Adobe Gamma and Dell Laptop Contrast Adjustment?

[mcg]

I have a new Dell laptop and was trying to run Adobe Gamma on it.

 

You are first asked to adjust the screen contrast to maximum, but I have

discovered I cannot do that on my Inspiron 1300 - you can only adjust the screen

brightness.

 

Dell have told me that screen contrast is adjusted "automatically".

 

Is it worth continuing with the rest of the Gamma wizard to try to get some sort

of calibration or might it introduce problems if I can't adjust screen contrast

in the first step?

 

Generally I really only use the white point dropper tool to pick out a neutral

area to remove any colour cast, rather than manual slides, but I guess if the

calibration isn't correct I might miss a slight cast in the first place.

 

Anyone with a similar computer able to offer any solutions or advice? Thanks in

advance!

[Ed_Ingold]

Adobe Gamma is useless for calibrating an LCD, let alone a laptop. As Ellis Vener is fond of saying, it doesn't get you even near the ball park - same town maybe.

 

You can do a reasonable job with a colorimeter designed for LCDs - no suction cups. However, the limited viewable angle limits the effectiveness of any calibration.

[mcg]

Thanks Edward, I never knew about it not being any use for an LCD screen...

[eugene_scherba]

Edward's answer is right on. Get a colorimeter.

[Ed_Ingold]

I should elaborate a bit. LCDs require substantial corrections out of the box, whereas CRTs tend to be fairly close to the mark. The Gretag-MacBeth software shows the profile curves on completion, which illustrates the difference. Desktop LCDS have a wider gamut and are much brighter than CRTs, and tend to come with gaudy, business-graphics quality color. Laptops have the added challenges of variable power to the screen and low luminosity.

 

Once you have a desktop LCD set up properly, you never want to go back to a CRT. The screen is flat, fills the entire screen area, sharp and bright. I can move 45 degrees off-axis from my Viewsonic VP191 without noticing a change in color or intensity.

[tonybrown]

Moray: I also have a Dell laptop (Inspiron 5150) and have concluded that there is no real merit in trying to calibrate the LCD monitor. My object is to produce faithful prints, so I shoot Adobe RGB (RAW) with a Canon EOS5D, print with a Canon i9900 using Photo Paper Pro and Canon profile PR2. By using my EOS5D as a Colorimeter and viewing the results in Photoshop CS2 Bridge I can confirm that my colours are accurately printed. The EOS5D makes an excellent colorimeter and comes for free. - Tony