How to calibrate a printer and monitor if neither are very good

Question

If I have a mediocre monitor, and a reasonable but not fantastic printer, what are my options for getting a good photo print?

Printer ink is not cheap, and I usually do not have the patience or resources to print out several attempts with various adjustments to brightness, contrast etc. I find it particularly difficult to get the settings to a good enough compromise between seeing the detail in dark parts of the printed image versus blowing out the highlights.

Asked by Joel in Gö

Answer

Probably not the answer you want, but if you have a bad monitor, and a bad printer, you're probably going to get bad prints.

A color calibration system (hardware) would help, but that's an investment of money and if you aren't willing to do that for your monitor/printer I'm guessing you aren't willing to spend the money on a calibrator.

If you don't make a lot of prints, the best option might be to use a third-party printer... drugstore, online, etc. Good printers will allow you to download the printer profile for their equipment, and you can use that profile in your photo editor (Photoshop, etc) so that what you see matches what gets printed.

Answered by ahockley

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What are the merits of a wide-gamut display in post-processing for web?

Question

I've been researching about monitors to get one for post-processing. It seems like a wide-gamut IPS panel is recommended. I'll also be using a color calibration device.

I print so rarely that it can be ignored; more than 99% of my photos are processed for web, so I use sRGB for processing them. It seems like almost any panel would be able to display 98% of sRGB, while wider gamut panels are significantly more expensive and known to cause trouble in applications that don't use color management.

So, the recommendation of using a wide gamut panel feels odd for such usage. What are the merits (if there are any) of a wide gamut panel in post-processing for web?

Asked by Imre

Answer

I would say that a wide-gamut display is NOT really necessary if you only intend to publish to the web. As you know, sRGB is pretty much the lowest common denominator for presentation on the web. Unless you expect the majority of your viewers to be using color-managed web browsers capable of properly rendering images tagged with AdobeRGB, there aren't really any merits to getting a wide-gamut display for such purposes.

The need for wider gamut displays relegated more to those who expect maximum quality from their prints, particularly those who print with their own equipment, and for printing equipment that supports the bulk of the AdobeRGB gamut. Top of the line consumer grade and most of the recent commercial grade ink jet printers from Epson, Canon, and some off-brand Giclee-grade printers support wide gamuts, and the envelope is constantly being pushed. AdobeRGB is certainly a possibility, and with some of the latest advancements in Epson inks, I believe they can print an even larger fully-encompassing gamut on a couple types of papers. If you don't expect such high-caliber prints on a regular basis, then I would say a wide-gamut (98% AdobeRGB) or ultra-wide-gamut display (120%+ AdobeRGB) are really unnecessary.

Answered by jrista

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My pictures are never printed. Is there any point in buying a better monitor?

Question

My monitor is pretty cheap and its colours are horribly dependent on the viewing angle, the moon and whatnot. I could edit my pictures on my old CRT, but its contrast and sharpness are quite bad.

On the other hand, I never print my images anyway but only publish them on the web. Thus, the important thing is actually what they look like on other people's (non-photographer's) monitors.

In this case, is there any point in spending money on a better monitor or even a calibration set?

Asked by user1080125

Answer

Yes, there is a point. It will let you see your own photos more accurately. Since you do not print them, I assume you look at them on your own monitor.

Even if it is only for others, non-calibrated monitors differ widely but they are improving at least in the mid-range with the advent of LEDs (and eventually OLEDs), so over time people will see your images more accurately. Having a good monitor will let you know better how you images will appear to others too then.

Calibration goes a step further and is highly recommended if you manipulate your images since it will let you see the effect of your changes. Otherwise you can introduce very unnatural looking colors.

If you have to choose one though, I'd go for a better monitor. You can always add calibration later. Finally, if you do not require a huge display size, great color-calibratable monitors are no longer than expensive. I always recommend the NEC P221W even though I don't work for NEC ;) but I spent years evaluating LCD displays professionally. I bought two of those refurbished for $237 each while they go for $450 new. There is also a 24" version, the P241W.

Answered by Itai

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How can I maintain photo color consistency across computer monitors?

Question

When saving photos for the web from within Photoshop I run into issue where my colors are not consistent between monitors. While I understand there will be some difference between monitors there are at times a huge difference between my desktop monitor and my laptop monitor. In the best cases the colors (on my laptop monitor) are a bit washed out but not to bad in worst cases the colors are completely different shades and the picture is not blown out but close. If I adjust the colors on my desktop monitor to compensate for my laptop monitor the colors (majority of the time) are way to dark. Are there any tips/tricks on maintaining consistency across monitors?

A few notes: I always save my photos for web using Photoshop's Save for Web and Devices below is a screenshot of my settings. (I have un-checked Embed Color Profile would that help?) I have calibrated both monitors as best as possible with software. (I am not using any form of hardware calibration.) And the monitor for my desktop is an old LCD monitor. (It is at least 6 years old but was not in use for at least 2-3 years of that 6.) The laptop is a new computer. (Is age going to be playing into this issue?) And finally neither monitor is a "Glossy" monitor.

Answer

I think the basic answer here is: you need to get a hardware-based calibration device and use that on both monitors. As you have experienced, it's really hard to get this right by eye. Getting the monitors calibrated correctly will help, but if one or both of them are really poor equipment, you still may have limitations.

You're already saving the image in the limited and "safe" sRGB color space, so there's really very little more you can do to the image itself.

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What's the best way to calibrate my wide-gamut display used with two different computer systems?

Question

I have a Dell U2410 monitor hooked up to two computers: a Windows machine via HDMI, and my MacBook Pro (running Lion) via DisplayPort.

The output from Windows is great: colours are true and text is sharp as a tack, but from my Mac it's a bit different. The colours differ from what is shown on my MacBook's display and anti-aliasing on text is a bit dodgy.

I'm a complete newbie here, so I was hoping someone could give me some tips on calibrating this display to get it to display with high fidelity to what's appearing on my MacBook display. (Software/hardware) tools, techniques, etc.

Answer

Unfortunately, the monitor you have cannot be H/W calibrated and I have no idea what it does with its internal LUTs. You have two options at this point:

1. Return it for a calibratable monitor. My recommendation is the NEC P241W which I own two off (New they are $450 but I about them refurbished for $237) in addition to one of NEC's 30" model (LCD3090WQXi).
2. Calibrate the display on each computer and that means finding a H/W Calibrator solution which works on both platforms. There is a good description of calibration (and miscalibration) for your specific display here. It even says that banding issues are minimal which is great considering that you have to calibrate at the graphics card level.

Never used that display but if it is calibratable as the technical specs suggest, then you only need to calibrate it once to the sRGB color space and make sure the color profiles of both machines specify sRGB.

To calibrate it you need a color-calibrator, I use NEC Spectra View but I suppose Spyder 3 (as already suggested by @dpollitt) will do as well. The only thing you have to make sure is that you are calibrating the display, not the graphics card. Otherwise you have to calibrate twice and will have banding and perhaps even inconsistencies, particularly considering you use HDMI on Windows.

Now, if you want to take advantage of non-sRGB colors, you can but it will be more work. Also, only color-managed application will show color colors. Everything else, including most web-browser (color management is supported by some modern browsers but there is no guaranty since files often come with the wrong profile) will show distorted colors.

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Why do my photos look better on an iMac?

Question

I've been given a long term loan of a 27" iMac. Looking at my photos on flickr and iphoto, they look, eh, just better, they seem to pop more than they did on the other PCs. Why is that? The other computers I am used to using are a dell desktop with LCD and low end dell laptop.

Answer

The 27" LED mac displays are "full gamut" displays, ones that cover around 98% of the Adobe RGB gamut. These are full 8 bit/channel (24bit) screens and offer a full 178° viewing angle. They are much higher quality displays than your average LCD screen, and specifically designed to output high quality, rich, saturated graphics. Additionally, Safari, which I assume you are using on the Mac, supports ICM. Browsers that support ICM will generally render photos with more accurate color than browsers that do not when an ICM profile is present in an image.

Your Dell computers are probably using much cheaper, 6 bit/channel (18bit) or 5/6/5bit (16bit) screens, and are likely not LED LCD screens but standard CCFL LCD screens. While these screens generally have higher refresh rates, and are great for gaming and movies, they do not reproduce color as accurately as diplays with higher bit depth and wider viewing angle. Contrast and color rendition on the cheaper Dell screens will generally cover the full sRGB gamut, but will fall quite short of the much richer and more saturated Adobe RGB gamut.

The Apple screens are middle ground, though. They use standard yellow phosphor/blue LED backlighting, which over the long term will often result in non-uniform color shift as the LED's age. CCFL backlit screens are less likely to encounter such color drift over the long term. For LED screens, full RGB LED will produce much cleaner, more consistent results over the long term. High end RGB LED screens designed for photo and graphics editing work will render the richest color (sometimes covering as much as 123% of the Adobe RGB gamut for maximum saturation) and purest white (blending RGB to form white more accurate than converting blue LED light into white light via a yellow phosphor, and is less subject to color drift over the long term.)

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How can I get accurate photo colors on a laptop screen?

Question

My editing mainly involves these things:

1. Adjusting the colors, white balance , brightness (slightly , to get that subtle combination)
2. Cropping of the images.

I have recently bought a laptop and I am editing photos in that.
The problem which I am facing is this that the picture looks different on the laptop when screen on the laptop is moved a little back and forth.

How do I adjust colors in that case, and how can I be sure that the image looks the same on all desktops and laptops — if not 100%, at least to some extent, like 80-90%?

Bottom line involves calibrating I suppose, but while editing in laptop screens, how do I make sure that what I am looking at is a correct representation of the image?

Any techniques to use without investing in any external hardware would be particularly useful.

Answer

It is pretty much impossible, although you can get closer.

At the very least you need a color-calibration device. Using that device you calibrate your screen so that the colors it can show are close to how they should be. Most laptop displays sadly only show 60-75% of sRGB color, so there can be up to 40% of colors you cannot see in the laptop. Instead they get substituted for another color. It can make it very surprising when you see your image elsewhere.

Even if you get a top-quality laptop like a Thinkpad W700 which has a color-calibration device built-in, you still only get 84% sRGB coverage which is on par with crappy monitors and yet costs a fortune.

Ideally, you would get a color-calibratable display and hook it to your laptop while you do any work which has to do with colors. The are relatively cheap these days and I know you can get the NEC P221W for under $450, so they are definitely affordable now. If that is too expensive, look for it refurbished (I bought 2 of those for $237 each like that). This is the cheapest wide-gamut display I know and covers 100% of sRGB and 96% of AdobeRGB color spaces, it also supports 10-bit internal LUTs which reduces calibration artifacts.

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What are the advantages of glossy monitors? [closed]

Question

Or why only apple monitors are glossy? This have anything to do with color fidelity?

Do applying anti-glare film reduces image quality and color spectrum?

Answer

Apple is not the only manufacturer who provides the option of glossy monitors. Because you see rows of iMacs in the Apple store with glossy monitors does not mean Apple is the only manufacturer who provides them. Also, not all Apple monitors are glossy.

Pros for Glossy Monitors

• Higher perceived contrast and saturation. This is a two-edged sword. The increase in contrast is wonderful when working on images and just working with applications; however, people viewing your image may have anti-glare displays and they will not see the same saturation and contrast you do.
• Increased perceived sharpness. Again, wonderful when you are working on your images and with your applications, but be aware that anyone using an anti-glare monitor may not see things as razor-sharp as you do.

Cons Against Glossy Monitors

• The obvious problem with glossy monitors is that they reflect whatever objects are in the room. The greater the ambient light, the worse this problem can be.
• As stated above, people with anti-glare displays may not perceive your images as you do.
• Fingerprinting. Any smudges and fingerprinting (and sneezing and cat paw marks) are very obvious on a glossy screen, whereas you can get away with it longer on an anti-glare surface.

Personal Notes

I prefer a glossy monitor for my main working display. I have an anti-glare as my secondary monitor, so I do have a chance to preview the images somewhat as others will see them. These are both Apple displays. Both are color calibrated and I have not been disappointed with either. On my laptops, I have been far more pleased with the glossy display than the anti-glare, primarily because when I show images to others on the laptop, they display to better effect. Many prefer an anti-glare display on a laptop because you cannot control the lighting around where you use one, but I've been pleased with the added perceived brightness and besides, I don't do any final post processing on a laptop.

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How do I software-calibrate my IPS monitor under Mac OS X?

Question

I just purchased a HP ZR24W after reading several reviews for IPS monitors. I am a novice photographer and have never done any monitor calibration or owned an IPS panel before. I have a 2009 13 inch Macbook Pro with OSX Snow Leopard running on it.

I hooked the monitor up to the Macbook and thankfully even though the HP CD did not have any OSX drivers the monitor was set up correctly with the correct resolution. I have to say the default setting was pretty good for image viewing. But I guess to get the best out of the monitor I need to make some changes.

Hardware calibration seems the obvious option but I have spent all of my budget on this monitor and can't get one in the near future. So, I'm stuck with software and manual calibration.

Can anyone help me as to how to do this via software or changing the various controls manually in the monitor? Any tutorial or best practices would help me immensely.

Answer

First I want to make sure that the importance of proper hardware calibration is understood. Your eyes are not perfect(mine especially) and you can certainly give it a shot to determine the best brightness, tint, gamma, etc. but you are not going to be nearly as spot on as a dedicated piece of hardware. In reading you will find that as the display gets older, it becomes more out of sync with the correct values, and hardware calibration becomes more important. So even if you can't afford it now, down the road it is still a good investment.

So onwards to how to actually do a visual calibration. You are in luck, because OS X actually has a utility built in to do exactly what you want - Display Calibrator Assistant. To find this utility all you have to do is open up System Preferences, then the Displays app, click on the Colors Tab, and you will see an option for Calibrate. From that option, make sure you are in expert mode, follow the instructions, and you are on your way to visual monitor calibration bliss.

Other options exist that are not included with OS X. You may even receive one with your monitor as part of its software package. A popular option is a shareware program SuperCal.

If you are looking for a tutorial on how to use the built in Calibrate tool from Apple you can find that here.

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