Monitor calibration

I keep reading about how important it is to calibrate my monitor.

I have had a look around at what is available and would really like something that I can press a button and bingo - calibrated monitor!

I use elements 7, a dell lcd 19" monitor and shortly will be on windows 7 after I've shoved Vista where it will hurt Bill Gates!

What do other people do and is there a really easy to use piece of software/equipment?

Andy

I might as well tell you now that I do nothing and get a perfectly good colour match throughout. There will be plenty along to give the opposite point of view!

I use sRGB settings throughout and the evidence of my own eyes. The colour of my monitor, prints, web images and also the ones printed in PU Magazine all look exactly the same.

It can't be entirely luck because the same is true of our second PC and also the five laptops we use. So I don't try to find a cure for a problem that I don't experience.

Andy,

There are a number of calibrating devices, and the equipment and software are very easy to use. The Spyder series is one, and the X-rite Eye One line is another. What model you chose and how much you are willing to spend depends on you.

The Photomonk

I have a Pantone Huey which is very easy to use. I do partially agree with John however

1. On my HP1955 monitor (a PVA panelled LCD) the Huey makes no visible change to the colour, although it does drop the brightness some which does result in an improved match between monitor and print

2. On 2 cheap TN panelled LCDs which I have, and both the Laptops I use, the Huey makes matters significantly worse. Its attempts to correct the colour balance result in the colour improving when bright but remaining the same when dark, which means that colour accuracy is a strong function of brightness after calibration.

I therefore find that the Huey is helpful on a good quality panel, although most have passable colours to begin with and you may not see a difference if you're not hyper critical. On a poor quality panel, the money is much better spent upgrading the panel.

Going back to my notes from the Calumet New York Seminar on printing , when the Tech there [ a Calumet employee - not sponsored by any printer firms ] was talking about Calibration - as PhotoMonk stated - he reckoned the best of the Calibration Devices were X-Rite Eye One and the Spyder series.

The one he did not recommend , and I see it widely advertised, is the Huey Pantone one !

Me - well I'll not be even trying to get and use one since I have a MacBook Pro - and our screens came well down his list of the most wanted screens

mmm looks like I bought precisely the wrong one then

Thankfully my HP monitor is good enough that it doesn't notice.

It is not like they (Calumet) were trying to recommend one brand over another. In the display case in the store, they had Spyder, Eye One, Pantone, and a few other brands. What the tech was bringing across was his own personal experience and customer feedback. In fact, he had the gamut available for demonstration.

The Photomonk

Actually I found the Pantone Huey an excellent hardware colorimiter (sp?)... when used with ArgyllCMS and dispcalGUI in "cLUT" profile mode

I've mentioned this before (and this subject keeps coming up!)
Mentioned on this thread - https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/basic-colour-management--c1--amp--ps-2384...

I have the setup running on several PCs and a Mac. This was the ONLY software that was able to 'tame' my Toshiba M200 Tablet screen. One of my friends has the Huey and it wouldn't calibrate his Dell laptop screen - went all green. Quick blast with Argyll + dispcalGUI sorted it out.

... just uninstall the Pantone software first

HTH!
Matt

I totally agree with John. My monitor shows a decent picture without any calibration, so I won't mess with it. Running all in sRGB, by the way.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it

I use a Spyder 2 and have found that it helps enormously but I think it may depend on how good your monitor is in the first place. Mine has a fairly decent panel (MVA, better than a TN) but the factory defaults are shockingly poor and fiddling around never got things right. The Spyder has sorted all that out. A better monitor might not need this, though it seems a little crazy to spend thousands on camera equipment then risk your images all looking iffy for the sake of 50 quid.

Maybe it isn't worth spending all that much on a calibrator but second-hand or older models can be picked up on Amazon or Ebay fairly inexpensively. Argyll and DispCal certainly seem better than the Spyder 2 software, but alas they don't like my Windows 7 64-bit install. OK under Linux, though. In my case, anyway, calibration has been worth it.

Mecrox: this page may be helpful on the ArgyllCMS with Windows 7

Thanks for that. I will check it out.

we have a spyder through the photoclub at work and both laptops I use have been calibrated. Much better.
The Dell 17 and 19 monitors are awful, though, and I don't understand quite why....

All machines are running Windows 7.

Bret

Interesting, I use Argyll since I'm under Linux, I'll get hold of that dispcalGUI and give it another go on my lappy since I have the same problem as your friends Dell with all the TN panels I've tried (both Argyll and Pantone software under Linux or Windows).

This is exactly what I did with my new Dell 2209WA monitor after reading your advice on this in a previous post. It worked well for me.

Thanks
Andrew