Screen calibration - would this work?

Carter64

Carter64

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Mike
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As I exclusively use Linux, I've always had a little trouble with finding a method of calibratiing my screens.
Previously, I booted into Windows XP and used my Spyder 2. Copied the profile and used that. My drive that held XP has gone to clicky-whirry HDD heaven, so I'm a bit stuck.
I've breifly read that Ubuntu 12.04 can work with a Spyder 2 but not in straightforward way.
During my seaches, I came across this post:

A low tech work-around is to adjust basic gamma, brightness and contrast then use your DSLR as a tool to tweak further.

Set your cameras white balance to 6500k and focus on your monitors screen then slightly blur focus.

Take a picture of the monitor and review the shot's RGB Histogram.

Adjust the monitors gamma, contrast, brightness as before and take another shot.
Repeat until the red, blue and green histograms of your pictures peak at the same levels.
Once this happens save the profile you have created for the monitor.

Would this be worth the possibly rather tedious effort? IE would it actually work to a greater degree?
I'm also thinking that I should open a new image in GIMP (fullscreen) and have red, green, blue , black and white stripes or bars?

Thanks!
 
Thanks Brian!
Dispcalgui page you linked to does specifically list the Spyder 2, so fingers crossed!
 
I've read good things about DispcalGUI.. never used it though.

As for your method in the first post.. it will give a reasonable white point calibration if you have good colour acuity, but it will be useless for gamma and colour calibration. All it will do is give you a grey piont/white point. That's not what calibration does. It also makes sure the whole gamut of colours is reproduced accurately, and ensures correct gamma. You can make manual adjustments with a grey screen to get that accurate... but there's no guarantee reds will be accurate, or blues, or cyans etc.
 
Thanks David,
I wasn't too sure, my limited knowledge said it seems reasonable :)
However, I have DispcalGUI now and after a quick test that it picks up my Spyder 2 (*after a bit of a faff), it looks to be working OK. I'm on my first of 4 nights, so not sure if I'll have time to do it properly just yet.
I have two monitors and use nvidia's software and driver. I've not yet read up on how or if it can do both individually (they're not matched) but as I usually open GIMP with the tools on the edge of the left monitor and image full screen on the right, just having the right should be enough.

*it needed the original firmware but I have the CD and DispcalGUI installed it once I'd pointed it to the .exe file :)
 
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