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Calibrate my Screen?
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I seem to be having a wee problem with my screen (Advent K200) it is so bright. I’ve tried printing an image and changing the brightness but that doesn’t make a huge difference. I used a free program from a camera mag and that seems to have enhanced the colours only. What I notice is that my images have just a little too much contrast when I print them out or view them on another computer. I am organising an online proofing for images so they need to look good on the sreen too. Can anyone give me advice? :D Thanks :D
LCD Monitors generally ship with their brightness set far too bright, in order to make them look amazing when you first switch them on. For photographic purposes it is generally acknowledged that you should be working at a White Luminance of about 100 cd/m². Once you have that correctly set, you can then set about getting your colours correct. While this can be done by eye, I wouldn’t recommend it as it’s never accurate. I know you’re probably on a budget, but if you can, you should try and get hold of an Eye-One Display 2. If you can’t do that, then find a photographer friend that has a monitor profiling solution and ask them if they will profile your monitor for you.
Now you’re probably wondering how to set the White Luminance of your monitor. When you use a monitor profiling solution such as the one I mentioned above, it will help you set this, but you can get very close by just using your camera as follows (note, this is only for the brightness and not colour accuracy):
1. Set a document up in Photoshop to pure white and fill the screen with it.
2. Set your camera to ISO200 f5.6 and meter the screen from just an inch or so away adjusting only the shutter speed until the meter indicates correct exposure. For a screen calibrated to 100cd/m – which is what our studio screen are calibrated to and gives a very good match to our printers – you should get a setting of 1/40 f5.6 ISO200.
3. Fill the document with RGB128 grey and measure again, should get around 1/10 f5.6 ISO200
4. Fill the document with RGB000 black and measure again, should get around 8secs f5.6 ISO200
If any other these speeds is out by more than approx a third of a stop then your monitor is probably to bright for accurate assessment compared with your prints.Hope this helps. If any of this doesn’t make sense, just ask again!
Hmm, just checked – the Advent K200 seems to be a basic laptop. In that case, it probably won’t have the necessary controls required for profiling with an external profiling solution. You should still be able to set the brightness however.
Screen calibration is a real nightmare alright, sometimes I hate prints because they don’t look as they did on screen.
I used free calibration software but as EvaB said this really just helps colours. :?
That advice is really helpful thorsten, I’ll have to give it a go :)Thank you for the suggestions, the controls aren’t great but for the time being it will have to do.
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