monitor calibrating

[sburatorul]

i have a big issue with my monitor calibration. i made a comparison on how a picture looks on my camera display and on my monitor and the results where striking... there is a big difference in shades of colors. now my question to you, if you could kindly answer, is: what could i do to calibrate my monitor without spending money as there are lenses and flashes to buy and little money left for monitor calibration hardware i guess i'm looking for the "old way".

i wonder how the pictures i posted really look on your screens...

any help would be highly appreciated

[TPF Sponsor]

[Bifurcator]

http://www.google.com/search?client=...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[sburatorul]

i did google it(didn't look for downloads though) but all the stuff about gamma corection, white point black point is just to much for my head ) i guess i was hopping for some easy tip but nothing ever comes easy. sorry guys for this noobish thread

[Bifurcator]

It's not noobish. And really without hardware that's all there is. Find a proggy or some screens to display and eye it.

But there's lots more there than just gama tools.

[Bifurcator]

Here's another:
http://www.google.com/search?client=...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[tirediron]

In the age of digital photography, a calibrated monitor is critical to a good finished product. Don't be shy about spending a few dollars on good calibration tool (I've had excellent results with the Spyder products) especially if you use a CRT type monitor. A decent calibrator and software package can run as little as $150. Well worth the money IMO.

[Overread]

I agree with tirediron - its really hard when you start (I know I am there!) as there is a lot of kit to get and it all mounts up in expense very very quickley!
Best thing to do is prioritize what you need against what you want and what you have -
are you looking to print right now?
do you really Need to print right now?
If yes then look to something else you can wait to get in order to save for the calibration software - trying to muddle it with printing and altering settings based on print results and printing again and so on will cost you in time with time and money *inks* and be dissapointing as well. Save up and wait to print and then get that calibration kit.

[Garbz]

What are you trying to match, your camera? That's unlikely to happen. All camera LCDs I've seen are rather crap, great if your out in the sun and need to see the picture, but other than the clipping indicators some cameras have they are not at all representative of the actual tonal range.

Why not run a picture through the printer and find out what better matches the tonal balance. Often you may find that a semi decent screen, aside from slight colour casts which can be corrected by playing with the controls, is actually pretty well calibrated out of the factory.

[Bifurcator]

I set mine to sRGB and then lowered the brightness.

So mine are:

Brightness 6 (out of 100)
Contrast 70 (out of 100)
R, G, and B are all 50 (out of 100)
1920x1200 @60Hz
Dual LG Flatron L246WH monitors

That's pretty much factory. The main difference was the brightness/contrast. They had brightness set to 80 which you would have to be wearing sunblock to use and is powerful enough to x-ray the guy at the end of the block not to mention that it uses about 10x the power and gets about 10x as hot. And they had the contrast set to 50 which was OK with the brightness up around those eye-blinding levels.


I think you're right about camera LCDs too. I never thought of them as being at all accurate. Just a tool for framing, menu use, or image acquisition verification.

[Ozzmosis]

If you want to be cheap, and kind-of a jerk, here is a tip... I'm not proud of it tho!

Research your local big box store (Best Buy, Circuit City, ETC) find out who had one that will "work" for you, and check out their return policy. Make sure you can take back the product! "It just didn't satisfy me, and I purchased "X" brand somewhere else since you did not stock it" I'm not 100% sure that it would fly, but at London Drugs here in Canada, I bought my Monaco EZ Color calibration suite, and the product had been opened and used several times. They sold it to me for below cost because it has been sitting on the shelf so long.

Do your due diligence first to make sure you can get away with it. Another thought I just had was contact a few local camera shops and see if they have one to rent, or know someone who would lend it to you. I've used mine on friends and family computers to make sure my photos look proper on their machines.

Good Luck!

[sburatorul]

What are you trying to match, your camera? That's unlikely to happen. All camera LCDs I've seen are rather crap, great if your out in the sun and need to see the picture, but other than the clipping indicators some cameras have they are not at all representative of the actual tonal range.

Why not run a picture through the printer and find out what better matches the tonal balance. Often you may find that a semi decent screen, aside from slight colour casts which can be corrected by playing with the controls, is actually pretty well calibrated out of the factory.

that pretty much messes up things for me ) i would have thought that the lcd on the camera would be accurately set for picture display. that aside i will print a picture when my printer comes back from service ) and try to eye my monitor

@ Ozzmosis : In my part of the world there aren't to many photography shops, my camera was ordered from the capitol city like 300km away but i do hope to rent a spider from a friends computer store

[Bifurcator]

If you want to be cheap, and kind-of a jerk, here is a tip... I'm not proud of it tho!

Research your local big box store (Best Buy, Circuit City, ETC) find out who had one that will "work" for you, and check out their return policy.

That got popular to do with Commodore 64's and it hurt the Commodore co. really bad. Not to mention that stores like Target and etc. stopped carrying the product because Commodore didn't want to deal with them any more.

This is really unethical and posting it in a public place is about 5 times more unethical than actually doing it.

Shame!

[Garbz]

that pretty much messes up things for me ) i would have thought that the lcd on the camera would be accurately set for picture display. that aside i will print a picture when my printer comes back from service ) and try to eye my monitor

Yep well they are practical. Every LCD i've seen has a gamma curve which makes it easier to see the tonal range of an image while outside in the sun. Definitely if I compare my camera LCD here now in a dimly lit room to my calibrated screen they come up looking much darker and more contrasty on the screen. That said I'd never be able to see half of the things on this screen here if I took it outside

[MACollum]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/ColorVision-Spyder2-Express-Win-Mac/dp/B000ES4PYU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=12186577 05&sr=8-1"]This is what I got.[/ame] The price isn't listed on the page but you can click to see it. It works well and my prints have been good (the few I have printed were good). If you print from your inkjet printer you might need to calibrate it but I don't know how that's done. We did it a few times with decent results (without calibration), but that's not a sure thing.

Before I calibrated my desktop LCD monitor I thought the results were OK but once I did it I realized that my screen was set to a very cool temperature and some of the editing was way off in a few pictures.

Best But didn't even stock the calibration software when I went there looking. At most big stores, software can only be exchanged when opened. Additionally, monitors need to be recalibrated fairly often.