Photo Editing set-up - Monitor Calabration Wows - Help Please

[hitch]

I am having problems calibrating my PC monitor which is a Grundig Vision 26 LW 68-8510 TOP LCD TV.

I have an eye-one display 2 to calibrate the monitor/TV and endeavoring to calibrate to Eric Chan's recommendations.

The Problem - Eric recommends setting calibration target luminance at 100cd/m2 however best I can achieve on this monitor with brightness control reduced to zero is 240cd/m2 - a hugh difference.

The result is that prints produced on my Epson 3800 printer are much darker (useless) than the image appears on the monitor despite all other aspects of the calibration being fine.

Can anyone help?

Do I have any options other than purchasing another more specialised photo editing monitor?

If new monitor purchase is the only option what suggestions for quality photo editing around the 26" size.

Any assistance will be much appreciated.

Regards

[Master Splinter]

Most LCD screens aren't the best when it comes to photo work - they (unless you are paying top dollar...and by that I mean http://www.eizo.com/ - will cost you about $4k ) tend to use the cheaper type of twisted nematic screen which doesn't have very good control of crystal rotation at extremes, and there is always a bit of light leakage.

[hitch]

Thanks MS

The Eizo's look terrific but probably hard to justify the $'s for my usage.

I have undertaken a lot of WWW research today and it would seem that I should look for an LCD monitor with S-IPS screen, contrast ratio around 800:1, at least 8 bit gamma and adjustment capability for brightness, contrast and red, green,blue channels.

Would that appear to be correct or are there other important aspects I should also look for. Obviously I'm just a beginner with my understanding of the technology.

Thanks so much for your reply

Regards

[DuncanH]

I think a Dell UltraSharp model such as the 2709W (27") would suit your needs. Very good colour reproduction (110% colour gamut), good brightness and contrast adjustments and guaranteed against dead/bright pixels, all for under a thousand dollars (at the moment at least) :2tsup:

[hitch]

Thanks DuncanH

I have been into the Dell site and the 2709W certainly looks good value for money and a good compromise on an expensive higher end monitor. I will check around some Officeworks stores to see if I can eyeball one.

Thanks for your helpful response

Regards

[wheelinround]

Most LCD screens aren't the best when it comes to photo work - they (unless you are paying top dollar...and by that I mean http://www.eizo.com/ - will cost you about $4k ) tend to use the cheaper type of twisted nematic screen which doesn't have very good control of crystal rotation at extremes, and there is always a bit of light leakage.

I know this to be correct CRT is far better

:? Then why has every camera, laptop, PC got LCD


Hitch Colour management software between what you input with and monitor and out put to is also needed. No matter what monitor you use it will look different on another and printer settings inks etc can effect out put.

I am awaiting the arrival of my new monitor a 22" LG

> > W2242TQ DVI wide $335 - 8000-1 contrast, 300 bright, 2ms, 1680x1050

after my Phillips 17"170C died :roll:

[Waldo]

Correct calibration of your LCD will cost, you could buy it but there are techinicians who will calibrate your screen for you at about $200. To do it yourself with the best equipment you want this http://www.datacolor.eu/en/products/monitor-calibration/spyder3elite/index.html Like wheelin wrote, top line LCD screen cost, my HD LCD is 23" and cost abit over 3 1/2K, but prices have come down since then ad can now be bought for about $2K

Colour accuracy on your printer. First up I'd recommend the Epson Stylus Photo R2880 http://epson.com.au/products/inkjet/stylusphotor2880.asp However, I've been using an Epson Stylus 1290 for the last several years which also gives perfect colour accuracy with A3+ prints. But to get accurate colour I invested in PowerRIPX which cost bickies.

http://www.iproofsystems.com/ which can be had for a PC at $400 US

Last but not least you can calibrate your screen and printer, but if you don't use the right paper - forget it.

For me and what I do colour accuracy from screen to print is paramount, all depends on what you need and what you want to invest.

[hitch]

I know this to be correct CRT is far better

:? Then why has every camera, laptop, PC got LCD


Hitch Colour management software between what you input with and monitor and out put to is also needed. No matter what monitor you use it will look different on another and printer settings inks etc can effect out put.

I am awaiting the arrival of my new monitor a 22" LG

> > W2242TQ DVI wide $335 - 8000-1 contrast, 300 bright, 2ms, 1680x1050

after my Phillips 17"170C died :roll:

Thanks Wheelin

I've got colour management software and a good printer and ICC profiles for the paper I use. I've even done a bit of reading and research and think I know how to use it - at a basic level at least. What I need is a monitor that I can calibrate correctly so that between monitor and print WISIWIG.

I'll have a look at the LG monitors and I hope you enjoy your new purchase.

Thanks for responding

Regards

[hitch]

Correct calibration of your LCD will cost, you could buy it but there are techinicians who will calibrate your screen for you at about $200. To do it yourself with the best equipment you want this http://www.datacolor.eu/en/products/monitor-calibration/spyder3elite/index.html Like wheelin wrote, top line LCD screen cost, my HD LCD is 23" and cost abit over 3 1/2K, but prices have come down since then ad can now be bought for about $2K

Colour accuracy on your printer. First up I'd recommend the Epson Stylus Photo R2880 http://epson.com.au/products/inkjet/stylusphotor2880.asp However, I've been using an Epson Stylus 1290 for the last several years which also gives perfect colour accuracy with A3+ prints. But to get accurate colour I invested in PowerRIPX which cost bickies.

http://www.iproofsystems.com/ which can be had for a PC at $400 US

Last but not least you can calibrate your screen and printer, but if you don't use the right paper - forget it.

For me and what I do colour accuracy from screen to print is paramount, all depends on what you need and what you want to invest.

Hi Waldo and thanks for your response.

I have a good Epson printer - Stylus Pro 3800, ICC profiles and paper - really splashed out!!

The Spyder 3 is a good monitor calibrator and I think pretty much on a par with the eye-one display 2 and Match 3 software that I am using. I can get really good, visually accurate, on screen colour but because I am unable to reduce monitor luminance below 240cd/m2 (against a target of 100cd/m2) images printed on the 3800 are way to dark. So with my current monitor I'm unable to reach a WYSIWYG environment. Today I reduced brightness on my graphics card and achieved luminance much closer to 100cd/m2 but that stuffed the overall on screen appearance.

I don't do this commercially but nonetheless colour accuracy from camera to screen to print is also important to me.

Thanks for your comments and I would be interested to know what monitor you use.

Regards

[Master Splinter]

Dell has a bit of a bait and switch approach with its monitors; the first units on a production run get an IPS or PVA panel, and then at some point (usually when there is a big price drop) they end up with a TN panel. Model numbers remain the same, so you can't tell from that!

Of course, by this time all the reviews are in saying how good it is, so it is still seen as a 'good' monitor.

Even though I have worked professionally in a full colour managed environment, these days I can't give a rats - the calibrator is in a cupboard gathering dust most of the time; a client who can see the difference between a photo taken on a mobile phone and one taken on a Fuji S5 Pro is rare; I'm happy if the client is able to set their monitor resolution correctly so that circles come out as circles not ellipses and the text is sharp rather than a blurry interpolation! (I was amazed at how quickly graphic designers got rid of their good colour rendering CRT screens in favour of the oh-so-sexy looking but colour inferior LCD screens...)

If I had a situation like yours, I'd just print off a copy at 5, 10 and 15% lighter overall and see which one gave better results, and use that as part of my standard correction for that printer.

For 'professional' stuff, I'd make sure that there was a Gretag-Macbeth colour checker swatch photographed at each major change in lighting; that way I could always have a reference for 'true' colour to refer to if needed.

See all the handy proofing files here:
http://www.hutchcolor.com/Images_and_targets.html

:D PROTIP: Spend more time taking pictures, less time OCDing about a 100% faithful WYSIWYG workflow.

[hitch]

Thanks MS for your comments and link to Hutchcolor.

I have tried your suggested approach to printing at a few brightness levels and on the image I used had to increase by 30% to get an almost acceptable result. That approach over time will be very costly in terms of paper and ink usage as well as driving me even more crazy!!

Still looking into an improved monitor solution and currently investigating offerings from Apple. Initial impression is that their monitors would be ok however it would seem that I may have to upgrade/change my graphics card to what appears to be a card specifically designed to support Apple Cinema monitor range. My interest at this time is in the 30' monitor.

Do you have any knowledge or experience with the Cinema 30" or other Apple monitors? I would be installing it in a Windows environment.

Thanks again for your responses

Regards

[Master Splinter]

For the larger monitors (30 inch) you need to drive them with a graphics card with dual DVI outputs - because a single cable doesn't provide the bandwidth needed for the huge amount of data that gets pumped to one of these beasts.

Since you don't need it for gaming, you can get away with a budget card - around $200 should do it...but if gaming is an option, you won't be looking at less than $1,200 for one of the dual GPU versions with at least a gig of memory...anything else will see you in 3 frames per second territory!

Apple's 30 incher is just under $2,800; Dell's is $2,200. If you are looking at spending that sort of money, be aware that you still may not get what you consider decent colour reproduction...and you are only a short price hop away from an Eizo monitor which is designed for accurate colour reproduction.

Have you compared your printer's gamut to the colour space that your pictures are in?
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1170611,00.asp

[Waldo]

Thanks for your comments and I would be interested to know what monitor you use.

Regards

Hitch, my monitor is an Apple HD LCD screen http://www.apple.com/au/displays/cinema/ but you're on a PC :shrug:. If you're just using the Epson driver, then you're only getting 1/2 way to accuracy. You'll need third party RIP software and ideally you should use Epson paper. My prints were too dark until I got the RIP software, since then I haven't looked back as I now get WYSIWYG from screen to paper, sure some Pantone colours aren't 100% accurate, but they're not far off.

Ambient light off your light bulbs also plays a part in screen colour. With CRT screens it was best to be in a room with very little light or have a hood over the screen, same in part with a good LCD screen and it's best if you have one of those daylight bulbs fitted in your lighting.

* I don't know the science behind it or anything like that just what I've leant from professional Photoshop retouchers and I've adjusted light conditions, screen settings, which ICC profile to use for colour output (the wrong one and also too the wrong RGB mode can significantly destroy screen colour) etc. to achieve accurate colour.

I don't know how monitor calibration works on PCs, on a Mac there is a series of tests to go through to achieve and set correct native and white point and target gammas.

Apples HD Cinema displays are designed and achieve accurate colour, they're designed for an industry where colour is paramount. I've heard of Elizo monitors, but not seen them, but to shrug off Cinema displays given their use in the industry for the reason they're used is unwarranted.

[Waldo]

Since you don't need it for gaming, you can get away with a budget card - around $200 should do it...but if gaming is an option, you won't be looking at less than $1,200 for one of the dual GPU versions with at least a gig of memory...anything else will see you in 3 frames per second territory!

But also if you're doing graphic intensive work ala in Photoshop which might be apply in your case, you get what you pay for - you don't want to invest in screens etc. to be let down by a dodgy 2¢ card.

[hitch]

For the larger monitors (30 inch) you need to drive them with a graphics card with dual DVI outputs - because a single cable doesn't provide the bandwidth needed for the huge amount of data that gets pumped to one of these beasts.

Since you don't need it for gaming, you can get away with a budget card - around $200 should do it...but if gaming is an option, you won't be looking at less than $1,200 for one of the dual GPU versions with at least a gig of memory...anything else will see you in 3 frames per second territory!

Apple's 30 incher is just under $2,800; Dell's is $2,200. If you are looking at spending that sort of money, be aware that you still may not get what you consider decent colour reproduction...and you are only a short price hop away from an Eizo monitor which is designed for accurate colour reproduction.

Have you compared your printer's gamut to the colour space that your pictures are in?
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1170611,00.asp

G'day MS

I'm really lost when it comes to graphics cards and I guess it hasn't been of particular interest to me up to now as I am not into gaming. Nonetheless I think my current card would probably be considered as a not to bad middle of the road card. My son drives Flight Simulator Deluxe Edition satisfactorily with it. Please tell me if I am wrong. It's a 256MB PCIe x 16 NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS with TV-Out and dual DVI. Problem is I'm not sure how that shapes up against the three card options Apple says is required to run the Cinema 30. eg GeForce 6800 GT DDL. Guess I'll have to ask Apple!

As far as cost is concerned I believe an Education discount is currently available on the Cinema 30 and I just so happen to have a Uni student in the family. An Eizo monitor would be fantastic but out of the question $ wise - gotta have some dough left for woodworking tools and machinery. An Eizo Color Edge 24" $3749 and 30" $6450.

Thanks for the Extremetech link and I will look closely at it. My aim is to work in the RGB colour space from camera to printer and I understand the 3800 printer will have no problem with that.

Regards

[hitch]

Hi Waldo

Thanks for your further input. I will go tomorrow (hopefully) to my local Apple store to discuss the Cinema 30/ PC / graphic card issues.

From your description the monitor calibration process on PC is the same as Mac.

Thanks for the tips re ambient light and I will have to pay more attention to it. The eye-one measures ambient light as part of the "advanced" calibration process but I will have to read up more on what the measurement outcome means and how it affects the calibration - if it does.

Will post the outcome of my trip to talk with Apple

Regards

[Master Splinter]

But also if you're doing graphic intensive work ala in Photoshop which might be apply in your case, you get what you pay for - you don't want to invest in screens etc. to be let down by a dodgy 2¢ card.


Photoshop is a trivial application when it comes to graphics card grunt; basically, its load on a card is:

'Here's some pixels; colour 'em, thanks. No real hurry.'

Compared to the average game that asks:

'Here's a 3D vector wireframe...I'd like it if you could create an occlusion model to exclude sides of the wireframe which are hidden, convert the wireframe to a bitmap, map a series of photos onto the visible bitmap coordinates while allowing for 3D distortion (reference the original 3D wireframe), then apply a bump map to the bitmap to create the illusion of texture so that lighting reflections/3D ray tracing look sorta natural (oh, you have to do the ray tracing too!), then add an extra texture/damage layer make it look even more real...and then can you anti-alias the jaggy edges to nice smooth edges...thanks. Ummmm - this needs to be done 60 times a second and your photo files will be around 100 megabytes per frame, and could you cache a few frames ahead so we don't get screen tearing....ok??"

As long as you have dual DVI outputs on the card, you can drive a 30 inch screen. (My screen is running from an Nvidia 7600 which is the 'budget' version of the 7900 - it happily runs a 24 inch and a 19 inch screen at the same time)

If I were you, I'd sit down at a 30 inch monitor for a while and see how you like it; I've got a 24 incher and to me, it is quite big enough - at average sitting distance it more than fills the area that my eyes can comfortably cover (if I'm looking at one corner, I almost have to physically move my head to see the diagonally opposite corner clearly; a 30 incher would make this a necessity).

[Waldo]

Photoshop is a trivial application when it comes to graphics card grunt; basically, its load on a card is:

'Here's some pixels; colour 'em, thanks. No real hurry.'


Try a P/shop file with 20 odd layers about 1GB in size with stuff all RAM and a low end graphics card and you'll sit for ever waiting for it to do something.

But from reading your post you do a lot of gaming where you want a good screen with a high refresh rate and a card that supports it - exactly same applies to graphic intensive applications. Speed means things done quicker and more money.

[hitch]

Thanks Waldo and MS for your informed input to this thread. I am learning so much from your knowledge and experience and the additional research your comments encourage me to do.

I didn't make it to the Apple shop today and to be honest I am having some second thoughts about Apple Cinema. Rumor on the net implies that Apple is about to release new models with new technology - always a risk with computers and components I guess. Also I have been questioning why I want/need a 30" monitor just as MS has suggested I think about.

To my great surprise the LOML has tonight encouraged me to go for the Eizo ColorEdge CG241W if I think it the right solution. She's a good woman.:cool: I Just hope she will be in the same mood in about 18 months when I want to upgrade my table saw and purchase a jointer and thicknesser.:U

I leave Thursday for Qld, overnighting in Brisbane then 6 days with friends on the Gold Coast. I will use the time to think about the plunge into Eizo. It's a very specific graphics Monitor with little versatility - doesn't even have sound as standard and given the price difference to Apple it's a big leap for an amateur. The 5 year warrantee on Eizo is a significant plus.

I wont have access to the forum while I am away but look forward to any further comment/ advice you may have to offer.

Regards

[Master Splinter]

.... good screen with a high refresh rate and a card that supports it - exactly same applies to graphic intensive applications. Speed means things done quicker and more money.


Until very, very recently (CS4) Photoshop has not done any processing on the graphics card, so if you've seen slowdowns, its been because of the CPU, available RAM and hard drive access speed.

Not even a crossfire linked quad processor card with liquid cooling and a $3,000 price tag is going to speed up Photoshop for average tasks such as multi layer large images. And you can only go to about 3 gig of RAM in 32-bit Windows, so with files that use a hefty amount of RAM you'll still get plenty of hard drive thrashing.

http://gizmodo.com/393137/photoshop-cs-4-will-use-your-graphics-card-to-run-at-light-speed-do-fancy-3d-tricks

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/ss/PSCS4whatsnew_2.htm

To use your card for Photoshop, you'll need an OpenGL compatible graphics card, and you will only see a speedup when doing 3D type manipulation...so if you don't do a lot of playing with perspective, you're still not going to be touching the GPU for the majority of your Photoshop work.

(its only recently that the graphics card manufacturers have turned the GPU into more of a 'general purpose' style chip - the GPGPU. However, it still has limitations on what sort of data it can process and does not replace the even more general purpose design of your CPU - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPGPU )

[Waldo]

G'day,
I'm not going to argue on points as we've gone beyond what Hitch originally asked, some are blatantly wrong and I don't care to fart around on them.

Except to write, that yes CRT monitors had better colour, LCDs now equal and rival that. The plus for LCD screens is screen resolution and real estate.

I'm concerned Hitch is now going out to buy a monitor that is beyond what he needs and at twice the price and more than an Apple 23" Cinema Display which has the same gamut range.

I know of many professional Photoshop retouchers who have either a 23", most 30" Cinema Displays, industry leading commercial photographers among them. Now if they can get 100% colour on a Cinema Display - where colour is paramount why aren't they using something else?

When something does the same job equally as well, why spend more money? :?

[Master Splinter]

G'day,
I'm not going to argue on points as we've gone beyond what Hitch originally asked, some are blatantly wrong and I don't care to fart around on them.



I'd like to know which statements are wrong so that I don't continue to mislead people.


Hitch asked what the good monitors were; I don't see a problem about telling him where the top end of the market is - in the same way, people see Miele or Festool or Lie-Nielson as their quality benchmarks, and some people aren't happy unless they have a Lie-Nielson instead of a Stanley. (Hitch already has a monitor calibration spider and has read technical articles by geeky Photoshop programmers on colour management...so that makes me think that he'd be heading more towards a L-N solution).

In the ad agencies/design studios (who use the photos lovingly crafted by professional photographers and retouchers) that I've had experience with, monitor selection seems to be dominated by what looks cool on the desk of the designer; colour accuracy is further down the list of priorities (if it is there at all...!). Generally, that sort of thing is worried about in pre-press.

Mind you, I don't think a monitor will solve Hitch's problem; the printed version is always going to have a smaller colour space than the on-screen version so there will always be gradient compression happening...a better solution would be to create a printer profile to use in Photoshop to view the image as it will print.

[Waldo]

I'm bowing out of this, it's getting stupid.

:bye:

[hitch]

Waldo and MS thanks again for your input. I used your comments together with heaps of additional research to come to a decision.

I have today ordered a ColorEdge CG242W - delivery will be about 4 to 6 weeks.

Regards

Ian

[clubbyr8]

Don't know if anyone's interested, but the following site is useful when looking at video cards.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=39&card2=566