Monitor calibration trouble - DPChallenge Forums

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

07/27/2011 08:31:01 PM · #1

So I ended up buying the x-rite Eye-One Display 2. I installed it and calibrated my main display in a dark room with the second monitor off. I switched displays, calibrated my other monitor and compared the two.

And they are different.

The colors are very, very close, but the black levels are noticeably different. One's blacks are blacker than the other. I actually went through the calibration steps a few times and got the colors a lot closer than the first time around.

I'm using the advanced mode, setting white balance to 6500, gamma to 2.2 and luminance to 120. Same for both monitors.

It doesn't bother me as much that they are different, what bothers me is that I have no clue which one is accurate.

Another problem is that the initial reason I wanted to buy this was because my prints came back from multiple printers too dark. When it calibrates luminance, my SUPER bright monitor reads at around 113 and it wants me to raise the brightness to 120. I know this is WAY too bright to edit, but the hardware calibrator is saying it's too dark.

What can I do?

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

07/27/2011 08:45:50 PM · #2

As far as the difference between the two, it may be that one is a better panel than the other, and as such will display blacks better. That's one of the characteristics of really good monitors, deep blacks and good ability to differentiate very dark shades.
As far as having to raise the brightness on the monitor you thought was already too bright, well, I'm not sure.

07/27/2011 09:15:13 PM · #3

So is getting them properly calibrated just out of the question? I thought the whole point of a hardware calibrator was to calibrate the differences between hardware. As it stands, the blacks, colors and whites are different. (When I open a white notepad and stretch it across two documents, the colors are slightly off.)

Even if I resign myself to the difference between the two, I still don't know which one to calibrate to for prints and such.

Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

07/28/2011 12:07:37 AM · #4

This is frustrating. I calibrated again and looked here.

It seems I'm at gamma 1.8 even though I just calibrated at 2.2.

Should I just get ready to return this thing, or can anybody help?

DCNUTTER

Canon EOS-7D

07/28/2011 01:41:02 AM · #5

Originally posted by adigitalromance:

Alright, let's take it from the top.

First, I have a Spyder3Studio SR kit from Datacolor that is a full color management sytem that also profiles my printer. Even if you get your monitors calibrated it still doesn't mean that you're going to see your prints looking the same as your monitor..or as close as you can get them unless your printer was calibrated as well. So don't be discouraged that even if you got your monitors correct that your prints still need some tweaking in the driver to get a better match. Without calibration of the printer that's the nature of the game. However, by calibrating your monitors so you know the color is where you want it is obviously going to be the better starting point.

Second, your settings for calibration: 2.2 gamma, 6500 color temp, and the 120 are correct and are the industry standard. So editing at 120 is NOT too bright. It's where you want to be. Note that the 120 is not the level of your brightness setting on your monitor. It's the brightness level measured in CD/M2. If you set your editing lighting environment to dimmer or brighter lighting and your calibrator has an ambient light sensor it will normally recommend the target brightness level up or down. So keep your settings the way you have them, and understand that the 120 setting is actually much dimmer than most people have their monitors set to out of the box. A lot of people want their screens to be really bright and love it when they are new, but the reality is that it's way to bright for editing photos. So again, the settings you used are correct.

The one thing that is different with my calibrator is that...and I'm not sure if your software tells you to do it, but I don't have to shut the lights off in the room and calibrate. In fact I'm supposed to set the lighting to the levels I would normally edit it and then calibrate. Since my environment is neither to dark or overly bright the standard 120 is perfect and where it should be. If I turned the lights off and kept it at 120 then technically that would be too bright for editing based on the balance between ambient light and monitor. So consistency in your ambient light in your editing space is key to calibrating your monitor, and I also recommend turning off any part of your software or OS that automatically adjusts your screen brightness down to save batteries etc. You're calibrating your display to operate correctly at a certain brightness level so when it dims and your ambient light changes you will not be seeing your photos consistently the same.

Now, my software and kit have what is called Studio Match. I was running two Samsung monitors...identical ones that were about 4 years old and then recently switch to one larger 24" IPS wide gamut monitor. When you try to match two different monitors it always helps if they are both the same brand, model and age obviously, but a lot of times that's not the case so getting a true match on varying hardware won't always be easy.

When the software tries to match two monitors it takes your settings..your standard settings that you punched and expects you to also have your brightness and contrast set similar between the two...on the monitors themselves. These are just starting values that the software will tell you to adjust for each monitor until you get the hardware values that works for the software. So the first thing the software does when you tell it you will be doing dual monitors is have you measure the brightness and contrast of monitor one. Then it will tell you to move the sensor to the second monitor and it checks that. So suppose you told the software that you want the brightness target to be the industry standard of 120. Well, if monitor 1 is a newer monitor and still very bright at full levels it will have no trouble making that value since you will be turning down the brightness considerably. However, if monitor two is older it might only be able to reach a measured brightness of say 115 cd/m2 with the brightness at full bore. So at this crucial point YOU HAVE to set BOTH monitors to the new target of 115 cd/m2 and not the original goal of 120 because the second monitor's hardware can't push it that far. Follow? If you fail to do this you WILL get varying degrees of white and black points even if your colors look close.

So with that said Let's say that you set your brightness target at the new adjusted 115 cd/m2. The software continues the calibration of monitor 1, tells you to switch to monitor 2 and finishes that. Now you do what you did...and look at photos comparing them on both monitors. The colors look pretty damn close, but as you see the blacks and whites don't exactly compare. Well, part of that is what kirbic mentioned in that not all monitor panels are created equal. The TFT panels will look different in the deep blacks and brightest highlights compared to a new IPS monitor that normally have a more inky black look in the shadows..a deeper richer black. So, if you know this to be the situation there isn't much you can about that. Just know that when you process the blacks might look even blacker on some newer monitors etc.

Another thing to take into account is that when you are giving the software and monitor hardware target numbers that you want to reach during calibration you aren't giving the hardware much leeway. With three variables thrown at the hardware one of things that the software shifts if needed to meet the brightness level of the display is the color temperature. Let's say that the only way the second monitor could even meet the 115 cd/m2 setting was to shift your preferred color temp up or down a little. The temp of the monitor..color-wise is tied in to what level of measured brightness the monitor can put out. So while and older monitor might be able to push a brightness of 120 when set to color temp of 5500 K it might not be able to reach that same level of brightness over time if you try to set it to 6500 K. So while the software tries to keep everything as exact as possible during calibration if your monitor is even a few years old it won't be able to crank out the brightness that it could when it was new and something has to give. So normally the calibration software will set your black and white points first based on your hardware setting for your brightness and contract, and then in order to shift the colors to the right value the software has to find that sweet spot to tweak the color range up and down, and it usually uses a floating color temp value as it's means of doing so.

So...if you couple two different aged, different panel types monitors with a shift in color temp you are going to see some difference in the monitors even when the software has them calibrated as close as it can get. Your black point...blacks and whites..highlights might look the same brightness and your colors might look spot on yet STILL you can have on screen that is much warmer than the other which might have easily met the request 6500 K standard.

So, I'm giving you the explanation of HOW this happens as you wanted so you can at least know what's going on there.

Here is my recommendation in your case.

Use your newest monitor for your editing and stay with the standard settings you had. Then only use the second monitor as another test monitor to see what OTHERS might be seeing if their monitors were a bit warmer or a bit color. Since you said the colors matched up closely this should work out fine for you.

Don't drive your self crazy driving to get two monitors to match up exactly even if they are the same make and model, but older...especially if they are two different types of monitors and older. You will drive yourself insane trying to get them to look the way you want. Never going to happen. The truth is both monitors could be calibrated right and just a different temps etc. and that will gnaw at you. If did me and it's the ultimate reason why I went from my beloved dual monitors down to one larger, but newer monitor. I calibrate the single monitor, it meets the specs, I know it's accurate and I don't have to kill myself wondering which one looks right. Save yourself some headaches.

Don't return the calibrator. I'm sure it's working fine, and you'll need it.

Dave

DCNUTTER

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

07/28/2011 02:03:46 AM · #6

BTW...not sure what OS you are running, but make sure before you calibrate that you remove any current profiles from the color management tab of your video driver. Also don't adjust the brightness, contrast or gamma settings using your software driver. Also use the hardware buttons on the monitor itself.

Windows 7 have built in color calibration in the software. So if you use Windows 7 make sure you disable that. You don't want Windows to control your color...you will want the new profile you are creating to do that. If you don't turn it off you will double correcting so to speak, and you will have problems.

I'll reiterate again that unless your calibrator is the kind (like mine) that can constantly measure ambient light and warn you when it gets to bright or too dark for your current calibration you should set your lights up in the room the way you normally would edit BEFORE you calibrate, set it to the 120 cd/m2 and always work in that same light. If you are in the habit of sometimes working in a dark room and other times working with lights on yet you keep your monitor settings the same....well stop doing that. You will never gain consistency if you do that and your photos will always look different to others because your eyes adjust to the lighting and the adjustments you make might look right to you, but they will be totally off to others.

If you calibrator does have an ambient sensor and you choose to use it then you be prepared to either set up multiple profiles for different lighting conditions or else you will constantly have to calibrate when the light changes.

For instance, the industry standard of 120 cd/m2 is for a normally lit editing enviroment that is neither too dark nor overly bright AND has no strong direct light hitting the screen of your monitor. If you have a ambient light sensor and you decide you want to work in a very dim or darkened room the sensor will tell you WHOA THERE...it's way to dark now to edit your photos in this light with the current profile because YOUR eyes will not see the colors the same. So it will tell you to recalibrate for your current lighting, and might recommend a brightness target of say 80-90 cd/m2 which is dimmer. So when you shut the lights out or dim them...your screen that was correct relative to the ambient light is now way to bright and the software will tell you to adjust it down to compensate. When it compensates it's keeping the way you see the colors, and the white and black points the same....just on kind of a sliding scale. So when you decide to turn the light back on two days later and you view your photo back on your monitor re calibrated once again to the 120 cd/m2 setting you will see the photo exactly the way you wanted it to look even though you editing it under different lighting conditions.

That's about it...Hope it helps.

Dave