demianov

<p>Wow... Couldn't have dreamt up a better solution than Metadata Wrangler. You know, I was gonna ask if there was a LR plugin but then I went: Nah... you're dreaming, boy.. ain't no such thing.<br>

This Jeffrey's got a lot of neat stuff on his blog. It's a great resource. I wish I found out about it sooner. I gotta send this guy at least ten bucks, because the plugin is awesome.<br>

Thanks to all and especially to Bill. On the scale of 1 to 10, the solution I got would rate 11.</p>

<p>Just upgraded to LR 4 (for the oh-so-coveted Curves tool). I didn't realize, however, that it can remove *any* data field *of my choice* from the exported files. That's probably because it cannot. Would sure be glad to be wrong.</p>

<p>OK, at this point I can say that I give up. There's a ton of those 'Exif data removers' out there. I'm tired of installing and uninstalling junk on my computer. One of those puppies even had a trojan in it. Can someone please help me out here?<br>

I need a GUI utility that runs on Win7 64-bit OS. I need to be able to remove data fields of my choice. EXIF, IPTC... you know the drill. Having 'presets' of which data to remove would be nice. Batch mode - a must. MUST be able to handle JPEG *and* TIFF - 16-bit per channel, LZW and ZIP compressions. Am I asking for too much? I know I can't be.<br>

Cost: up to around 30 bucks. Free is better.</p>

<p>Thank you but I had all of that covered.<br>

I am still experiencing some problems which I did not mention in this post. I can take it from here, especially that I'm making progress in the right direction.</p>

<p>NOW we're getting somewhere... <br>

I always knew my display profile could bee seen in PS. What was bugging me is the system color settings. I did what you advised, Mike, and I must say that you've been very helpful and understanding. So I selected my custom tailored profile in the "Device profile". In the "viewing conditions profile" I selected "WCS profile for ICC viewing conditions". When I was calibrating and profiling my panel I decided not to mess with those, so there are actually *no* 'viewing conditions' embedded in my dispcal profile. I selected the ICC option strictly because I don't like the idea of having there something that goes like: 'default sRGB'. That would be pretty much like saying to Windows: "Hey, Windows, you can do whatever the hell you want. I don't care what the colors look like anyway".<br>

Please correct me if I'm making a mistake with that.<br>

One last thing. Are these settings applied immediately or do I have to reboot? I don't see any changes but I can't reboot right now. I'm uploading some important files and it looks like it's gonna be at least a couple of hours more.</p>

<p>I've been working in photoshop since 1995 (version 3) and by now like to think that I know my way around it, especially all the 'color handling' stuff. However, Windows 7 is fairly new to me. I need to know what *I* need to have in Color Management > Advanced.<br /> Seeking help from Microsoft is useless, it's like asking your dad where the babies come from. Instead of making some sense they just start blabbering on and on about what color management is.<br /> Can it be true? Doesn't ANYBODY know what a guy in my scenario should have those parameters set to?</p>

<p>Thank you but I really was looking for some clarification on what the hell was going on in the "Advanced" tab. Assigning my custom profile in the Color Mangement>Devices is child's play.<br>

Well, the 'Advanced' tab is definitely not for kids. For starters, the first thing there is labeled: Device profile. Most people seem to have some version of sRGB in there, which is *not* a device profile. Don't you find this confusing? I know I'm lost. 'Viewing conditions': there's the ICC, the sRGB option and what not. I have a pretty good idea of what 'viewing conditions' are. I don't have any of those in *my* custom display profile because the room is always dark and I've decided not to mess with that. But then, if in the 'Device profile' is some sRGB then we're not even talking about the profile of my display. And why the hell should it even be sRGB? I want my beloved 'Adobe RGB'! My panel is not an sRGB display, my files are not sRGB and the most important software to me doesn't "think" in sRGB!<br>

I'm having some color issues here. In order to solve them I had to start from the ground up. I've covered the part of display calibration which was the first step. Now I need to make 100% sure that all my system settings are correct (for my needs). Once I've got that covered, I'll move on to the next stage.<br>

In my initial inquiry I've described my conditions and requirements which are *very* common. Lotsa guys out there are in the same boat. Someone's gotta know something.</p>

<p>This stuff is all over the net and in every place they mention different settings. Nobody's making any sense, namely because they don't know what they're talking about. I played around with those setting and now I'm not even sure I returned them to their default. To tell you the truth I don't even know if 'default' is what I need.<br>

Here's what I have.<br>

Win 7 pro 64-bit, Dell U2711 panel, Spyder3 + dispcalGUI.<br>

My panel is properly calibrated and profiled. I work mainly in Lightroom and Photoshop. I use almost exclusively the 'Adobe RGB' colorspace and frankly, that's the only space I care about. I don't print.<br>

According to dispcalGUI, my display covers 99% of 'Adobe RGB's gamut. Seeing all them colors in LR and PS is really the only thing I care about. What should my color settings be in 'Color management' for all of the available gamut to be utilized while making sure all the colors are displayed correctly (in LR and PS)?<br>

Maybe you can just grab a screenshot and post it here, assuming your setting are what *my* settings should be. Remember, I have a pretty good profile for my panel only I don't really know where it fits. As far as I know there are no 'color' settings in LR. I haven't seen anywhere 'Display profile' or anything of this sort, just some basic settings in the 'export' dialog (which are not ever related to display), but maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong on this.<br>

Would be really nice to sort this mess out once and for all.<br>

Thanks in advance!</p>

<p>You're right. Thanks.</p>

<p>Hello.<br>

A couple of months ago I discovered the dispcalGUI. Thanks to a few very helpful gentlemen on this very forum I was able to obtain an almost excellent calibration of my Dell U2711 panel. If you're reading this, I must say again than I'm truly grateful.<br>

For anyone else who's interested, you can find that post but it's long and it's boring and you don't need to get into it.<br>

I am most happy with the marvelous job that dispcalGUI was able to do except for one thing. The blacks aren't really black and this is interesting because I think that the problem has to do with the colorspace mapping and not the actual calibration of the panel. I will describe the problem in detail.<br>

Let's take Photoshop, for instance. The color of the area that surrounds the image can be changed. A right click gives you the choice of: Gray, Black or Custom. Let's assume that my choice is "Black". I open a file and start working on it, trying to get the shadows look really deep but no matter what I do, the pure black of the image does not approach the "Black" border that surrounds the image. Even when I create a new document and fill it with "black" it still looks brighter than the black point of my panel. I'm attaching a screenshot so you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about. The color sampler said that my RGB values were 0,0,0. When I grabbed the screenshot and pasted it into a new document, the color sampler gave me a reading of RGB 8,8,8 in the same area. I'd think that the black point in photoshop was messed up or something but this happens EVERYWHERE. In Lightroom: same deal! I make the background black but cannot approach those levels in my photos. ACDSee 12? Exactly the same! Even in GOM player! The black point is set to be brighter or something but in which colorspace? My panel's? This seems to happen in every color-managed piece of software, regardless of the actual colorspace. In my 'Photoshop' example the case is exactly the same even if the colorspace is sRGB, for instance.<br>

I just probably messed something up so I'll describe the kind of calibration I did. I must say though that the native software my Spyder3 Elite came with did no give me this kind of issue. However, in every other aspect, the calibration it did was detestable, to say the least.<br>

Using my panel's controls alone I am able to approach my target. With NO calibration at all the panel is at ~6450K, 71 cd/m2 and gamma of 2.1 (I don't have the black point value right now)<br>

The target is: 6500K, 70cd/m2, gamma 2.2, black level: native. There are two check-boxes, one next to "White level" and one next to "Black level". They both read: "Drift compensation during measurements". I don't know what that means but they're both checked. Calibration quality and Profile quality are set to "High". The most important thing here is the Profile type, which is: XYZ LUT + matrix. I tried a "Curves" type profile but that gave me unacceptable results. So for my LUT type of profile calibration I created a custom testchart with 886 patches. I really had to have there 256 gradations of neutral density. I don't think that the test chart has anything to do with my problem though. Next to the 'Profile type' drop-down menu there's the "Advanced" button. I did figure out what Gamut mapping means, however, I couldn't for the life of me understand what I should have in the "Source profile". I didn't change the default which is still: C:\Program Files (x86)\dispcalGUI\ref\sRGB.icm Everything below it is grayed-out because all of the options for gamut mapping are unchecked.<br>

What did I do wrong and what should I do to get me true blacks that match my panel's black point? Should I set the Source profile to: Adobe RGB? Another reason tells me that the sRGB as the source profile isn't right is that both in Photoshop and Lightroom some of the blue tones started looking weird and I know that sRGB doesn't like those tones. But then... Since all of my Gamut mapping options are unchecked is the 'Source profile' selection even relevant here?<br>

I must add that my display is a wide-gamut panel. From previous measurements I know that it is able to produce certain tones that stray quite far outside even the 'Adobe RGB' colorspace. My display adapter has a 10-bit LUT, with dispcalGUI being able to make use of those extra bits thanks to the DisplayPort connection.<br>

The OS is Win7 64-bit Pro, so maybe there's something inside the system itself that makes my life hard. I don't want to detail my color management settings at the moment but I'll say that I did configure them and I'm pretty sure they're correct.<br>

I really don't want to start troubleshooting because apart from the black levels, the calibration is really good and I don't want to mess with it but if anyone sees an obvious problem with my settings, I definitely need to hear about it. I guess, I just need to know that if I'm doing something - I'm doing it right.<br>

Thanks!</p><div></div>

<p>I am having so much fun with this little gem. The results I'm getting are better than I thought possible. Now I want to *really* get into it and make the tool read all those problematic samples *one by one*.<br>

What I wanted to share with the folks who are interested is this little line from the log I obtained through "Report on uncalibrated display device" which can be accessed through the "Tools" menu. The line is this:<br>

"Effective LUT entry depth seems to be 10 bits"<br>

What this means is that my display adapter has a 10 bit LUT and that pretty much verifies the speculation I had. This is good news.</p>

<p>I finally got around to testing this tool. I didn't have the time to run a quality calibration but it looks like I'm heading in the right direction. At this point I am technically proficient enough in this area, so I know I'm gonna have fun with this puppy. It's amazing that a tool like that has been out there for quite awhile. It solves my problem better than I could ask for. What's even more amazing is that it's totally free. Google isn't always helpful when it comes to finding something this specific, so for once I'm glad I spent all those hours compiling my original post. Maybe someone in a similar situation will find this discussion helpful someday.<br /> My only regret is that I shelled out those extra bucks on purchasing the elite edition of my Spyder, as that was 100% money down the drain.<br /> Thank you all again!</p>

<p>Mr. Lookingbill: My original post is fairly long, and I understand how someone would want to just skim through something like that. You got off topic there but me and the other gentlemen already worked something out.<br /> Mr. Rodney: No one here claims otherwise and in my view, what you have is a good product which is suited to my needs really well. However, like I stated, I need to work with what I have. In a few years, when buying an OLED panel, I'll see what NEC has to offer.<br /> Mr. Sanyal: Thank you! That was a very comprehensive response. I was at a point when I had to decide between another 'spider' and some 'monkey' I didn't know. I went for my Spyder namely because that was something I was already familiar with. I trusted datacolor a second time and was wrong to do that.<br /> Mr. Blume suggested 2 pieces of different software. At a glance they really seem like what I'm looking for. One of them is bound to work for me, so thank you both so much!</p>

<p>Thank you but I'll just try to get *this one* calibrated as close as I can to what I need it to be. And if I can't I'll just suck it up until there's a proper and affordable OLED panel out there. No more LCDs for me. I *never* liked them.<br>

With my calibration method I can get the panel *very close* to my target without ever using the custom profile. The way I do it, the calibration is handled by the panel itself and I use the spectro strictly as feedback. I can get awfully close to 6500K using the RGB sliders and there is also a Gamma selector, which I naturally set to 2.2 All those calculations are done in 12 bits. To prove it: there's nothing I would call banding. The picture is almost perfect. However, that's not quite close enough to where I need to get. I still want to fine-tune the gamma using a custom tailored profile as well as to make sure that every density throughout the gamut is right where it needs to be (or at least is very close). Please read the section titled: What I need. There are a few feasible options on the table but one I'd prefer is to use an 'ICC plotter' to manually plot a custom display profile. I know there's stuff out there to do just that. Naturally I'm looking for something that costs nothing or at least is very affordable. Maybe my Spyder3 Elite license makes me eligible to purchase something like that from Datacolor at a discount. It would probably be the last thing I ever bought from them.</p>

<p>Hello.<br />Obviously there is a problem that I'm trying to solve and I know that it is not limited to my specific scenario. Instead of just trying to get a quick and easy fix I thought to have this issue addressed in a more comprehensive manner so that other folks could benefit from this in the future. <br /><br />Explaining the whole situation turned out to be fairly long, so I divided this into 2 parts. You can just skip to the 'technical stuff' right away.<br /><br /><br />PREFACE:<br /><br />I've been very happy with Spyder2 and my old CRT display. Got me nice screen-to-print matching with their patch reader too. I've also done quite a lot of BW post-processing and have been happy with it. Obviously something good like that couldn't last. There came the time when I had no choice but to migrate to an LCD panel. I did a lot of poking around and posting, and have been led to believe that Dell U2711 was good enough for what I needed... We all make mistakes... Anyway, Spyder2 wasn't working anymore with my new panel so I got me a Spyder3. To be on the safe side I chose the Elite edition.<br /><br />Now, I realize that by the magnitude of its complexity, color accuracy and matching is a field worthy of a gentleman's lifetime dedication. I'm not a certified calibrator, nor do I wish to become one but apparently even in the year 2012 one still has to possess an impressive set of skills just to ensure that some backward software doesn't ruin his display. That's right, in my case the picture is substantially better *without* calibration.<br /><br />Based on my prior experience I chose to go for Spyder3; to accurately calibrate my panel - hassle-free, and keep it that way. Contrary to my expectations, Spyder3 had done a very sloppy job. Unfortunately, in the 2 years of using the product I haven't realized that. Simply (and foolishly) I *trusted* Datacolor to yield the optimal calibration with minimal user intervention, just the way it was accomplished with my CRT monitor.<br /><br />When the time came for me to do some BW post-processing I started noticing various color casts all over the grayscale. That's when the things started to go bad for me. I had no idea my display was *that much* out of whack. I've spent pretty much the whole week fumbling with the spectro, the software and my panel. Don't know how much the panel is to blame, but quite frankly I've grown to loathe them all with a passion. The OLEDs aren't here yet, so I'm pretty much stuck with this setup. Naturally, I want to make the best of this bad situation. Please, don't recommend me anything else. I swore to myself that this is my first and last LCD *ever*.<br /><br /><br>

THE TECHNICAL STUFF:<br /><br />Windows 7 Pro 64-bit<br />ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB<br />Dell U2711 panel connected via DP, set to maximum resolution and bit-depth<br />Spyder3 Elite<br /><br /><br>

The problem:<br>

As the title of this post suggests I have an issue with the way the grayscale appears on my panel. It is not limited strictly to some minor banding. Moreover, if the grayscale doesn't look right, it means that a whole lot of tones are out of whack too.<br />My grayscale pretty much begins at RGB 13,13,13 and naming it a 'grayscale' at this point would be too generous. It's more of a 'green-scale' because it has a distinctive greenish hue. Below 13 it just drops abruptly There are *a few* values below 13 whose densities I can spot using my eye-o-meter, but you'll agree with me that that's not the way it's supposed to look. At around RGB 30, the grayscale suddenly becomes more or less neutral and the brightness keeps increasing up to around 39. At 39 the density drops (becomes darker!) and the grayscale takes on a Red/Magenta tone. It becomes pretty much neutral at some point higher up, though there is still apparent some 'magenta' banding, which is not very severe. I guess the main perpetrator is the poorly engineered software, because the spectro does provide useful readings with some degree of consistency.<br>

I must point out that this calibration is actually the *best* of what I was able to achieve. I'm looking to solve this issue using some other software but before I jump into that, let me share with you the 'fun' times I've had with Spyder3Elite.<br /><br />At this point there's a good chance I know more about the software itself than you do. In my dealing with the problem I decided to be methodical. Instead of just playing around with it, in hope to get lucky, and get me the perfect combination of settings, I attempted to isolate the problematic areas. I then addressed each of those areas separately and did arrive at a point where I can say that I have the best calibration for this particular hardware/software combination. Obviously, this "best" isn't nearly as good as it ought to be.<br />In my tedious endeavor I was pretty much conducting a set of experiments. Everything is documented. I have all of those ICC profiles and I can recreate the results of each of those calibration attempts. I will describe just the interesting stuff.<br>

The slightly odd thing about my calibration is that I want my display to be fairly dim. That would be 71 cd/m2. I work in a completely dark room and that level of brightness is the maximum I can handle without getting headaches. The display settings are such (and I'll explain):<br>

Brightness: 8, Contrast: 50, Custom color; R:99, G:93, B:100<br>

The contrast shouldn't be changed from its factory default (50) because once you increase it, the colors just start going crazy on you, which would only make the calibration more difficult. With the settings mentioned above I can get contrast ratio of about 560:1. Increasing the contrast setting doesn't help there. The Brightness does though. At higher backlighting levels *this* panel *can* produce better contrast ratio. In my case, however, that is out of the question.<br>

As per the software. I can see no difference between the ICC 4.0 and 2.0, so for now I just left it on 4.0. I can always recalibrate in the 2.0 format. I did get slightly better results with the Chromatic adaptation set to XYZ scaling vs. Bradford, so I'm leaving it there.<br>

In 'display type'/identify controls I ticked 'Contrast' and 'RGB Sliders'.<br />In Expret Console I selected a white point of 6500k and Gamma 2.2.<br>

Luminance: Visual Mode (I'll tell you why). Gray balance: OFF, FullCAL.<br />Now.. What I found out is that letting the software mess with the white and black point is the worst thing you can do to your grayscale. So, basically, all I'm asking from my calibration is to adjust the gamma and take care of any color casts.<br>

In the initial stage of the calibration process, the spectro takes a few basic readings and then lets me adjust the settings on the display to bring them closest to what I'm shooting for. By adjusting the RGB sliders I can get within 50 degrees from 6500K. Every time I click 'update' I can also see the brightness output. So I adjust the Brightness on the panel to get the closest to my 71 cd/m2. Yes, this is how I set my "target brightness". I set it using only the hardware. Using the method described above I can always set my panel to that specific brightness level with good degree of accuracy.<br>

As soon as I'm satisfied with the readout of the spectro I proceed to the actual calibration, which from that point is completely automatic. When it's all over, the grayscale looks like what I described earlier. By comparison the Uncalibrated mode looks substantially better than the Calibrated. The Grayscale is almost completely neutral throughout and there is hardly any appreciable banding. The colors look right, however the gamma appears just a tad off (brighter). You could say that I should just settle for it, and I'm honestly thinking about it. I could correct the gamma in my video card settings but before I take that route I want to make sure there's no better way to do it.<br /><br />Why did I choose to turn the 'Gray Balance Calibration' OFF? It would seem that running an 'Iterative' calibration would solve my problem.... What a joke... The results I get with this 'Iterative' calibration are just so much worse. The *joke* is really that the software doesn't even *attempt* to read the densities that I'm having such a problem with. It just reads patches of gray from maybe around RGB 80 and up.. when it should be correcting 1, 2, 3, 4...15.. and then maybe every 2 or 3 samples. And it makes sense that it doesn't do it. The signal-to-noise ratio of this spectro apparently isn't good enough to be poking around in those dark areas. It looks like the engineers at Datacolor knew that but simply went: "To hell with it.. we'll just make the spectro read the lighter intensities it has no problem with and the low end will turn out just fine.. If not, who's gonna care or even notice?..." Funny, no? I bet that is exactly how it went down! How else can you explain such negligence? <br /><br />Adjusting the Curves:<br>

I don't know which is more useless the 'Gray Balance Calibration' or the 'Edit Curves' tool. Out of the entire spectrum they give you 9 points you can apply *very gross* adjustments to. If you haven't done so already, I recommend you try adjusting your profile using this tool... It's guaranteed to make you laugh.. (or vomit).<br /><br />WHAT I NEED.<br />I need a tool (software), either from Datacolor but hopefully from another manufacturer, to fine-tune my display's profile OR make one from scratch. Fortunately, with my spectro I can read any density on my screen, so I can kind of manually dial in the numbers into a 3rd party ICC profile creator (or whatever). Naturally, I would need a proven and fail-proof strategy there.<br>

Another idea: Since I can get myself very close to my target using just the hardware (settings on the display), maybe I can simply use my canned display profile and only adjust the gamma on my video card? I would need a proper method for it too, should I take that route.<br>

OR MAYBE, just maybe I can still somehow coax my spectro's native software into making me a proper profile. If you're reading this, it means you've probably been there. What is out there to help me out?<br>

One last thing. I haven't really touched on my video adapter. What I have is nothing special really. It is not designated for CAD or optimized for any wide gamut application. I did my best to ensure it's not affecting gamma, color temperature, gamut or anything like that but if you know there's a problem with it I'll replace it in a heart-beat. When I was putting this machine together I actually thought that the parts I was getting were a pretty good combination. No one really knew whether Spyder3 software could take advantage of an LUT that's more than 8 bits deep but I decided to be prepared if it had that capability. The display adapter wasn't specific about its LUTs but I did read in one place on the web where it seemed it had a 10-bit LUT. I cannot confirm it, however. The panel itself is connected via DisplayPort, to ensure the high(er) bit capability. The panel itself has an internal 12-bit LUT, a property I am also taking advantage of. Everything seems to be *right there* to produce a very accurate, quality calibration... Everything except for the deficient software...<br>

PS: This is not about print-matching, as I don't print anymore.</p>

<p>Thank you for your response. I completely agree with you on the fact that the hardware in question is not of the highest grade. I pretty much made a mistake, because I was led to believe it was enough for my needs. Apparently it is not sufficient, as I have realized later on. For the meantime I have to make the best of it. Like I said in my initial post: this is more about that illusive concept of how an image is or should be rendered by any given imaging system. What are the factors that make it look *right* and once it does look that - what can be done to make it look its best. Please read the following and express your opinion whether my reasoning is sound.<br>

My understanding of the fundamentals is such. The 'viewer' is always in some sort of environment. Be it a screening room with black walls or an outdoor location with no roof during midday. Let's assume that the light that hits the projected image surface and the viewer's eyes has no color casts, the light intensity itself would still vary greatly from case to case. Provided the device is capable of displaying an image in a way that suits the environment the *Brightness* (cd/m2) would be very different in each of the two examples above.<br>

The way to calibrate a system that isn't affected by any ambient light would have to be thus (and I'm really talking about my case here):<br>

Set the Brightness level to 0. Project an image that shows a proper 'grayscale'. Adjust the Contrast so that the 'pure white' is close to 'maxing out'.  By that I mean: the 'pure white' strip has to be *almost* as bright as the display will render it (without adding Brightness). Next: Load on screen a patch of pure white alongside another patch that holds a value below that of the 'pure white'. What does that value have to be? The spectro has to be able to tell the difference between the two areas, but just barely so. Start increasing the Contrast until the spectro can no longer tell the difference between the 2 areas. Decrease the Contrast to the last value the spectro was able to take 2 different readings.<br>

In theory, the Contrast dial on a display, actually increases the Brightness of the images. A more contrasty image is just that: brighter 'whites' and darker 'blacks', except if the darkest values that the panel can project are already at d-max, they won't be made any darker, and just the Brightness would go up.<br>

What to do with the Brightness? The Brightness setting on any given display is for the sole purpose of adapting the device to the environment. The ambient light can have very different and ever-changing intensity. How to *set* the optimal Brightness? First, the spectro has to be able to differentiate between the hardware d-max of the panel and the next value above that. Increase the value of Brightness until the spectro can do just that. If at 0 Brightness the spectro can tell the difference between RGB 0,0,0 and 1,1,1 you shouldn't be adding any Brightness at all, since you'd be only hurting the d-max. In theory, the brightest values will be increased too in a linear fashion in relation to the darkest values but that's not the case in the real world. Once you've got your Brightness where it needs to be, you should check that 254, 254, 254 isn't maxing out (and make appropriate adjustments if it does).<br>

If all of the above gives you a picture that's too dark for your taste, you can increase the Brightness but know that you're doing that at the expense of your d-max. Add Brightness until you're satisfied but make sure your 254,254,254 isn't maxing out.<br>

Take a reading of 255,255,255 to determine the cd/m2. And have that value as your target brightness.<br>

Once you've reached this point, you're ready to let the calibration software do its thing and guide it in the right direction if needed. The gamma, tones, gray neutrality are all to be handled by the software + spectro combination (at least in my case).<br>

I realize there are different approaches to this but can someone confirm that there are no mistakes in my logic? Remember, it is specific to my case, which is: no ambient light at any time, AND a relatively low cd/m2 output. (and obviously, my set of hardware)<br>

Thanks.</p>

<p>I'd have to disagree on that. If I only cared about how *I* saw my photos I wouldn't bother with this kind of display, much less - color management. I'd just get me some crappy LCD for $139.99 and *tweak* it to my liking. Apparently that's what most people do, even those who actually care a little about what they pictures look like. I'm no weekend photo-snapper whose only goal is to impress his grandmother with a *cute* picture of her aging cat Bootsy once in a while. My work is seen by thousands of people daily and it's only gonna pick up from there. Some of them actually care about photography and it's only fair they see quality photographs, especially if they're paying money for it. I want to give *them*, the publishers or whoever's involved, the best starting point. Obviously, all my files are tagged with an appropriate profile, but the actual RGB values have to be correct. Dark is supposed to have very low values and *appear* close to d-max rendered by a proper imaging system. Bright is supposed to be close to white and not 'light gray', the gradation - smooth where it needs to be and all the colors have to be spot on. Each of my photo spends a great deal of time in post-production to achieve just that. I know I'm wasting my time if what I *see* is not the way it really is.</p>

<p>Thank you, guys, but like I said, I don't care about the print-matching (at least for now). What I need is to work out the optimal Contrast setting suitable for my Brightness level. With this display, the minute I touch the contrast dial - *everything* starts to change. And I mean: the apparent brightness begins to go up, then the colors start to do a funny thing. I guess I should want maximum Contrast, because that's what gets you the maximal Dynamic Range. At the same time I don't want to max anything out, I still need all of my highlights. This is the only non-CRT panel that I have ever gotten to calibrate, so I don't know how it goes with other displays out there. All I know is that *this* panel behaves in an awkward manner. I guess I need to cancel any adjustment that the Spyder3 software is doing, then take some Lab readings while adjusting the brightness and contrast to my desired level and use *those* setting as a constant for any further calibration. But what kind of image should I measure? What method should I use? Obviously I should be measuring a patch of total white but then how do i know I'm not maxing out? There's a million stupid mistakes I could make here so I need a sound strategy, a starting point at least, a way to check that I'm on the right track. The dynamic range that I need to achieve is the maximal dynamic range for my brightness level and that probably means that I need to take a cd/m2 reading and keep it constant throughout the calibration. If I begin increasing the Contrast on the panel I also have to reduce the Brightness because the image becomes significantly brighter. A 100% Contrast value doesn't look right at all but then what should it be? Mr. Nalos here suggested a value of 77, which makes sense but then, it can only be right for *his* panel. I need a proven method to figure this out. And yes, choosing a fixed target brightness makes a lot of sense too, so thank you, so I need to figure out the value here.<br>

As per the Neutrality of the tones, with this panel, at least, the minute you touch the contrast dial, the colors start acting crazy. Call it split-toning, call it whatever you want, but they look terrible, even after running the Iterative calibration. No matter what the setting are or what I do, I can always see some hue shifts in my BW images and that's a damn shame because I'm about to process a whole bunch of them. The darker values look neutral enough but then as the values start to go up there's a greenish tint to them, as they go higher yet they become magenta, and then back to neutral again. It's not that bad and I notice those things only because I know how to look at an image. Something tells me though that that's as good as I'm gonna get it with this panel and *this* spectro. Achieving that true *grayscale* is actually secondary to me right now, as like I already mentioned, I first I need to figure out the best Brightness/Contrast combination that my eyes can also handle. That combination has to make sense too, it cannot have any adverse effects on the way my photos are displayed AND it has to be something that my Spectro/software can handle well.<br>

Where should I begin?</p>

<p>Hello.<br /> I've had this panel for 2 years now and have been color-managed much longer than that. This is not your garden-variety I-need-a-quick-fix amateurish gibberish. If you do decide to take me seriously, I ask that you try to understand *everything* in this post before offering advice. Either way: thank you for your time.<br /> I'm still beating myself up for getting this panel. However, until it gets replaced, I have to make the best of it. The question I'm about to pose is more of a fundamental nature anyway.<br /> I've read quite a few reviews online about the U2711 panel in search of the 'ultimate setting'. Also on the forums guys are posting how *they* managed to achieve *the perfect picture*. The settings vary *greatly*, which only underlines that there is no real practical standard of any kind out there. Still, what *I* want to achieve is a picture that looks RIGHT. By that I mean: accurate colors, brightness and contrast. After 8 years of dealing with color managing, that definition still eludes me, namely because display systems vary greatly in brightness of the projected image and *that* affects the picture pretty much in every way.<br /> With all the adjustments on the hardware and software levels how can I know for sure that what I'm seeing is really the way it is supposed to look? The majority of the panels out there aren't calibrated *at all*. The very few people I know who *do* work in a color-managed environment, all have their preferences. During the last year or so I did get the chance to see my photographs rendered by a handful of other display systems and what I saw differed at least to some extent from what I thought those photos should look like. I haven't done any printing in years, so to me this is not about display-to-print matching. This is about doing all of my post-processing *right*. I send out my photos to publishers and agencies. A number of times I got to see my work in printed material and every time the colors and contrast looked way off. I'm 99% sure that they applied at least some adjustments, and that's the norm, really, but then how can I know that what they initially saw was exactly (or even close to) what I had seen on *my* display? I haven't received any complaints yet but can you blame me for simply wanting to do my job right? Enough of this. Let us get down to business.<br /> The environment I work in is always pitch black. Just trying to be consistent. The Brightness level of the panel that I am comfortable with is from 4 to about 8. With anything above that I get killer headaches the following morning. I realize that that is WAY below what other folks shoot for. However, the picture doesn't appear dark to me, plus I couldn't make it brighter even if I wanted to. Now for the Contrast.. In my CRT days I always had the contrast at 100% and brightness at 0%, which looked great and made a lot of sense too. Something tells me that is not the way to go with *this* display. I ran the Spyder calibration at various settings and reverted to 50% Contrast, the way it's always been. Based on my experience as well as the online reviews the 50% seems to be the sweet spot. Am I right at least on this one? Even though the brightness is way low?<br /> Before going any further here are my system details:<br /> Display: Dell U2711 set to maximum resolution and bit-depth. It's connected via DisplayPort to: ATI Radeon HD 5670 display adapter. All drivers are up to date and I've also made sure that the video card isn't affecting the picture in ways I don't want it to. The OS is Win 7 Pro 64-bit. The spectro and software: Spyder3 Elite.<br /> The color settings on the panel are set to 'Custom Color' and I'll tell you why in a minute. The Contrast is set to 50 and the Brightness: let's say to 6. In the Spyder utility I select that my display has RGB sliders. I set my target Gamma to 2.2, White Point to 6500K and brightness to: Native. <--- Now is this the right thing to do in my case? I'm pretty sure that that's what it needs to be even though it says that the recommended value is 120. I set the Gray balance calibration to: Iterative (which my panel *really* needs). Then I choose to do a "FullCAL". I place the spectro in place, it takes a few preliminary readings and then the fun part begins. The calibration process halts and the software lets me adjust the RGB sliders on the display to bring them within range. This is supposed to be a very good thing because this panel (at least in theory) has a 12-bit LUT. If I adjust the picture on the display itself, the adjustments made to the video card LUT are minimal thus any banding is minimized. I'm not really sure and the information wasn't readily available, but can anyone confirm that my display adapter has a 10-bit LUT? Would be nice to know for sure.<br /> That's the way I've been calibrating for 2 years and I need you to tell me what you think of my method. I work strictly in the Adobe RGB colorspace. Naturally, I want to have a wide gamut but the colors have to be spot-on and even more so - the brightness (and the contrast). The last thing I need is a couple of years down the road, to find out that I've been processing my photos all wrong and I need to redo them all.<br /> With Spyder3 Elite software there's probably even a way to take some Lab measurements to make sure that I'm at least in the ballpark. Any ideas on that?<br /> Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep.</p>

<p>I think it was me and not the system that messed up with the last file. Anyway, it looks like it works this way! I just downloaded one of the pics no problem. You can delete those now. Thanks to all! I'm still working on this really hard and hopefully I'll be able to figure it out on my own. If not, I promise you - there is going to be one heated debate in the 'Digital Darkroom' forum, but hopefully, people will benefit from it.<br /> Thank you again.</p>

<p>Last file</p>

<p>Test3</p>

<p>Test2</p>

<p>Test1</p>

<p>Yeah...well, directing people to an unknown location often scares them off. Red flags start popping up like crazy and that kind of defeats the purpose of my post.<br>

Replying to my own thread 3 times just for the sole purpose of having all of the files up would look really lame. The moderators would get suspicious, no doubt. It would appear as a dirty trick to fool the people into believing that there are already plenty of responses. I don't want to get anyone mad. That's why I have to do this right.<br>

The issue I need help with is very very complex. I'm not even sure if any of the veterans can help. That's why I can't just paint castles in the sky. I need to supply the real deal. It would take me at least 3 hours to compose my post so, obviously, I need to be sure that I can attach the files.<br>

Forget the size limit, can someone tell me whether I can attach 4 files to a single post? (with no external hosting). Can I attach a singe ZIP files of about 22MB in size?<br>

Thanks.</p>