Monitor Calibration

D

DavidSteel

Suspended / Banned
Messages
34
Name
David Steel
Edit My Images
Yes
I'm currently processing photos using Adbode Elements 6 and have purchased a PIXMA MP610.

I'm disappointed that what I'm seeing on screen comes out differently on paper. Not sure if the fact I'm using a laptop makes any difference.

Can anyone offer any advice on how I can get the monitor and printer to talk so what i see is what I get?

Or is it more appropriate to use monitor calibration software? If so, which product would people advise? I would be prepared to pay up to £100.

Thanks,

David
 
To get a good match you need to buy a calibrator such as the Huey, Spyder, etc.

What they do is adjust your screen to match a known standard and create a profile that's used by some s/w so it can translate from screen to print accurately. But the other side of this equation is having the right profiles installed for your printer, otherwise you still won't get a good match.

One important point to bear in mind is that when you've calibrated your screen your images will all look "wrong" because you've edited them on a duff screen to start with and you'll need to go back and edit them to look right again :(

Adobe Gamma does an ok job with luma but a fairly poor job with colour balance but you might find a h/w device won't fair much better with a laptop screen anyway as they are normally missing any options to set a suitable colour temp. and are normally too blue by default.
 
Cheers folks. I'm still confused by the abbreviations s/w and h/w (newby that I am!).

Reading between the lines is it fair to say I should invest in say a desktop with a flatscreen for photo work ratehr than rely on laptop?
 
You will find things improve a lot with monitor calibration, but you also need to use the profiles your photo paper manufacturer supply to get the best results.
Even with your monitor calibrated you may still find differences but you can tweek these in your printer software.
The only sure way to get a perfect match everytime is to calibrate the printer aswell but good printer calibrators are not cheap, although I believe you can print the test sheet and send it away to be calibrated and they send you back a profile, but you need to do thi for all different paper types you use, but thats really being quite fussy
 
DavidSteel said:
Cheers folks. I'm still confused by the abbreviations s/w and h/w (newby that I am!).

Reading between the lines is it fair to say I should invest in say a desktop with a flatscreen for photo work ratehr than rely on laptop?
Click to expand...

s/w = software
h/w = hardware

cue palm of your hand on forehead ;)

Editing on a desktop with a decent (calibrated) monitor will yield the best results, just watch out for the High Colour/Wide Gamut monitor that are currently flooding the market as they introduce a new set of problems for anyone wanting a calibrated display and are best avoided.
 
Hit myself so hard i can see the handprint. lol

Cheers pxl8
 
Can you not do it by holding your camera LCD against your monitor then just eyeball it & adjust the monitor until they match?
 
Well, you could do that. It wouldn't be very accurate though.

In fact it would be quite the opposite.
 
p4ddy said:
Can you not do it by holding your camera LCD against your monitor then just eyeball it & adjust the monitor until they match?
Click to expand...

If the camera LCD was accurate and you had a very good eye then you might get somewhere near but unfortunately the LCD on the back of the camera is far from accurate in terms of colour and gamma :(
 
DavidSteel said:
Cheers folks. I'm still confused by the abbreviations s/w and h/w (newby that I am!).

Reading between the lines is it fair to say I should invest in say a desktop with a flatscreen for photo work ratehr than rely on laptop?
Click to expand...

Another way would be to run an external monitor from your laptop, that would still need to be calibrated though but would be a lot better if the on-board laptop graphics card can handle it.
 
I just bought Spyder Express 2 from Wharehouse express for £53.00 and honestly I can kick myself for not doing it sooner.
Since calibrating my monitor my prints return exactly the same as images on screen.

Well worth the buy.
 
hey there

it has a few factors

1. is what your colour profile is set to on your camera , printer & monitor are set at . for example if your camera is what you really want to make sure your shooting & your monitor is set at adobe rgb 1998 its industry standard

2. also remember what sort of light your working can effect what your images look like on your screen (either ambient or home lights)

these should start to help you
 
cammiedh13 said:
1. is what your colour profile is set to on your camera , printer & monitor are set at . for example if your camera is what you really want to make sure your shooting & your monitor is set at adobe rgb 1998 its industry standard
Click to expand...


Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

It's a common mis-conception that AdobeRGB gives you more colours, it doesn't. It has a more saturation mainly in red/green but unless your image actually has very saturated red/green you gain nothing but lose plenty. In order to fit the extra saturation into an 8bit file you lose tonality so your shot that doesn't use the extra colours actually ends up with less tones than if you'd used sRGB.

Unless you're printing with a device that does support AdobeRGB and has 16bit drivers to avoid the banding issues or you've been specifically asked to supply AdobeRGB just use sRGB, the same as all the labs use :thumbs:

It also stops all the "why do my images look flat online?" questions ;)
 
Do you reckon it would be worth having one of those dedicated/sticky detailed posts which consists as a guide to calibration and colour space/workflow by those who really know it inside out? Seems like a popular and constant question which is asked (me included! lol) and would probably benefit many! :)
 
I guess making a sticky of one of the existing posts that has explained it could work ;)

But the reality is people often don't read the stickys or search before posting their question, tis the way of the forum :lol:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top