HP 2475 Wide Gamut monitor - best calibration tool / software?

[joshua daniels]

<p>Hello! I'm an experienced digital darkroom tech and have recently acquired an HP 2475 monitor. Overall, I'm pleased with the monitor, but I find it difficult to calibrate properly.<br>

I have it set up side-by-side with a Lacie Electron Blue IV, an old state-of-the-art CRT. I have GM Eye One Display 2 and ColorMatch 3 software.</p>

<p>I have run calibration half a dozen times, and I get very close. But the HP looks a bit greenish and slightly washed out compared with the Lacie. I have tried different color temp settings and settled on a custom 6000K to come closest to the 6500 K Lacie (5000-5500 is way to warm for the Lacie). I have tried the EyeOne recommended 120 cd/m brightness setting as well as lower settings in the 90-100 range. While it is possible to turn down brightness, one end up with a very dim screen that is somehow still overall lighter (less saturated, perhaps) than the Lacie. Turning brightness all the way down makes it hard to judge exposure, though personally I find most monitors for photo editing relatively dim, but this is necessary to get decent screen-to-print matching.</p>

<p>I downloaded and tried the IC ColorEyes Display Pro with the EyeOne D2. ColorEyes allows you to calibrate to a lower brightness level, however, I don't see much of a difference in end result.<br>

In terms of color accuracy, I have read various threads that have users setting the RGB channels independently, sometimes visually - not using a color spectrometer. To me, this makes no sense. Another methodology is to set the channels at default and have the calibration software adjust them. This makes the most sense, however, I believe it may be necessary to reduce RGB channel intensity in order to obtain a lower and color balanced cd/m - I'm not sure.<br>

The overall brightness of the image, esp. towards the highlights, makes it difficult to accurately adjust exposure. Compared with the Lacie, the roll off from upper mid tones to highlights is much more abrupt.<br>

Finally, I notice that outside of the color managed Adobe apps. colors looks oversaturated with this monitor -- sometimes comically so. I have read various explanations for this, but they do not make sense to me as whatever is displayed on my screen is using the system-wide settings from the ICC / ICM (I have both Mac and Windows - Vista and 7).<br>

I would love to hear other folks' experience with what appears to be an excellent but difficult to calibrate monitor, or a workflow adapted to it. I print to an Epson 4880 but also outsource printing.</p>

<p> </p>

[digitaldog]

<p>First, the LaCie is (was never) state of the art (sorry). </p>

<p>Next, good luck trying to get a modern LCD, let alone what you say is a wide gamut unit, to match the LaCie, Ain’t going to happen for so many reasons. </p>

<p>Lastly, the EyeOne Display-2 doesn’t have filter matrices for wide gamut displays so the white point values will likely be off (if you want to hit D50, you may have to ask for D55 and adjust). </p>

[pascalb]

<p>I have this monitor and calibration worked pretty well with Spyder3. Before I used an older monitor which I was able to calibrate with Spyder2 but the results were less satisfying. It was not possible, however to calibrate the HP2475w with Spyder2, which doesn't recognize all the wide gamut, as datacolor told me. Therefore, the colors looked a bit like yours, desaturated and flat. So I upgraded to Spyder3, which sees the wide gamut, and everything worked well. My settings are 13 for brightness (for 120cd) and I had to adjust RGB levels to get best results. I had to turn blue down to 235 and green to 241 while letting red at 255. hope that helps. I'm sure now that you won't be able to calibrate with a non wide gamut calibrator.</p>

 

[pat_cahir]

<p>Andrew,<br>

I also recently got the HP 2475. I was going to buy the Eye One Display 2 based on your recommendation. Is there is any calibration package that is better for wide-gamut monitors?<br>

Many thanks,<br>

Patrick</p>

 

[digitaldog]

<p>The EyeOne D2 will work but it will be off in terms of the white point depending on how wide a gamut this unit is. A ColorMunki will do the job or, if possible, an EyeOne Display with wide gamut filter matrices which NEC does bundle with their wide gamut displays. Its not the package, its the hardware. That said, you should be fine with this setup, but you may have to mess around with white point settings to get a match. </p>