# How do we calibrate a monitor for use in Photography



## Done_Fishin

Years back I had a floppy that allowed me to fine tune the Monitor Colour, Brightness & Contrast for use when looking at Photos.

I have seen many Monitors over the years that give different displays for the same picture. There is nothing worse than grabbing a photo from your scanner and then start changing the way it looks on your monitor only to find when you go to the next monitor that it looked fine as an original and the copy is now wrong!

I had/have a Hitachi Monitor that shows a great picture at 800*600 yet puts everything into shadow at 1024 * 768.

Like wise an LCD monitor has different attributes to the old CRT Monitor .. what happens if the backlight is fading and you haven't realised .. how do you check ??

I also remember from somewhere that someone had created some special colour reference boards that you could use to check your display against. However again, if you wanted to use these references by printing them (even on Photographic paper) how do you know if you've calibrated the output from your printer correctly?

Anyone got any advice on this at all ..


----------



## zuluclayman

Adobe Gamma is a monitor calibration utility that will allow you to get your monitor's settings correct.
If you really, really want your monitor exact you would need to use something like these tools
Also for correct colour management use the same ICC profile for your camera monitor, imaging software and printer - so say for example you are using Adobe RGB for your camera then make sure you have the same colour profile set up for your software (Photoshop or whatever you use), monitor and printer.
It can be really frustrating to spend time on an image and have it looking good on your monitor only to find it looks completely different when you print it.


----------



## DonaldG

Also see the new sticky above.


----------



## Done_Fishin

Thanks for those wedges Don .. however .. you have not explained how to use them, although I will jump to the conclusion that we should adjust the monitor brightness contrast so that we can barely see the first and last changes whilst all the others step nicely through the range.

The program that I remember using years ago did more or less the same thing (Nokia I think) however with squares rather than bars ..


----------



## DonaldG

Simple instructions added :smile:


----------



## Almostthere

DonaldG said:


> Simple instructions added :smile:


There are authors who had made their bones writing BOOKS on color management. If you have narrowed it down to simple instructions... ray:


----------



## DonaldG

:grin: :wave:


Hi & welcome to the Photographer's Corner :wave:

I cannot claim that the simple instructions are good enough for professional photographers or pro graphic artists etc but it will go a heck of a long way in setting up monitors to a decent degree of contrast & brightness for most amateurs needs.


----------



## Shane84

Hi Done_Fishin,

I know this is a fairly cold thread but considering that you're a mod I guess you're probably still around 

The 'Gamma Steps' mentioned by others will surely set your contrast and gamma/brightness good enough for pretty much anything, but to use a monitor for serious photography you really need colour management. 

Look up devices like the ColorVision Spyder and the Pantone Huey. You point them at your screen while the included software plays a series of colours through your monitor. The software then creates a colour profile for your monitor with gamma, contrast and colour set up for you. 

Once it's done, DON'T TOUCH YOUR MONITOR ADJUSTMENT CONTROLS and also be sure to TURN OFF ANY COLOUR PROFILING YOUR COMPUTER MIGHT HAVE! If not, some software / hardware will automatically undo your hard work.

It needs no technical know how and they're not even that expensive. You should be able to get one for well under three figures and providing you don't leave it out in sunlight, it'll make every monitor that you ever own perfect.

If you're using a CRT (god... get with the times ) then you'll want to recalibrate now and again. If you're using a good LCD monitor then you should be able to get away with leaving it for a fairly long time as drift is much less of a problem.

Oh... and if you plan to print your photos regularly then you should really look into calibrating your printer for the same reasons. For some reason, nothing that you can buy ever matches anything else straight out of the box. Most stuff is WAY out as well - not just a little. Really annoying. 

You may hate me for pointing this out, but if you have good eyes then if you compare your camera's LCD with the picture displayed on a calibrated monitor then you'll see that sometimes not even camera manufacturers get it totally right! ARGH! It's particularly bad on some of the older Canon SLRs. Thankfully, most newer SLRs are fairly useable and almost all Nikons get it pretty good.

The alternative to buying an expensive pro printer (pro printers start well into three figures and cost a fortune to keep in ink) and having to calibrate it is to have your pictures printed at a good lab / printing company / even some camera stores who calibrate their printer so you don't have to. It's MUCH cheaper and far easier to get top quality that way unless you're a serial photo printer!

Good luck.


----------



## Done_Fishin

Thanks for the input .. yes .. still around .. haven't found another life yet :laugh: 

I'll look into what you said .. but *"""less than 3 figures"" * sounds like a nightmare to me .. I'd rather find a way to do it automatically pointing my Coolpix 4300 at the screen .. especially since you say that *"""almost all Nikons get it pretty good""" *

Yes I do have CRT's and I also have LCD's 

I prefer the CRT because they seem to last longer than LCD's which regularly fail like clockwork as the guarantee expires and NOT BEFORE!! When My last CRT dies, and I am unable to fix it myself, I will no doubt start using the LCD's that I have accumulated and repaired. 

I should mention however that the the backlight in LCD's is as controversial as the aging CRT tube .. I know of no way (until you told me about the above equipment) to compensate for the aging affects of either. In fact just changing screen analysis or refresh rate seems to have a major impact on the screen display even when the Monitors are new.

Thanks again for that input, I am sure others will also find it as interesting as I do.


----------



## Done_Fishin

Thanks for the input .. yes .. still around .. haven't found another life yet :laugh: 

I'll look into what you said .. but *"""less than 3 figures"" * sounds like a nightmare to me .. I'd rather find a way to do it automatically pointing my Coolpix 4300 at the screen .. especially since you say that *"""almost all Nikons get it pretty good""" *

Yes I do have CRT's and I also have LCD's 

I prefer the CRT because they seem to last longer than LCD's which regularly fail like clockwork as the guarantee expires and NOT BEFORE!! When My last CRT dies, and I am unable to fix it myself, I will no doubt start using the LCD's that I have accumulated and repaired. 

I should mention however that the the backlight in LCD's is as controversial as the aging CRT tube .. I know of no way (until you told me about the above equipment) to compensate for the aging affects of either. In fact just changing screen analysis or refresh rate seems to have a major impact on the screen display even when the Monitors are new.

Thanks again for that input, I am sure others will also find it as interesting as I do.


----------



## Shane84

Hi Done_Fishin,

Glad to help.

There's been some confusion over what I said about the Nikon LCDs though. They represent colour very acurately between the file and the LCD. At least the SLRs do, Coolpix are probably similar. That's all though. The file itself still probably doesn't match what you'd see if you looked at the subject at the time the photo was taken. 

There's more involved in a camera that would make it unsuitable for calibration of a monitor. i.e. your lens (yes all lenses, even £500+ ones), your camera's sensor and any internal filters that might be over it all play with colour for one.

Then there's White Balance, which yes you could meter out with a grey card. But good grey cards cost most of what you'd pay for a basic monitor calibrator. Then there's your camera's exposure variables, dynamic range, light falloff, diaphram linearity, reciprocity failure... which would play hell with trying to set your gamma and contrast at the least.

Then there are the settings and secret internal processing that the camera applies to your image. Most compacts and low end SLRs apply a heavy boost to saturation, exposure and vibrance because that's what most consumers regard as 'good photography'.

Those are only the initial problems that you'd encounter. Basically, I can't see you getting anything meaningful by using your camera. Even if you did manage it, how would you translate all of this into a working monitor profile? I've got no clue:4-dontkno

I understand that 'less than 3 figures' is still a lot. I looked up the price of the calibrator that I have. At WarehouseExpress.com (my local store) the ColorVision Spyder2 Express is £60
http://www.warehouseexpress.com/product/default.aspx?sku=1012615
I think they ship worldwide but you'll probably find similar prices where you live.

It's understandable if you still can't justify that, but it really makes a big difference. Personally I'm a gear head. I have £5000+ of photographic equipment. My every day camera bag alone has £2500 in it. So it made a lot of sense for me to get my monitor accurate so I can see what I'm working with and not have to guess.

I did just that for years though: guess. And if you know your printer well then it's 'good enough' a lot of the time if you're not doing critical work. Unbelievably, it's how my college tutor told me to do it! 

Another thing that you have in your favour is that most of the monitors in the world aren't calibrated either. So if you post online / email your stuff then chances are it'll look wrong to half the world anyway :upset: argh it's never ending! :laugh: I'm gonna leave it there though because I've waffled too much!:smile:


----------



## Done_Fishin

all interesting, very interesting and a lot of what you said I have already heard about or understood. However it's also good to know that things are the way we think they are ..


----------



## zuluclayman

Things are never how you think they are DF :grin: they are only how you see them at the time.
@shane - I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis - what we see when we look at images on the web/computer is only a product of how we have our monitors set and how good/bad our monitors are at displaying colour profiles - it can be incredibly frustrating to work over a digital image for hours and take it to either your own printer or an external printing source and find it looks nothing like what you saw on your monitor. :laugh:


----------



## DonaldG

What you say is very valid Shane. It must be remembered that this 'Corner' is for amateur photographers. The vast majority of whom are thrilled that the in camera processing (sharpness, white balance,saturation etc) will give them very satisfactory results. The stepwedge is an easy way of setting up monitors to an acceptable gamma as most amateurs wont have nor ever need colour monitoring kit. It would be an unnecessary over complication for all but the top end amateur/professional guys.

It must be stressed to most domestic and general amateur photographers or those who want to take 'nice snaps', that you don't need to spend and arm & a leg on kit. 

Simplicity can rule. An off the shelf 5Mp point & shoot camera for 99% of the amateur snappers is more that adequate. I have had remarkable results from a low cost camera. I have even done 180 degree panoramas with a 2Mp phone. :smile:

That said, we don't want to put off the serious amateur from the 'Corner' either. But we must not frighten off the 'Mum who wants to know how to snap her new born in the cot'.

FYI I'm a dedicated Canon guy. My walkabout kit is a 5D MkII + 28~300mm L IS USM and a 20D + 70~200 L and an A630 (I have recently sold off my couple of Rollieflex 2e Planars :sigh: )


----------



## Shane84

Sorry guys,

It's true that I take my equipment very seriously and to me, any improvement in my images is worth it. And like I said, I'm a gear head :grin:

Like I also said, if you're doing overly critical work then learning the differences between the colours on your camera, screen and printer might be good enough. I'd still say that £65 for a lifetime of spot on monitors is worthwhile if you plan to alter colour in post processing though (that's what I assumed that you meant when you said setting up a monitor for photography). But that's for the user to decide I guess.

Nice kit Donald, it's good to see someone else not carrying 50kg in a backpack as so many people seem to do these days :smile:

What sort of thing do you shoot? Sports? Street Candids?

I'm a dedicated Nikon guy myself. A prime guy too, maybe you guessed? :smile: My every day carry kit is a Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm, Sigma 30 f1.4 and Nikkor 85mm f1.8


----------



## Done_Fishin

sticks up sign showing he is sick & green with envy .......

:laugh:


----------

