Spyder 3 Pro and iMac

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p><em>This 120cdm2 number is, lets keep thing simple, where you will be able to produce a monitor / print match on luminosity.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>It wouldn’t produce a match for me using the above viewing conditions unless I alter the viewing condition of the booth (something I can do). Nor can I easily set my NEC to such a low luminance value. So again, fixed values for cd/m2 without taking the entire set of conditions into effect is doing more harm than good (and the reason the “my prints are too dark” issues is what it is).</p>

[patricklavoie]

i base my 120 on a normal viewing condition on different medium and on different place.

 

not many people have a dedicated lightbooth, and the one that say that print is too dark are looking at it in a regular light

place, hence the my print is too dark vs a too light screen.

 

by putting 120 or lower you are in my experience closing the gap between what you see on monitor vs print in your regular

office home setup.

 

it is not a perfect number, some will use 110 like me, some could use a 130 if they also have a vieving booth or similar...

but 110-120 seem to work well for many situation.

 

lets not debate this here again and again, as i know that you know that im fully aware of all this calibration workflow... lets

keep it simple for the op as he need to be able to adjust this number with is calibrator for now.

[gooseberry]

<blockquote>

<p>Andrew wrote:<br /><em>Native White Point and Gamma are ideal for displays who’s panels are only 8-bit (the majority) [...] So unless you have a high bit panel, moving farther from Native will produce more banding.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Am I guessing correctly that iMacs fall into the majority bucket as far as 8-bit LUT is concerned? The new 27" as well? (I've got 24" but will need to upgrade at some stage.)</p>

[digitaldog]

<p>The key is a match next to the display. Anywhere else, your eye adapts to the new conditions and you don’t have that display around any longer to view with the aim of a match between the two dissimilar media. Somehow, if your goal is to produce a screen to print match, you have to have a display and a print (lit somehow) together. They are interlinked. <br /> <br />You may not have a dedicated light booth but you need something to light the print next to the display. You would not use a candle. You would not use a 5W nigh light. Clearly there is an attempt to view that print using something sensible. Not all such viewing conditions are created equal. But you do have to take that condition into account when calibrating a display if you hope to produce a visual match. You cannot honestly provide values for display calibration, even as a starting point for that match without having that viewing condition in mind. 120cd/m2 might work perfectly, or it might be too dim or too bright. Its just a number and it doesn’t ensure a match to anything by default. <br /> <br />Its kind of like asking the plumber how big a water heater you need and he says 40 gallons but you didn’t tell him its for your office that has 200 employees! 40 gallons might be a good assumption, even a starting point for the average family home. But until you define what you are doing, making such a suggestion is putting the cart before the horse. <br /> <br />We want to keep it simple and that means having users understand that their mileage may vary (and its useful to know if they want their spec in gallons or kilo’s). The biggest problem with print to screen matching isn’t that people don’t use hardware and software (that was an issue years ago), the problem is the companies that make these products, the so called experts, end users, tell others what values to use as if written in stone (or users take as such) when its impossible to define a target until you account for the print. IF all you care about is how the display looks, you don’t want to match another vastly different output media (print), then yes, 120cd/m2@D65 is a useful recommendation. And its a useful recommendation only when such a setting produces a display that matches a print. Since the big undefined aspect of this is the luminance and color of the print viewing conditions, I would submit that its folly to provide specific settings until that critical part of the process is defined.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Am I guessing correctly that iMacs fall into the majority bucket as far as 8-bit LUT is concerned? The new 27" as well? (I've got 24" but will need to upgrade at some stage.)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The full display path is still 8-bit in and out but the panel is high bit whether its on a Mac or PC. That’s where the reduction in banding results. The iMac is not a high bit panel as far as I know, they are kind of rare.</p>

[brad_smith8]

<blockquote>

<p>I don't even remember Spyder Pro asking me about luminance.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As I stated before luminance <strong><em>measurement</em></strong> is only available in RGB control mode; the monitor must have RGB controls in its menu. Once it's measured it can be adjusted on the monitor.</p>

<p>The Elite will do all this for you via controlling the video card.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>As I stated before luminance <strong><em>measurement</em></strong> is only available in RGB control mode; the monitor must have RGB controls in its menu. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>In terms of the Spyder and its software? Because the control I’d expect to see would be something quite different, like “<em>Backlight</em>” or “<em>Brightness</em>”. Darn display manufacturers all use differing terms. There is only one physical adjustment of an LCD, its the intensity of the Fluorescent lights using some OSD control that is generally called backlight or similar. </p>

[brad_smith8]

<p>I guess I'm not familiar enough with Macs to know if advanced controls are available on the monitors.</p>

<p>Spyder still calls it luminance in cdm^2, but that measurement is only opened up when in RGB control mode where you adjust RGB sliders to get the correct 6500K, 2.2 and luminance via the brightness/backlight control in the Spyder3Pro version. And that method has never produced banding in my experience.</p>

[digitaldog]

<p>Monitors are monitors if you’re referring to their controls, they don’t differ that way in terms of Mac’s or Windows. I don’t use the Spyder products. Seems to control the backlight, you have to find the actual control on the display that affects that adjustment, then in the Spyder software, you’d have to find a place to enter the desired cd/m2. So I was confused by your post about RGB controls (that should affect the color but its doing this in the graphic card-system, its not a physical control of an LCD). But maybe you are saying Spyder calls it RGB, you enter the desired cd/m2, then you update this by finding whatever button on the LCD controls the backlight Fluorescent light and adjust from there? </p>

[brad_smith8]

<p>No as I said it measures current luminance which you change manually via the monitor's menu.</p>

<p>This measurement is only available while using the RGB control mode of the Spyder3Pro. I don't know how else to express this.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>This measurement is only available while using the RGB control mode of the Spyder3Pro. I don't know how else to express this.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>OK, that makes sense now (not having used this product). So you <strong>can</strong> alter the luminance, you just have to use a rather odd software naming convention for doing so. <br>

And I believe that you must have the higher end software package to do so right? </p>

[chas_frady]

<p>I think what Brad is talking about is the dubious method of adjusting or reducing the luminance with Spyder3 Pro by lowering the monitor's RGB OSD controls. The slightly more expensive Spyder3 Elite has a field where you enter the target luminance value.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>I think what Brad is talking about is the dubious method of adjusting or reducing the luminance with Spyder3 Pro by lowering the monitor's RGB OSD controls. The slightly more expensive Spyder3 Elite has a field where you enter the target luminance value.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That would be a kludge! So it doesn’t give you an update as to what cd/m2 its measuring using this odd RGB technique? I suppose not or you’d just use the correct OSD and alter the actual backlight. Dubious indeed. </p>

[brad_smith8]

<p>No again; it's a <em><strong>measurement</strong></em> (in cdm^2) you see on screen that you can adjust for <em><strong>using the monitor's brightness control.</strong></em></p>

<p>After you change your brightness you press 'Refresh' and you see a new reading. You keep doing this until you get the luminance you want <em><strong>using the monitor's brightness control</strong></em>.</p>

<p>It's just called RGB control mode because there you also have to use the monitor menu's RGB sliders to get white point.</p>

<p>If you use normal 'automatic' mode, the white point is set via the video card and there is no way to enter or read current luminance. You just get a box of grays that you're supposed to adjust brightness for by making sure you can see all the boxes.</p>

<p>If you want to read luminance and adjust for it you must use the former method. Can anyone else who has a Spyder3Pro explain this so it's understandable?</p>

[chas_frady]

<blockquote>

<p>Can anyone else who has a Spyder3Pro explain this so it's understandable?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Jeez... Wouldn't it be so much easier to shell out an additional $40 and get either the Spyder3 Elite or even better, the EyeOne Display 2? ($40 is less than you'd pay to take the kids to a Saturday afternoon movie!)</p>

[brad_smith8]

<p>Yes! (but I thought it was a $99 difference). Fortunately my Spyder3Pro in RGB mode gives me absolute print-perfect results.</p>

[gooseberry]

<blockquote>

<p>Andrew wrote:<br /><em>If your goal is to produce a screen to print match, you have to have a display and a print (lit somehow) together. You may not have a dedicated light booth but you need something to light the print next to the display [...] You do have to take that condition into account when calibrating a display if you hope to produce a visual match [...] They are interlinked. </em><br /> <br /><em>Its kind of like asking the plumber how big a water heater you need and he says 40 gallons but you didn’t tell him its for your office that has 200 employees!</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Great use of analogy, Andrew!</p>

<p>Not only don't I have a light booth, but I also hardly ever print anything (and on these odd occasions it's done by a lab), so I'm "matching" my monitor to the ambient light in the room, as these are the conditions my eyes are adjusted to when I edit my pictures, and should I put a printed one up on the wall, these will be my viewing conditions too. Think that's the best I can do under the circumstances.<br /> <br />It seems odd, if not plain dumb, to manufacture a product -- supposedly targeting the [photo]graphic market -- which by design has "wrong" native gamma and WP, only to suggest we change both, while knowing fully well of the possible banding repercussions. Understand it's a bloody legacy issue. If they changed the native gamma in the new OS, wonder when they are going to align native WP with the current "industry standard" as well?</p>

<p>Anyway, that's not what this post was supposed to be about, so excuse my moaning; I'm getting to the point now.<br /> <br />Looking up some info on L* gamma [<em>...which creates separate tonal curves for the shadow areas, midtones and highlights, and reportedly provides smoother transitions, and therefore more accurate color reproduction...</em> (just a digression)], I came across some websites relevant to the topic of this discussion, so thought would share these resources here.</p>

<p>There is a <a href="http://www.updig.org/pdfs/updig_photographers_guidelines_v40.pdf">40-page pdf <em>Photographers' version of UPDIG</em></a> (this stands for <em>Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines</em>; I notice you contributed to it, Andrew :) that cover quite a lot of other ground too, so if you don't want to download the whole document, you can view <a href="http://www.updig.org/guidelines/ph_monitor_calibration.html">in HTML the <strong><em>Monitor Calibration</em></strong> chapter</a> by itself.</p>

<p>Also Dry Creek Photo has a section on <em><a href="http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration.htm">Monitor Calibration & Profiling</a></em>, where you'll find a couple of useful tools that help you evaluate your monitor's profiles:</p>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm">Monitor <em><strong>Black Point</strong> Check</em></a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_gradient.htm">Monitor <em><strong>Grayscale</strong> Test</em></a></li>

</ul>

<p>The first utility is based on a test developed by Bruce Fraser and detailed in his <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321267222/drycreekphoto-20" target="_blank">Real World Color Management</a></em>; both are recommended in the UPDIG.</p>

[mark_sirota1]

<blockquote>

<p>There is a <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.updig.org/pdfs/updig_photographers_guidelines_v40.pdf" target="_blank">40-page pdf <em>Photographers' version of UPDIG</em></a> (this stands for <em>Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines</em>; I notice you contributed to it, Andrew :) that cover quite a lot of other ground too, so if you don't want to download the whole document, you can view <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.updig.org/guidelines/ph_monitor_calibration.html" target="_blank">in HTML the <strong><em>Monitor Calibration</em></strong> chapter</a> by itself.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>UPDIG is basically defunct. The main protagonists are now at <a href="http://dpbestflow.org/">dpBestflow.org</a>; you'll find similar (but more thorough and more up-to-date) information there.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>There is a <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.updig.org/pdfs/updig_photographers_guidelines_v40.pdf" target="_blank">40-page pdf <em>Photographers' version of UPDIG</em></a> (this stands for <em>Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines</em>; I notice you contributed to it, Andrew :)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>News to me <g>. If so I don’t recall it. As for Lstar for display calibration, its all the rage in Europe but it really doesn’t bring anything to the table IMHO we need. The reasons are geeky, but lets just say the Lstar proponents have done zero in terms of peer review or properly explained why its the next best thing to sliced bread. </p>

[gooseberry]

<blockquote>

<p>Andrew wrote:<br /><em>News to me <g>. If so I don’t recall it.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>You're listed on the last page under "Consultants" (in your case, in color management)</p>

<p>Thanks for the link, Mark. Clicking through, I've found lots of interesting info on Macs at <a href="http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-MacProWestmere-iMac.html">diglloyd</a>: <em>Calibration is going to tweak the video card in 8 bits, not tweak the display itself in 10-bit or 12-bit internal to monitor itself</em> -- I'll give MacPro some serious thought when it's time to upgrade...</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>no need for a macpro.. just a good powerfull Imac with a better monitor plug to it, like a NEC 2690 and you are in business.. this is what i do for a fraction of the cost of a macpro.</p>

[gooseberry]

<p>I was building my computer system from scratch, Patrick, and it was exactly the all-in-one package offering greater performance at a lower price that sold me on it (especially that I got myself a refurbished one). If I were to buy a high-end monitor separately anyway, the price of the top-of-the-line iMac and a decent MacPro are in the same ballpark (for comparison, please follow the link in my previous post), plus no doubt there are advantages of a proper desktop tower over a more compact design (ibid.) Now, from one of your articles I gathered you use your iMac as if it was a laptop, that is, you take it with you on on-location assignments; mine sits on my desk at all times, so I don't need this mobility.</p>

[leslienicolephoto]

<p>Well guys, I'm lost - but at least I'm now enlightened that I'm lost. I still don't know what you are talking about with the luminance and how you are supposed to know this number. I'm going to take a bit of time to plow through some of the resources and PDF links and hope I'll be enlightened.<br>

I have been a print designer for nearly 20 years so didn't realize I was so ignorant of color management. Back when I was personally responsible for the color output many many years ago, we knew we couldn't count on our monitors, so I learned from Dan Margulis' book how to read the numbers in CMYK. Then we also had a proof to look at as well.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Well guys, I'm lost - but at least I'm now enlightened that I'm lost. I still don't know what you are talking about with the luminance and how you are supposed to know this number.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Its some arbitrary number that produces a match from display to print. I can’t make it any simpler. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I learned from Dan Margulis' book how to read the numbers in CMYK.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Which only works IF you are handed a CMYK file with a well defined output (CMYK optimized for a single CMYK output device). And its for fixing ugly images, that’s not usual here. </p>

[leslienicolephoto]

<blockquote>

<p>Which only works IF you are handed a CMYK file with a well defined output (CMYK optimized for a single CMYK output device). And its for fixing ugly images, that’s not usual here.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>It gave me a good handle on reading files for neutrals, highlights and skin tones. That knowledge has been very useful—I've managed to do a good job with it—but is a cruder color management.</p>

<p>I'm attempting my first soft proof today. I've also been downloading John Paul Capronigro's information on his site. He has a lot of free downloads. I've started reading your downloads as well.</p>