Anyone using only a laptop for processing with Photoshop CC? Help needed please!

david357

david357

Suspended / Banned
Messages
3,024
Name
Umm......................
Edit My Images
Yes
I have been struggling with image colours for a while now using a separate monitor connected to my 15” laptop. I have calibrated both screens several times, but the colours are not even close from one to the other. I even tried a Spyder yesterday (normally use a Colormunki Photo), and the results were even worse, almost looking pink on one and blue on the other!

I emailed Colormunki, and they replied that the laptop probably only has one LUT (look up table), and is therefore using the same profile for both screens. Then I find that not all usb ports are equal, and if there is insufficient power supplied by the port to the calibrator, then the colours will be affected.

I don’t really have room for a desktop pc, I am not a Mac person, so am thinking of a larger screened laptop so that I have a better idea of what the final prints will look like (I do print regularly to A3, sometimes cropped quite heavily). The plan would be to sell the monitor and buy a larger screen laptop with a good display if the large screen laptop is an improvement – does anyone solely use a laptop for this purpose? Your opinions would be appreciated, please.

Also, if anyone knows of a company that would hire such a beast for up to a month to help me decide, and also so that I can complete a fair amount of processing that I am behind with, it would help greatly.

Thanks in advance.

David.
 
I use colormunki and had a similar problem.
Only 1 LUT can be used.
my laptop screen looks ok
my monitor looks ok
but my monitor & screen look different.
I made a ICC file from the colormunki's ICC file for each monitor. This allows easy switching between the 2 screens, previously I would need to recalibrate everytime I changed screens although I've been told it is a good idea to recalibrate before sending for prints??

I hope this answers your question
 
Thanks for the reply, Peter, that is what I found out about the LUT. I believe that some laptop graphics cards do support two LUT's, so that may be an option .

Both screens are so far from each other at present as to be unusable, hence my asking if other people successfully manage to edit purely on laptops. Unfortunately neither screen appears close to correct, as after calibration with the Colormunki, one has a blue cast and the other a red cast! The result from the Spyder was a blue cast and a yellow cast, so different but not better.

Something else I've found is that computer repair people seem to know nothing about colour correction of screens, it either displays or not. If there is a display on the screen, it works!

I will admit to not having good colour vision, but can recognise the difference between a grey card and two different colours screens.
 
I guess it is down to the screen.
This is the biggest hold back for me buying a new laptop. Dell Precision has a good screen, others might suggest others. Not all monitors are equal. When I calibrated my monitors I thought I had a colour cast but it was my eyes. Using the 2 profiles I can see the colour cast is opposite to what I thought.

A question to other people watching this thread: If we load a colour calibration sheet into LR can we see the colours outside the monitors range?
Here are 2 images using AdobeRGB (blue) & My calibrated profile (all clear).

Am I misunderstanding this feature?


adobergb by Pete, on Flickr
calibrate by Pete, on Flickr
 
One way round this is to profile both the laptop and the separate monitor. So you ens up with two separate profiles available to you. Get th laptop to use the laptop profile when it's be used by itself, then switch to the monitor profile when that's in use. OK in the second case the laptop will look wrong, but then you are not really using that.

StarTech do a USB VGA adapter, but I can only find this listed in the US. How well this works I don't know. Seems to be Win 8/7 compatible

Update Amazon have them is stock

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&...qmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_54tti0pxbj_e

A pears to be win 7/8/10 compatible

Here's the link to the StarTeck web page

http://www.startech.com/AV/USB-Video-Adapters/USB-to-VGA-Multi-Monitor-Adapter~USB2VGAE3
 
Last edited:
Thanks for posting, John. I am already able to connect a vga monitor as I have that port on the laptop, it's matching the colours that I have struggled with, but now I know that isn't possible.

I hate to admit it, but faffing around changing profiles avery time I need to process images will probably put me off using the 27" screen, so I may as well give up on the idea and change plan.

I have decided now to sell my laptop and purchase one with a 17 or 18" screen, high resolution, and maybe IPS?

I will definitely look for one with space for at least two hard drives and that supports plenty of memory.
 
Peter, thanks again for replying - if I'm honest I'm not sure what I am looking at with your two images!

As far as your recommendation for a large screen laptop, the Dell Precision is definitely among the ones that I am looking for - I am watching the Dell Outlet Store.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top