remember what
 
I know Neil... I edited my post.... I think I picked up on what you may mean. Go back and have a read.
 
there was just something in the back of my mind about tv displays being different to work on but couldn't remember what
There's also the fact that TV signal range is 16-235, PC signals range is 0-255. You have to be sure your TV selects the right range for display too... They SHOULD do, but that doesn't mean it does.
 
I'm going to be no help here but I'm watching with interest myself. I had a 2 monitor set up (both different monitors) and the colour difference between the two of them was massive. I didn't know about all this calibrating stuff till today, so I'm going to set my two monitors back up and have a look into doing this myself. The Monitor I'm using as my main one is an old 24" HP one with contrast ratio of 3k, but it shows more of a "proper" look than my other monitor which is an LED one with contrast ratio of 50,000,000... I don't understand it but everyone prefers the look of the HP one lol.
 
There's also the fact that TV signal range is 16-235, PC signals range is 0-255. You have to be sure your TV selects the right range for display too... They SHOULD do, but that doesn't mean it does.

Any TV made in the past few years will rescale... Kind of a given these days when most TVs play host to blue ray, computers, games consoles etc.. They've become the entertainment hub of the whole house, and as such are designed for data as well. It would have to be a properly crap TV not to... in which case, don't use it as a monitor. :)

I'm going to be no help here but I'm watching with interest myself. I had a 2 monitor set up (both different monitors) and the colour difference between the two of them was massive. I didn't know about all this calibrating stuff till today, so I'm going to set my two monitors back up and have a look into doing this myself. The Monitor I'm using as my main one is an old 24" HP one with contrast ratio of 3k, but it shows more of a "proper" look than my other monitor which is an LED one with contrast ratio of 50,000,000... I don't understand it but everyone prefers the look of the HP one lol.

It most certainly does NOT have a contrast ration of FIFTY MILLION TO ONE!... These manufacturer's claims are just getting stupid now. It's massively unlikely your HP monitor is 3K:1 either... nor should it. Once calibrated, ideally a decent screen should be around 650:1.

Here's a report from colour navigator for my Eizo CG303... and it holds contrast around 650 despite the screen being capable of more.

hHB9O8T.jpg


50,000,000:1 is beyond the ability to see with the human by large orders of magnitude :)
 
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Absolutely fantastic stuff David. BIG thanks. You said you would recommend the X-rite Colormunki is the smile version ok? Its pretty cheap compared to the others
 
Any TV made in the past few years will rescale... Kind of a given these days when most TVs play host to blue ray, computers, games consoles etc.. They've become the entertainment hub of the whole house, and as such are designed for data as well. It would have to be a properly crap TV not to... in which case, don't use it as a monitor. :)



It most certainly does NOT have a contrast ration of FIFTY MILLION TO ONE!... These manufacturer's claims are just getting stupid now. It's massively unlikely your HP monitor is 3K:1 either... nor should it. Once calibrated, ideally a decent screen should be around 650:1.

Here's a report from colour navigator for my Eizo CG303... and it holds contrast around 650 despite the screen being capable of more.

hHB9O8T.jpg


50,000,000:1 is beyond the ability to see with the human by large orders of magnitude :)


Lol it's all just numbers on the box to me. All I know is that they look crap side by side. I am wanting to read up on this sort of stuff though to get a better understanding about it. I don't want my pictures looking different on my computer than it does to everyone else and knowing that my monitor should be running better, well...I must do it lol
 
It's the only way to have confidence that your images are correct. It's no guarantee that your images will appear correct on other people's screens though. They'll appear correct if they also have a well calibrated screen, yes... but if not, they may still see it wrong. However, it gives you confidence that it's THEIR fault, not yours. You know your images are correct.
 
colormunki is spot on, i have used one for the last 4 years and its probably the last thing I would sell. i think the one I have is the colormunki photo...its expensive but worth the cost in the the amount of paper ive saved. More importantly it can be used to calibrate the full workflow...
 
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Presumably a TV will have a Rec.709 gamut and a monitor something larger.

50M to 1 would allow you to see stars and the tropical sun on one screen simultaneously.
 
Any TV made in the past few years will rescale... Kind of a given these days when most TVs play host to blue ray, computers, games consoles etc..
The problem is that if the chip at the end of the wire detects the wrong signal - and sometimes they do when they don't play friendly - you will get blacks crushed or grey blacks, depending on how the TV sees it. Although it doesn't happen often, I have seen it happen....
 
Presumably a TV will have a Rec.709 gamut and a monitor something larger.


It's not the size that may cause a problem... it's the gamma curve, as rec.709 darkens shadows considerably to hide noise. The gamut width is pretty much similar though between sRGB and rec.709. Also... If it's calibrated, the computer's output will be calibrated to tune the rec.709 gamma curve out anyway. When you calibrate a TV, you're actually calibrating the GPU in the computer delivering the signal.

In reality, most HD TVs aren't actually calibrated to rec.709 at all. rec.709 is a camera transfer curve. Also the two (sRGB and Rec.709) are so close it's not really anything worth worrying about. The differences in colour and gamma will be so minimal you'd hardly notice with a side by side comparison, never mind with only the TV itself as reference.

I must say... we're heading into pedantry here. IMO.. using a TV as a computer monitor is a really rubbish thing to do anyway :)
 
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