Advice on LCD monitor calibration

[Rider]

I have a 3-year old Dell LCD screen. The reason I mention that is it's got a 72% gamut unlike the new units.

What device would you recommend for calibrating this unit? The biggest gripe I have is that I can see shadow detail on the screen, but my Epson 4000 spits it out as mud on luster paper.

[Ken Lee]

See http://www.chromix.com

[Greg Miller]

Get the best calibration device you can afford, despite the state of your current monitor. You calibration device should be usable for a long time. You won't want to buy a new calibration tool when your replace your monitor.

But even after you calibrate your monitor, you will still find that you have some muddy shadows. The best way to deal with this is to print a step wedge chart on your printer/paper combination and see where your printer is capable of [printing shadow detail. In Photoshop create a series of blocks. Fill block with with a an RGB value of 1,1,1. Fill block 2 with a value of 2,2,2,...

After printing the step wedge, look to see where you can differentiate the tone between 2 adjacent blocks. On my Epson 4800 this usually shappens between block 8 & 9 (depending on the paper).

Now that you know what you printer/paper combination is capable of, us that information when you print. In Photoshop, using Levels, set the output value for the shadows to the value determined above (in my case I set this to 8). If you do not do this then you can expect all shadow detail with an RGB value than you printer/paper threshold to be the same value of black and therefore will lack detail.

[Rider]

How about the Eye-One Display 2? It's currently $200. Do you I need to get something more advanced, is this overkill, or just about right?

[Greg Miller]

That's what I use. It is well regarded. I have not followed this market for a couple of years, so I don't know what other competitors have popped up. But it used to be the device all others were compared to, so I think if that fits your budget then it would be a good choice.

[IanMazursky]

The i1 Display 2 is still the best unit available. They are easy to use and inexpensive.
I have used products from Gretag (now Xrite) for many many years.
They are well made and usually outlast the competition. I have had my spectrolino for 10+ years and it still works perfectly.

[Tyler Boley]

new monitor and device technology are changing the situation by the week.
More info here-

http://www.on-sight.com/2008/12/08/updated-review-of-colorimeters-and-display-calibration-packages/

This very subject is being tossed about by the mensa dudes on the color sync list this very day...
Tyler

[z_photo]

i assume people are aware that there are a number of LCD monitors out there today that can do 95 to 100% of the adobe RGB color space on screen. size, contrast, res, and gamut are in interesting specification space to optimize for individual needs

[Rider]

Tyler, can you tell me where the color sync is to be found?

[Tyler Boley]

here you go, a contentious bunch to be sure-

http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/colorsync-users

by the way, on all these lists you will find strong opinions about product lines, some to be trusted more than others. Hidden agendas abound...
Our list here is a wonderfully trustworthy bunch, one reason I'm here more these days, enjoying this company.

Tyler

[Rider]

Thanks. I don't know why it's hard to find a good calibration tool.

[D. Bryant]

I have a 3-year old Dell LCD screen. The reason I mention that is it's got a 72% gamut unlike the new units.

What device would you recommend for calibrating this unit? The biggest gripe I have is that I can see shadow detail on the screen, but my Epson 4000 spits it out as mud on luster paper.
I would reccomend a new LCD display for starters and a good calibration device and software as others have suggested.

Don Bryant

[Peter De Smidt]

I use a Spyder 3 Elite, and I'm pretty happy with it.

[z_photo]

i have read good reviews of a product called color munki. i have not tried it

[Milton Tierney]

I purchased Colormonki a few months ago and love it. It’s so simple to use, a monkey can follow the instructions.

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Alarms: What an octopus is.

[Rider]

I saw an article about colormunki in Photo Techniques, which is what got me thinking about color monitoring.

[coops]

I have been using the eye one with my old Sony Trinitron and it's very good. I did recently purchase a new Gateway 24" lcd as my second monitor ( and Xbox display) and decided to use it as my primary monitor for Photoshop. I calibrated it twice but each time the contrast was such that it was unusable to me. Had to go back the Sony crt. I assume the issue was with the monitor and not the Eye one however.

[neil poulsen]

A decent color management tool for calibrating monitors is an important step in maintaining color integrity on your system.

But, whether or not your shadow detail on your screen can be seen on printed paper could have more to do with that fact that the screen is emissive light and the print is reflected light. Use the custom Proof-Setup | Custom tool under Photoshop's View drop down menu to help predict on the screen how the image will appear on the print.

On the same screen, you can toggle on the Simulate Black Ink tool. I believe this tool is designed so that, if you can see detail in the shadows with this toggled in the on position, then you should be able to see that level of detail in the print. With this tool toggled on, it's not intended that the screen's image will look like the print. It's merely a tool to determine if detail in the shadows can also be distinguished in the print.

[aphexafx]

I also bought a ColorMunki for my LCD's and laptop, and while it may lack the control of the more expensive packages, the hardware is a joy to use and it does the job very well, especially if your monitor supports DDC/CI. Note that it will not profile CRT's.

[neil poulsen]

By the way, to use the Custom Soft-Proof Tool, you need to specify the correct profile for the paper.

This where a custom profile has an advantage. While the manufacturers profile can do a pretty good job at printing, they won't necessarily do a good job for soft-proofing.

[Rider]

Thanks all. Does Lightroom have same soft-proofing function as Photoshop?