Is monitor calibration with a Minolta color meter possible?

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

does a minolta color meter IIIf show the colors of an 21" monitor

exactly enough to calibrate the monitor coors? i dont want to spent

so much money in a calibration sensor as they cost......does anyone

know a solution which is cheaper and also exactly,- the colormeter i

own and it measure the monitor output......

thanks for helping

[ellis_vener_photography]

No.<P>

If using a Macintosh, usethe built in colorsync software. it i betterthan nothing

but to calibrate and create a profile to make sure that what you see is what

indeed is in the file, you need the hardware/software combination. if you are

using a CRT monior, <A HREF = http://www.colorvision.com>ColorVision</A>

is or was running a CRT monitor only special on PhotoCal + Spyder ($159?)

and on the more powerful OptiCal + Spyder combination.

Why is calibrating and profiling important?<P>

Because if you are not looking a dead neutral monitor you really don't know

what you are looking at.<P>Because as you get more advanced in Photoshop

and learn how to use the Soft Proofing feature of Adobe Photoshop, you'll be

able to preview vry closely what the final print will look like before you print it.

[alan_schietzsch]

I've done this experiment, and have found that while it certainly does not

produce a true profile (I'm agreeing with Ellis here) it *IS* useful in terms of

hardware calibration, which you can then fine-tune much more effectively with

colorsync and the monitor calibration control panel.

 

I have a Sun/Sony 20" Trinitron, and a 17" Viewsonic on the side that I use

for palettes and such. To make the two match as closely as possible BEFORE

software calibration, I did what you're proposing, and it worked far better

than my attempts using the software utility alone.

 

My method was to make a 21 step greyscale file in Photoshop. Because it

was generated from the numbers I typed in, I knew that the color should be

exactly neutral; any deviation was due to my monitor.

 

Then I measured each patch and tweaked the monitor's R, G, and B guns until

there was no magenta-green or warm-cold crossover from highlight to

shadow. It took a few iterations until the curve was neutral, but this was

WAY better than "out of the box."

 

So, NO, it doesn't generate a true profile, but it DOES help; with some

monitors, it helps a lot:

 

I tried this on a brand new NEC monitor being installed at our local RCMP

forensics lab, and it was incapable of being adjusted enough to be neutral.

 

With the controls maxed out, there was considerable warnth in highlights if

shadows were neutral, or we got blue shadows if highlights were adjusted to

be neutral. We replaced it with another brand, which was within 3 CC points

of perfect, right out of the box!

 

I used a Gossen Colormaster; I imagine a Minolta would be no different.