Basic advise for beginner trying to profile/calibrate laptop LCD, please.

[samusiskin]

Hi all - I hope some of you will take pity on my ignorance...

 

I recently purchased a Canon 300D and would like some advice on

monitor profiles and calibration. At the moment I am taking pictures

in RAW and then post-processing using Capture One Rebel and PS

Elements 2, with the aim of getting them printed in a commercial lab.

I do not have a printer at the moment. I'm using a Toshiba Satellite

laptop (less than 6 months old) to process pics.

 

I intend to buy monitor calibration hardware asap, but until then I

need to try and ensure that what I see on the screen will be as close

as possible to what the lab prints look like. I have done a fair bit

of research on the web, but am finding it all a little tricky..

 

I tried using the Adobe Gamma application to profile my monitor, but

my laptop's monitor doesn't seem to have either brightness or

contrast controls (is this normal/possible??) and when it asks you to

set the gamma by making the 'centre box fade into the patterned

frame', moving the slider from one end to the other did not seem to

have that effect. Is the box supposed to disappear?

 

Anyway, I abandoned that and just left the monitor set to sRGB

IEC61966-2.1, with Capture One set to that as well (camera profile

was 300D Generic). All seemed well on screen, until I thought that if

I was going to get things printed, I should be using the AdobeRGB

(1998) colourspace instead. When I changed to that (monitor and C1),

the colours in my pictures changed totally. Lush green leaves went a

drab khaki green, totally different to the 'true' colours of the

leaves. To get them back to looking 'normal' was practically

impossible. Why? So, I just changed everything back to sRGB IEC61966-

2.1. But when I get pictures printed, I'm worried they will look

dreadful.

 

I realise that there are no easy (or free) answers to getting

accurate colour reproduction, but I'd just like some simple, step by

step advice to get something half acceptable with my equipment, i.e.

A 300D, RAW pics, a laptop LCD, Capture One and then lab prints.

 

Many, many thanks to anybody who takes the time to make some sense of

what I've written and offer some assistance!

 

Cheers

 

Sam

[andrew_rodney1]

-->I intend to buy monitor calibration hardware asap, but until then I need to try and

ensure that what I see on the screen will be as close as possible to what the lab prints look

like.

 

Sorry, for that to happen you need good display calibration and a profile plus you need the

output profile from the lab (or have one made). Cant' speak for Elements but it can't be

much different than Photoshop and that software needs two profiles to produce an

accurate preview; a profile of the display and a profile from the output device if you hope

to get accurate soft proofing. Capture 1 should behave the same way.

[dion_loy]

Most laptop monitors have very poor contrast ranges. I could not get an accurate color profile made for my laptop monitor. I would suggest getting a GOOD external LCD monitor for your color work. I managed to profile a Dell 17" LCD accurately, but it was harder to do than with CRT monitors.

[heather_stark]

I asked a similar question a few months ago in this forum, and got an impressive volume of intelligible and actionalbe replies. Recommend you look at that.

 

As far as I understand it, sRGB is designed to be a 'good enough' space, and you might find that all is well (enough) with just keeping it sRGB all the way down. Worth asking your lab what they need from you, in order to do this. Your image is probably tagged sRGB and sRGB is probably the default that they apply if the image is untagged - but it's worth asking.

 

Cautionary note: I have found that most 'normal' high street/mall labs give deeply silly answers to any questions to do with this topic. So, if you get into this very profiling lark very seriously, you may find that need to move to a high end place that does work for graphics designers/agencies. (If anyone in UK reading this knows of exceptions to this... RSVP!)

 

But if you are dealing with a normal type lab that knows and cares nothing about this - sRGB is certainly your best bet. If you start sending them other stuff they may not be able to do the right thing by it.

 

I don't know how Elements works, so I can't advise on that. But here's a small factoid that might be of use to you in figuring out what's going on: changing your monitor setting will change how the image looks to you, but it won't change the data in your image, or the 'metadata' that tells the programs that work with the image what kind of image it is (e.g. sRGB vs AdobeRGB).

 

My guess is that the same is NOT true of Capture One.

 

For an easy life see how bad (or, indeed, good!) your sRGB all the way down workflow is, before you get stuck in to this.

 

best,

 

Heather

[jamie_roberts]

OK, first things first...

 

You probably can't profile your laptop LCD. Heck, it's hard enough profiling an LCD anyway--and as you've noticed, most laptop LCDs are anything but adjustable (luckily my IBM Thinkpad has at least a brightness control!)

 

Second, your workflow may be messed up. Capture One (C1) is fully color managed; I don't think Photoshop Elements is, though I'd like ot be wrong about that. So there may be a big problem right there.

 

Finally, never, ever set your monitor space to Adobe RGB. Your monitor is most certainly not an Adobe RGB device, and is probably closest (like, in the metaphoric solar system:)) of sRGB. So set it there. PS Elements will use that, and so will C1 if you tell it to (and you should). This is called by Qimage a "utility profile" and it pretty much is--a way to work with a "best guess," nothing more.

 

OK, now you want to output. If you're going to a lab, then they can tell you what they're looking for in terms of color input. A lot of labs want sRGB, so you're OK there (then they apply their printer-specific profile). The lab I work with, which has Fuji and Noritsu printers profiled by Dry Creek Photo, actually want you to convert to their print profiles first. Interesting, no?

 

But don't worry, sRGB is probably fine for out for now. Web output (for Windows machines, anyway) should also always be sRGB. This is why, btw, everything looked weird on your system when you switched to an Adobe RGB workflow--nothing on your windows system is color managed. So it's expecting sRGB and your feeding it Adobe RGB. Wrong color numbers=bad looking pictures :)

 

If you're manipulating the C1 output a lot, OR if your outputting to a decent Photo inkjet, THEN you should output Adobe RGB from C1 and use Photoshop or Qimage (again, I'm not sure that PS Elements even knows how to handle Adobe RGB properly, though I know it can handle an sRGB workflow) to print to the device. When you're shifting color around in Photoshop or some other image editor, then it's also good to be in a wider-gamut color space like Adobe RGB. Then you convert back to sRGB or whatever the lab wants when you're done. Also, most good photo inkjets have a wider gamut than sRGB, and, especially for some certain saturated colors, Adobe RGB provides the printers with better input.

 

The way you make this change in C1 is just by setting the output destination--don't change any other color management settings! But you'll need a CMS-enabled application downstream to get the most out of your C1 output.

 

So you workflow choices look like this:

 

1) C1 --> output destination is sRGB --> Web, lab or PS (Elements) --> print

 

OR

2) C1 --> output destination is Adobe RGB --> Photoshop or some other color managed editor for further manipulation --> convert to lab profile OR convert to sRGB for Web

 

Once you get a good monitor, I'd recommend the Gretag Macbeth i1 Display as a great calibration device--easy to use, well made, and upgradeable :)

[perry_fatuova1]

Dion:

How did you calibrate the Dell 17 inch LCD. I have the same one and I am having the toughest time trying to get my montor and my Canon i9900 to match its brutal!....Any help you have would be great..

My images are comminf off of a Digital Rebel, and yes I'm really new to the DSLR scene.

 

thanks so much,

 

-Perry

[perry_fatuova1]

Dion:

How did you calibrate the Dell 17 inch LCD. I have the same one and I am having the toughest time trying to get my montor and my Canon i9900 to match its brutal!....Any help you have would be great..

My images are comminf off of a Digital Rebel, and yes I'm really new to the DSLR scene.

 

thanks so much,

 

-Perry

[ethan hansen]

Perry,

<p>It is useful to remember that calibration and profiling are not the same thing. Calibration is setting your monitor to a known standard; i.e. gamma, white point, and gray balance. Profiling is the process of measuring how your display deviates from that standard. <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/digitalphotography/gopro/organize/calibrate.asp">Here's a dated, but still useful</a> article I was an author of about the process on Windows XP.</p>

<p>LCD displays typically have no hardware controls other than how bright the backlight is. Everything else is actually a software tweak to the monitor's look up tables (LUTs). Unless the calibration system is a specialized one that adjusts the monitor itself, it is best not to mess with the color controls on an LCD screen. The result is that you'll make competing adjustments in two places - the monitor and the video card. This only serves to introduce banding and other artifacts into what you see on the screen.</p>

<p>A hardware calibrator is the best way to go for profiling a LCD. Set the backlight to a brightness level you are happy with and go from there. The profile will characterize how your monitor actually displays colors. Any color-aware application, including Photoshop and PS Elements, will use this profile to give a more accurate representation of the colors in the image. Use profiles for your printer and you can tie everything together.</p>

[joel_ehly1]

I'd like to clarify something. There's nothing wrong with Adobe RGB in the proper workflow. Adobe RGB is intended for graphics and prepress professionals working predominantly in an Adobe workflow (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, even Quark). sRGB is the default colorspace for many devices simply because it is a relatively SMALL, simplistic RGB colorspace (hence the "s" in the name). It works well for digital cameras and laptop displays, but it is far from an optimal RGB space. It favors saturated, bright colors at the expense of a broader, more accurate and photo-real gamut. sRGB also works well with the web; most websites tend to favor bright, saturated images which tend to view better on lower quality and/or uncalibrated displays.

 

Yes, Adobe RGB may display strangely in your setup if your system is not optimized for it or if the image you're displaying is from an sRGB device. Adobe RGB is a print/prepress optimized gamut and in the CMYK print world, bright/saturated colors are difficult to achieve (and typically unrealistic).

 

I use Adobe RGB exclusively in my professional print workflow and it is an excellent colorspace for me.

 

sRGB may appear more appealing to you visually, but you may find it difficult to get an accurate reproduction of your sRGB images at many service bureaus because the colors your display is capable of may not replicate accurately on your selected printing device (CMYK vs RGB). Color copiers are especially limited, inkjet tends to favor brighter colors.