Screen Calibration

russ85

russ85

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Screen Calibration



I have finally got a colourMunki after 2 failed attempts at printing. They came back too dark. Printer's thought my files were 0.5 Stop too dark and screen calibration would sort this out.



However with the colourMunki my screen is pretty dark and has a sight brown/yellow tint. Ive read that its normal for people to notice this after Calibration when there've been used to an un-calibrated, over bright screen. My worry is now that my online photos will look too bright to most people, since most people (and customers) will not have a calibrated screen.



Now with my calibrated screen I adjusted a few files, then viewed them on my un-calibrated laptop. They did look a bit bright but my laptop is normally on its brightest setting so Im not sure this is a fair test.



What have others experiences been with calibration?
 
No problems here. I use the spyder 3 with a Dell 2209wa.

Which monitor do you have? Is it an ips panel one?
 
Screen brightness setting is not an absolute. It should reflect the brightness of your viewing conditions. Now if you believe the screen is too dark then you should increase the brightness level. I don't use the Colormonki but the i1display. which comes from te same stable. I would suggest you look at the brightness level that the Colormonki has set. This can be anywhere from 80 Cd/M2 to 140 Cd/M2, but by default I think it's 120Cd/M2

What you now need to do is set the brightness of the screen so that it matches those of the prints. If it's any help my iMac is set to 115 Cd/m2 so don't worry if you have a different figure to the default . Under some conditions in the past I've had my monitor as high as 135 Cd/m2. When you have a good match re appraise the images on your laptop. Are they better? You will always have a problem with different viewing situations.

Laptops , and desktops straight out of the box are normally far too bright and somewhat blue in colour. Plus you now have tablets to contend with. I would suggest you get your in house operation correct, because you are not going to be able to cater for everyone's different viewing conditions
 
foryx.jpg


28asugw.jpg
 
Not a great deal of difference between images here for me. Un-calibrated is darker. Not a great test image as it's subjective: It looks good in both. Try a portrait where there are things that are expected to be certain brightness levels like skin etc.

If your un-calibrated prints were coming back dark, than that would indicate your un-calibrated screen was to bright, which is backed up by these images. Being too bright, you'll be adjusting your images darker to compensate.


Edit a portrait on your calibrated screen so it looks perfect to you. Also.. edit something with a neutral grey in it so that it looks perfectly grey to you. Post them up and lets see how they look.

Chances are though, you#'re worrying about nothing. Sounds to me like your screen was too bright, and too cold, and you just got used to it, so now it seems too warm and too dark.

What settings did you calibrate too though? What white point temp and luminance?

Generally, monitors are calibrated to 6500K or D65 white point, and between 100 and 120 mcd/m2


Don't forget that if you're using a laptop, you need to be square on to the screen unless it has a really great panel in it. Most laptops don't... even most expensive ones.
 
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This was one I was having problems with. Kept coming back too dark.


o0uudt.jpg


2m2xl3c.jpg
 
to me (macbook pro) un-calibrated image look darker, calibrated looks now like a bit overexposed
 
It's a very contrasty image, and I think either version would be difficult to print to be honest. Calibrated image is too light here for me. This doesn't mean your calibrator is wrong though... after all, you're making decisions here... so despite having a calibrated screen, you can still make an image that's too light or too dark, as you are deciding.
 
Are you using a print/paper profile ? what program are you editing in
H
 
Ive been outputing them as sRGB (as this is what the print Lab asked for). Lightroom is my main editing package.
 
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