Calibration problems on new monitor
 

My wife has just presented me with a new monitor an HP 24" widescreen. I have calibrated the monitor using a spyder and also tried using the HPs built in software.

Photos look pretty good on screen, but when uploaded they look over saturated, would love some feedback.

Looks pretty good to me. Not over saturated to my eye.

You say you've used a spyder AND the HP software, I hope not at the same time. I'd get rid of the HP software completely and rely on the spyder. If you're using Vista, check in the colour management settings in the control panel that the system is using the monitor profile generated from the spyder. Also, check you haven't got Adobe Gamma running in the "startup" programs as this can conflict with other monitor adjustment programs.

I'm viewing using Firefox 3 with color (sic) management enabled.

D.

Trouble is judging what is OK is very subjective and also depends on all our set ups too. I would follow Duncan's advice and accept what the Spyder gives you.

Yes I'm running the Spyder profile. The HP profiler is built into the monitor, so cannot uninstall it, maybe it's me that needs to get used to the new monitor.

I'm still on Firefox v2.0.0.17.

Thqanks for the input.

Harry

The Spyder profile is installed when windows is in the final stages of booting into your desktop, so should not be affected by your Hp Profiler as that would be set up in your monitor itself and will be overridden by the Spyder Profile. Make sure your graphics card is not trying to set a different profile, if you look in your profiles list make sure the Spyder profile is set to default). You dont say what image software you are using, if it is Photoshop or similar then you need to set it's colour management settings to your Spyder monitor profile in order to obtain correct colour!!! If you have each step of the imaging procedure using different profiles then you will never obtain correct colour in your final image.

Remember, when you post images onto a web page they are automatically converted to SRGB and may look slightly different to your monitor profile, although the difference should be very slight if you have set up your colour management profiles correctly.

nirofo.

My understanding is that using the the photoshop "save for web" option mealy strips out the exif data (including the ICC profile), but doesn't convert it to sRGB. You have to do that manually before you save otherwise, depending on your working colour space, if you work in Adobe RGB, your images will look flat on screen

Thanks guys. Yes the Spyder profile is the default setting. Mike I'm using Lightroom to process my raw files and CS3 for resizing and any further editing that I may want to do. Since v2.1 of Lightroom CS3 is not used a great deal. All images for web use are sRGB.

"If it is Photoshop or similar then you need to set it's colour management settings to your Spyder monitor profile in order to obtain correct colour!!! If you have each step of the imaging procedure using different profiles then you will never obtain correct colour in your final image".

Are you saying that in Photoshop, Preferences, Colour Settings I should use the Spyder Profile and not the sRGB setting?

Have just recalibrated using the Spyder and have used this setting in Photoshop.
The embedded image which I've just converted in ACR looks ok to me, so many thanks.

Harry

Hi Harry,

I would upgrade to FF3; unlike upgrades within FF2, it will not however automatically take in the colour (color management 0.4) add-on as that was originally a beta trial and is now full. It also needs tuning to whatever your 'home' profile you end up with.

I am wondering whether to borrow a Spyder from local camera club, but I find that with my built-in calibration (macBook pro), in the end it is subjective, it varies according to what the ambient light is in the room (ie I actually have 2 or 3 stored and flip between them to get grey greyest)

It might help if your do a trial post of something a bit different, as there is very evidently a divergence of opinion as to how far saturation should be tweaked that goes right across the range of photographers. The sky colour suggests you have upped the saturation, so maybe slightly less?

Your Louth shot looks better pulled off the browser - I will stick my neck out and guess this is the real colour rather than sRGB, which is a good compromise for bad systems, but doesn't do full justice to colour (dives for cover before Clive sees this).

Hi Chris, there was a reason why I did not update Firefox, but to be quite honest I cannot remember what it was. This was on the recommendation of some of the members over on the PCadsvisor forum, no doubt this minor problem has now been resolved, so will probably update this evening.

On the Louth shot Saturation was not boosted in anyway, apart from using the Canon landscape profile within lightroom, which does boost the colours as against using such as the Camera Faithful profile.

I guess you are still a DDP user? if so you may not be conversant with Lightroom, although ACR in CS3 uses the same profiles.

The end result was as you surmised the result of the Spyder profile so was not output as sRGB, though to be quite honest there was very little to choose between the two.

Harry

Regardless of what colour profile you use when you save for web, when the image is uploaded to the web it is converted to SRGB, when you view the downloaded web image on your monitor you see the SRGB image via your own monitor profile colour, this may or may not appear the same. So if your main interest is uploading and viewing web images then your monitor profile should be set up as SRGB, using Colour Calibration software if possible. This same profile should be set up in your Photoshop/Lightroom or similar colour management settings as your custom monitor profile. If you have different profiles for monitor and graphics software and then save for web, then everything will be different!

nirofo.

I agree the Louth shot colours look better but the embedded ICC profile with the image is HP w2408 wide HS New :confused: It looks as though you have got the working colour space of Photoshop set to the colour profile of your monitor. You should set the working colour space for Photoshop to one of the commonly recognised ones - sRGB or Adobe RGB - other specialist wide gamut work spaces are ColorMatch RGB or ProPhoto RGB. This is different to the colour profile of your monitor which is essentially a look up table to tell the monitor how to display the colours.

As Chris says - sRGB doesn't do full justice to colour because of its a fairly limited colour gamut... BUT unless you have spent approaching £1000 on an Eizo monitor or similar (how good is your system :)), the sad fact of life is that your monitor will not physically display the colours of the wide gamut spaces (although printers can do better than monitors in some parts of the spectrum) . And even if it did, another sad fact of life is that most people viewing your images a) can't display them & b) even if they could, couldn't render them properly because they haven't got a browser that can read colour profiles.

Now let me say at this point I'm into colour management... I've got a spyder 3 & regularly re profile my monitor, I use Adobe RGB in all my image editing and I've had separate profiles written for various papers that I print on, but when I post to web I convert to sRGB. I've got Firefox 3.0.3 but... I can't be bothered to set my browser up for colour management - if people posting web images cant be bother to adhere to the sRGB standard well....

So

1) profile your monitor and make sure this profile is loaded when your OS starts
2) set the working colour space for photoshop to Adobe RGB is you are making prints but if just producing web images set to sRGB
3) have your printer papers profiled
4) before uploading to web ensure converted to sRGB

I do not believe this is the case - there is no software doing the conversion which would require the ability to read ICC profiles, always assuming that the image being uploaded has one. As you can see from this post no conversion of the Adobe RGB image has taken place and the test card looks flat and lacking in contrast. However, it is true that the assumed standard for web images is sRGB


Absolutely... which is why you should post in sRGB

Interesting web article here which sort of explains it all?

http://www.creativepro.com/article/t...r-in-photoshop

nirofo.

Ok - that article assumes that you are preparing your images for uploading using Photoshop's "save for web" function and you have the "convert to sRGB" checked in the drop down dialogue - see attachment (it is by default so it will be unless you've messed with it ;)) This function also strips out the ICC profile and the EXIF data

If however you use "save" or "save as" for your images this preserves the EXIF data and ICC profile but no conversion of the colour space takes place. So if you work in photoshop in sRGB then your uploaded image will be sRGB :), but if you work in Adobe RGB (or any other workspace) then that's how you image will remain. And in this case, as the majority of people surfing the web don't use colour managed web browsers, they will not see your image as you intended. Judging by the fact that most images on the forum here retain the EXIF data, I'm guessing that majority of people here use "save" or "save as" rather than "save for web" and therefore their images will not be converted to sRGB before uploading.

I have my photoshop workspace set to Adobe RGB - better for printing - but I convert to sRGB and then use "save as" to preserve the EXIF data for images for uploading.

I think it was about this time last year that I posted a shot I was having trouble with in the Crit forum and was so impressed with what Nick (Greenbunion, where are you Nick??) was able to do with other software that I realised DPP was not the answer....and maybe neither was the 350D. Got a Nikon D80 and used Nikon Capture NX ever since.

Going off thread, but I realised that the CR2 conversion pane in DPP had a sort of slipperiness on colour that was unsatisfactory. Things like the 'landscape' or 'portrait' setting analog the auto settings on the camera and why both 'neutral' and 'faithful'? Defeats the object of shooting manual. It may not matter so much with 5D and 1D (and 40D, 50D) as I assume their sensors are order-of-magnitude better.

When I return to 350D shots I never managed but didn't want to bin, I convert to .tif using PSE4 with absolutely no 'auto' settings, then take up again in NX2, and I think with far better results
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...929&ppuser=780

I have never tried Lightroom, I imagine similar to (free) Nikon View NX. But from conversations with Duncan, if using anything other than Nikon, I would be looking at Capture 1 for RAW conversion.

Back to core of thread, I suppose I can see the differences as I do have a decent monitor (MacBook pro 15, built-in). As far as calibration is concerned, I am most impressed with the Spyder work done by my local Newent camera Club for digital projection. However that is in an otherwise dark room. On computer monitor, there is also highly variable ambient light and I toggle between internal calibrations for 'normal' in my studio/pigsty, ditto but at night and northlight, getting the grey greyest. Doesn't actually seem to make much difference to prints which used for editing, printer does what it likes:D

As far as all the technical aspects of the web, I can't see much trouble in using FF3 with colour management, nor with having one's editing programmes all at Adobe RGB...compared to trying to take decent pics in the first place.

Clive I'm in full agreement with you, I've always used "Save As" and uploaded all my web photos as sRGB and I've never had a colour problem until using/setting up of the HP 24" monitor over the weekend.

With the Louth photo, after recalibrating again with the Spyder and doing a lot of reading on the web + comments in this thread, I decided to try out the new profile "HP w2408 wide HS New" which I had just created. I also output one as sRGB.

When these are viewed side by side on my monitor I can see no difference. Normally my workflow is, Lightroom to CS3 to Web is sRGB. As there is no discernible difference between my HP profile and sRGB I will switch back to sRGB.

Chris. I do little printing at home sending any work I require to Photobox so I use sRGB for most of my work. I was aware of your change to Nikon, but remembered your frequent mentions of DPP.

Harry