Monitor calibration = Emperor's New Clothes?
Discussion
Or, more specifically, is there any point to calibrating my monitor?
I've been frustrated recently by the fact that when I print shots out, they tend to come out darker than I intended, although the colour, saturation and the like is close enough that I can't see any difference.
This got me looking at things like the Spyder 3 and the Pantone Huey Pro, thinking maybe I should calibrate my monitor, but as these beasties only calibrate the monitor, is there actually any point?
OK, so it can calibrate my monitor, but so what? Unless it can also magically reach out across the internet and calibrate the monitors of anyone else viewing them via the web or whatever, then what difference does it make whether my monitor is calibrated?
Likewise, what's the point in calibrating my monitor if there's no guarantee that the device is going to calibrate the monitor to synch up with what comes out of my printer? Alternatively, if it is somehow going to calibrate my monitor to match my printer, then what's the point of paying over 3 times as much for a combined monitor/printer calibrator?
Finally, if I use a printing service for larger prints, how will I know what their printers are calibrated for?
Am I missing something really obvious here?
It's 04:30, I can't sleep and this is bugging me! 
I've been frustrated recently by the fact that when I print shots out, they tend to come out darker than I intended, although the colour, saturation and the like is close enough that I can't see any difference.
This got me looking at things like the Spyder 3 and the Pantone Huey Pro, thinking maybe I should calibrate my monitor, but as these beasties only calibrate the monitor, is there actually any point?
OK, so it can calibrate my monitor, but so what? Unless it can also magically reach out across the internet and calibrate the monitors of anyone else viewing them via the web or whatever, then what difference does it make whether my monitor is calibrated?
Likewise, what's the point in calibrating my monitor if there's no guarantee that the device is going to calibrate the monitor to synch up with what comes out of my printer? Alternatively, if it is somehow going to calibrate my monitor to match my printer, then what's the point of paying over 3 times as much for a combined monitor/printer calibrator?
Finally, if I use a printing service for larger prints, how will I know what their printers are calibrated for?
Am I missing something really obvious here?
It's 04:30, I can't sleep and this is bugging me! I see your frustration but if you can get the RGB, brighness and contrast levels correct on your monitor to start with, then at least you can process your images correctly and get a starting point that's accurate. Take the simplest case - if your monitor is too dark, you will over-brighten the images to compensate so your prints will come out too bright, and so on. You may find that starting off at the beginning will fix the problem.
It's very worthwhile if you want to have accurate prints. In theory, if you calibrate/profile your monitor then what you see on your screen will match what I see on my (calibrated and profiled) screen.
Most web browsers aren't colour management aware anyway, so there's less benefit in doing it if you just want to display your photos online.
Printer profiles aren't as important, as the ones you get from the paper or printer manufacturers are generally very good but they'll only give good results if the image sent to the printer is accurate to start with.
Most web browsers aren't colour management aware anyway, so there's less benefit in doing it if you just want to display your photos online.
Printer profiles aren't as important, as the ones you get from the paper or printer manufacturers are generally very good but they'll only give good results if the image sent to the printer is accurate to start with.
Have a look here
http://shop.colourconfidence.com/
I have the eye-one Display2 which seems to do a good job, but there are a few cheaper options that look good as well.
http://shop.colourconfidence.com/
I have the eye-one Display2 which seems to do a good job, but there are a few cheaper options that look good as well.
ehasler said:
It's very worthwhile if you want to have accurate prints. In theory, if you calibrate/profile your monitor then what you see on your screen will match what I see on my (calibrated and profiled) screen.
Most web browsers aren't colour management aware anyway, so there's less benefit in doing it if you just want to display your photos online.
Printer profiles aren't as important, as the ones you get from the paper or printer manufacturers are generally very good but they'll only give good results if the image sent to the printer is accurate to start with.
So, if I understand that correctly, then if I'm primarily printing at home - I've got a nice printer which does cracking A4 prints - then there's little point, as I have no way of actually knowing how to calibrate to that printer?Most web browsers aren't colour management aware anyway, so there's less benefit in doing it if you just want to display your photos online.
Printer profiles aren't as important, as the ones you get from the paper or printer manufacturers are generally very good but they'll only give good results if the image sent to the printer is accurate to start with.
Kermit power said:
So, if I understand that correctly, then if I'm primarily printing at home - I've got a nice printer which does cracking A4 prints - then there's little point, as I have no way of actually knowing how to calibrate to that printer?
Just the opposite actually - an accurate monitor is important even if you're only printing at home, however it does depend how important to you it is. If you're happy with your prints at the moment, then there's probably little reason to make things more complicated.It's also important to use a good profile for your printer, however these are usually created by the paper or printer manufacturer, and for most people are more than good enough.
The difference between printers and monitors is that even if we both had the same equipment, an image shown on your monitor and mine may look quite different due to settings, ambient light etc... so individual profiles are necessary. If we both owned the same model of printer however, and used the same ink/paper combinations then the resulting prints would be virtually identical.
For example, assume we both have the same screen/printer combination and use the same print settings etc..., however your screen is as it arrived, but mine is calibrated and profiled.
We both receive a jpg of a a photo of a Ferrari, where the colour information in the file describes the colour accurately as Ferrari red. On my screen, I'll see this as the correct red, but you see the car as being orange, so you spend time in Photoshop adjusting it so it looks right. Because of these adjustments however, when you print it, the car comes out purple. On my system, as I've not adjusted the image, I get a red car when I print it.
If I then opened your updated file, it would look purple on my profiled screen, and would print out purple too, so that my print would look the same as yours.
You might be lucky, and find that your screen is very close to the ideal, however the only way to be sure is to use a hardware device to calibrate and profile it.
Edited by ehasler on Tuesday 20th January 11:38
Thanks. That certainly moves me further down the road to enlightenment!
I guess what is confusing me is how the calibration device knows how to set my monitor up if it doesn't know how my printer is set up? If it does know how my printer is set up because this is standard, then what's the point in a calibration device which also calibrates the printer?
I guess what is confusing me is how the calibration device knows how to set my monitor up if it doesn't know how my printer is set up? If it does know how my printer is set up because this is standard, then what's the point in a calibration device which also calibrates the printer?
Monitor and printer profiles are two different things.
To create a profile for your printer, you print out a special image of various coloured squares which is supplied with he profiling tool. You then scan a device over the print which reads the colour of each square. The software compares the colour values of the colour it reads vs the colour it knows it tried to print, and creates a profile to correct it. E.g., one of the squares is meant to be Ferrari red, but comes out orange, so the software knows it needs to make an adjustment to make it print correctly as Ferrari red.
The reason that you don't really need to do this yourself is that the printer/paper manufacturers already do this for you, and you can usually download these from their website.
Also, printers are more uniform than monitors, so if 100 people bought the same monitor and printer then viewed and printed the same file (with identical print settings etc...), you would see minimal differences between the resulting 100 prints but much more variation in what you saw on each of the 100 monitors.
If each of the 100 people then calibrated and profiled their monitor, then the images displayed would be very similar as well.
To create a profile for your printer, you print out a special image of various coloured squares which is supplied with he profiling tool. You then scan a device over the print which reads the colour of each square. The software compares the colour values of the colour it reads vs the colour it knows it tried to print, and creates a profile to correct it. E.g., one of the squares is meant to be Ferrari red, but comes out orange, so the software knows it needs to make an adjustment to make it print correctly as Ferrari red.
The reason that you don't really need to do this yourself is that the printer/paper manufacturers already do this for you, and you can usually download these from their website.
Also, printers are more uniform than monitors, so if 100 people bought the same monitor and printer then viewed and printed the same file (with identical print settings etc...), you would see minimal differences between the resulting 100 prints but much more variation in what you saw on each of the 100 monitors.
If each of the 100 people then calibrated and profiled their monitor, then the images displayed would be very similar as well.
ehasler said:
We both receive a jpg of a a photo of a Ferrari, where the colour information in the file describes the colour accurately as Ferrari red. On my screen, I'll see this as the correct red, but you see the car as being orange, so you spend time in Photoshop adjusting it so it looks right. Because of these adjustments however, when you print it, the car comes out purple.
A good colour version of what I explained about brightness.Kermit power said:
Thanks guys. That now makes sense, and also suggests the combined monitor/printer devices aren't worth paying the extra for, which is good news, seeing as I've just got back from the shops with a nice, shiny new Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro lens. 
You don't really need a printer calibration tool,you can get your printer calibrated by someone else with the equipment, you print off the charts and send them off, they send you back a profile for that ink/paper combo. Going rate seems to be £15-20 per profile, some paper resellers offer it as a free service when you buy their paper.Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff