Monitor calibration

[gnwatts]

When I first started shooting architecture digitally I started noticing that my images did not look the same on other peoples monitors. At the time i was using a dell 21" monitor (connected to a PC), a supposedly very accurate screen. An image I thought I had nailed on my system sucked on another. My Mac friends said they looked too warm, and sometimes yellow.

I have a Canon 1DS MKII, set to it's base settings. I now use an older Mac G4 with a newer Cinema HD display, and a 17" Macbook Pro for field use. I use a Spyder3 Elite calibrator for the displays, set to a gamma of 2.0 and white point of 6500k, which has been, for me a good compromise to the saturated warmer tone of the Mac displays and my clients PC displays. Not the same, but pretty darn close.

I have done a minimum amount of studying on this, but found a good solution for me, through some field experimentation. I would take a photo, transfer it to my MBP, and adjust it in Aperture, while looking at the scene. Arriving back at the studio, I would put the adjusted file aside, and adjust the image. The two would always be different when I compared them. So I worked out a workflow to make things more consistent.

Sometimes I get a little paranoid when other peoples images look off on my computer, so it got me thinking: what do others do about this issue? Calibrate? Do a couple of shots and let loose, watching those Photoshop curve lines wobble back and forth? Too much fun.
What hardware/software do you use: Mac, PC, Photoshop.....?
I noticed some excellent HDR images on this site (I have the NIK HDR program, but rarely have I liked my results), what programs are used?

Sorry for the lengthy spew.
Greg

 

[Deadeye008]

I use a Huey monitor calibrator. It works well on all monitors except laptops. I have yet to find a laptop monitor that can be calibrated well. I have not used MacBooks though. Another idea is that you can ask the company you print from for their printer color profile and plug that into your processing software.

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

[Duke]

I was about to post a new thread but the good ol search found this one. My question is as follows: I have the spyder 3 monitor calibrator and calibrate about 1x/month with it. I believe that the colors are spot on. however, I just got my test batch of photos back from WHCC and they were all dark. they are not dark on my computer but apparently WHCC thought them to be so. I don't think the spyder calibrates brightness. It seems that it only does color and also I believe it does a good job with that but maybe I am missing something. Anyone have a similar experience?

 

[Dave]

Watch your histogram a when examining brightness. You have to remember that your monitor is light projected while prints are light reflected. In other words, your picture's brightness can seem to be influenced by the brightness settings on your monitor.

When it comes to calibration, it's also important to think about gamma and color space. Using wide-gamut color spaces like Adobe RGB for editing can throw things off when viewers are in a different color space like sRGB.

Modern Macs use similar gamma settings to PCs, but this isn't the case with PPC-vintage Macs.