Hi All,

My Spyder 2 Suite finally arrived yesterday. I am having a little bit of a problem, though. Before I calibrated, the color on my monitor seemed to be too light as compared to the printed output. Now, after calibration, the color on my monitor seemed to be too dark. The only thing I did with the calibration tool was changed the RGB color of my monitor so I'll reach the target temperature and have all the RGB bars almost at the same height. I did not reach the target temperature, I think I am at 6530 instead of the target 6500. The RGB are all falling withing the rectangular bar, though not at all the same levels (I know all of you who use the same tool will understand what I am talking about). And it says the difference should be less than 0.5, my difference is 0.49. I guess I got only 1 one of 3 requirements... he he he. I wasn't even asked to change the brightness control.

I looked at the same pictures here in my office monitor and, yep, the colors on my monitor at home are really dark.

I badly need help. My wife who is my layout artist is complaining that my colors aren't right. By the way, so you have complete info, my monitor is a Dell 24" widescreen (2405FPLW, I think is the model). My monitor is connected to my PC via a digital cable, not the usual VGA cable.

Any help?

Thanks,

Marco

Okay Marco are we talking about the colors not being right as in color balance or are you talking about luminosity? So in effect you are now saying that your prints are brighter than the monitor? Please provide a little more detail and I'm sure we can get this thing figured out for you.

Okay Marco are we talking about the colors not being right as in color balance or are you talking about luminosity? So in effect you are now saying that your prints are brighter than the monitor? Please provide a little more detail and I'm sure we can get this thing figured out for you.

I think it's the luminosity. I see that the skin tones are right so the color should be okay already, right?

More details: I have 2 printers, a Canon Selphy CP500 and a Pixma IP3000. In the Selphy, the printout seems lighter (actually, much lighter) than the one on the monitor. In the Pixma, the color is almost (almost only, it's the monitor that is now darker, previously, it was the printout that was darker) the same as the monitor. These printers are what we use for trial printouts but for printouts we give to clients, we use mpix.com.

My wife is actually comparing our photos to the photos shot by my mentor. Before calibration, she said our picture is too light as compared to my mentor's. Now even my mentor's photos are darker too.

Now she is saying that the color calibration tool I bought is a waste of money. I want to prove her wrong.

Thanks, Mr. Nick for your quick reply.

Marco

Setting the luminance properly depends also on the light in your editing room. Does you wife edit in a dark or bright room? The darker the room, the less luminosity you need. The brighter the room the more luminosity you need. What is the final luminance setting you settled with? What is the final cd/m2?

I would also use the Mpix photos as your guide since you use them for final client output. Take an Mpix print and open the same file up in your computer and let us know the difference.

From what you described, it seemed you skipped the calibration of white and black luminance. This maybe due to the settings you are using. You might need to read your manual again to find out what are the appropriate settings so that the brightness and contrast controls would need to be adjusted to get optimum luminance levels. I do hope the Spyder does have a manual this time, in their older models the only document used be a simple start up guide and you would have to go on-line to read a detailed manual.

From what you described, it seemed you skipped the calibration of white and black luminance. This maybe due to the settings you are using. You might need to read your manual again to find out what are the appropriate settings so that the brightness and contrast controls would need to be adjusted to get optimum luminance levels. I do hope the Spyder does have a manual this time, in their older models the only document used be a simple start up guide and you would have to go on-line to read a detailed manual.

Yes, that is the thing. I wasn't asked to do the black and white luminance setting. It just goes right to the RGB levels and both my luminance levels say N/A. Before the step, there were three checkboxes that I have to select from: Brightness, Contrast, and Backlight. There was also a prompt before this screen that says if you are using an LCD and you only see the Brightness control, then it is the Backlight control and you should check it instead of the Brightness. In my monitor, the Contrast is disabled, so I selected the Backlight. Do you think that has something to do with it?

They do have a manual now, though it's in PDF format. So I cannot have it opened while I am calibrating.

The reason for monitor calibration is not only to make the gamma of the monitor to approach to 2.2 but also let the monitor to be able to simulate the print result. Imagine that we have 2 different monitors driven by 2 different computers, when they both displaying a pure RED for example, they may probably appear quite different when you compare them side by side. Moreover, neither 2 monitors' 100% brightness are of the same luminance, one's 100% brightness maybe another's 80% especially for the case of todays LCD. So monitors can be so different, how can we use the monitor to match the print out of an inkjet printer or a silver halide prints ? Since when the computer is sending a pure RED value (255,0,0) to the printer, the resulting color can be too obvious for us to identify from the monitor color which is displaying the same RGB value of 255,0,0. Therefore, the most powerful part of using Spyder2 series is the building of an icc profile for your monitor.
The icc profile is a table having a coloumn of standard RGB values and the other coloumn contains an measured actual color responds of your monitor stimulated by that RGB value, this color responds is in an absolute CIE format. When our printer have also been calibrated by a spectrometer are having an icc profile, then the imaging software can go through a color conversion from printer to monitor, then the monitor will be able to simulate the print results. Not only inkjet can be profiled, digital photo lab machines such as Fuji Frontier, Durst Lambda, OCE Lightjet are all capable to be profiled.
For your case, please reopen your Spyder2 Suite and find out a disc called PrintFIX PLUS which is a pure software printer profiling tool, it require no spectrometer because the vendor is already do the measurement work for you but the printers in the supported list is still quite limit, luckily your Canon IP series is on the list. You can use the PrintFIX PLUS to build the icc profile for your printer, then you can use the softproof function in your Photoshop to simulate the print result (this required a Spyder2 calibrated monitor). However, I would like to emphasize is the luminance different between the photo viewing environment and the monitor may not be fixable because if the luminance level of your monitor is much higher than your ambient light, you will never find a match even you spend US$100000 to buy the tool to calibrate. So you better use a photo paper under the usual light you are viewing and let your monitor displaying a pure white and compare the luminance level, you can adjust the brightness level of your monitor to match with that first. After you have done this, then please use the Spyder2 to recalibrate your monitor again but don't touch the brightness level during the calibration process.
Nevertheless, build a 6500k lightbox for yourselve, this can ensure the correct viewing condition.

Hope this can help.

However, I would like to emphasize is the luminance different between the photo viewing environment and the monitor may not be fixable because if the luminance level of your monitor is much higher than your ambient light, you will never find a match even you spend US$100000 to buy the tool to calibrate. So you better use a photo paper under the usual light you are viewing and let your monitor displaying a pure white and compare the luminance level, you can adjust the brightness level of your monitor to match with that first. After you have done this, then please use the Spyder2 to recalibrate your monitor again but don't touch the brightness level during the calibration process.
Nevertheless, build a 6500k lightbox for yourselve, this can ensure the correct viewing condition.

Hope this can help.

I was calibrating my monitor last night with almost all the lights in my room turned off except for one which is far from my working area. Do you think it has something to do with why I ended up with a darker monitor profile?

Just to make sure I understand, you are saying that I need to adjust the brightness of my monitor first before calibration by comparing the pure white in my monitor to the printed output? And then recalibrate again without touching the brightness anymore?

Thanks in advance.

Marco,

Just so that you know you are in good hands, Sam Ng (Toyoboy as his original login) works with Colorvision, the company that manufactures the Spyder out of their Hong Kong office. I forwarded him your post to see if he can give you some advice to fix your problem.

Marco,

Just so that you know you are in good hands, Sam Ng (Toyoboy as his original login) works with Colorvision, the company that manufactures the Spyder out of their Hong Kong office. I forwarded him your post to see if he can give you some advice to fix your problem.

Wow! :Shock: That's very great! Thanks very much! I am gonna try his suggestions, the only thing I might not be able to do is to build the 6500K lightbox... :(

I will inform you guys what happens.

I am really grateful.

Marco

Marco

Sam will jump on this thread again certainly. I will also ask him to advise how to build a 6500 light box. More to come.

Yes, that is the thing. I wasn't asked to do the black and white luminance setting. It just goes right to the RGB levels and both my luminance levels say N/A. Before the step, there were three checkboxes that I have to select from: Brightness, Contrast, and Backlight. There was also a prompt before this screen that says if you are using an LCD and you only see the Brightness control, then it is the Backlight control and you should check it instead of the Brightness. In my monitor, the Contrast is disabled, so I selected the Backlight. Do you think that has something to do with it?

They do have a manual now, though it's in PDF format. So I cannot have it opened while I am calibrating.

Yes, it seems that the problem might lie somewhere there. I have never encountered a backlight setting before so I am unfamiliar with that option. Try doing the process again but not selecting backlight. Experiment.
It seems that the problem lies with the skipping of the first steps in calibration ... the luminance settings.
I notice in some other software, there is a an option for 'calibration and profiling' and another option for 'profiling' only. It may be possible that you are set to a profiling only setting. In such a setting, you don't go through the steps of setting up luminance levels. Try and see if there is some setting in that regard.

The viewing light issue comes in after. We first have to get you to calibrate your monitor properly. Your situation is unusual because most cases have the monitor still much brighter than the print in normal room lighting situations. Since it is your monitor that's much darker it is more likely with the calibration process that skipped luminance adjustments.

Would you know if there is an online version of the manual of your device/software, if you have the link kindly let me know so I can help go through it with you.

I recalibrated my monitor again and here's what I did and what I got as a result:

1. On the White Luminance screen, I increased my Brightness to 55 (default is 50).
2. After adjusting the RGB, here's what I got:
Color:
Target: 0.314, 0.324xy
Current: 0.314, 0.321xy
Difference: 0.42 Dab

Kelvin:
Target: 6500
Current: 6500


Luminance:
Target: na
Current: 251.4 cd/m^2

The printout on my Pixma printer now almost closely have the same luminance as what I see on the screen. For the Selphy though, it's still a bit off. I now have to send some to be printed to Mpix so I'll see how it would show.

My problem is my wife still thinks the monitor is still off. She used to compare my colors against my mentor's and she now find that my mentor's photos are too dark. She would not believe that my mentor's photos could be that dark.

Maybe you could look at this website (http://www.pbase.com/sachiv/sonnyjen2) and please tell me if the photos really are dark, or it could be just on my monitor.

Thanks again.

Marco

Marco,

You may be experiencing an "expectation gap" - the difference between your expected results to be delivered by the product vs your actual experience. Here are some things for you to consider:

1. Monitor calibration systems can only bring your MONITOR up to a certain point of known standards. The limiting factor here is technology - your monitor can only do so much (not to mention, we are not GOD). ;)

2. Different input/output devices have different tone/color behavior. Hence, having calibrated/profiled a monitor does not mean you can automatically produce "perfect" pictures. You still need to profile your other devices (you may need a different set of equipment/software for these devices) in order to have better control of the process. In analog days, tests are done on different batches of paper to determine their color/tone behaviour. Again, this is done to have better control of the desired output.

3. Read your manual carefully and thoroughly. You'd be surprise at some information you may have missed.

4. Different calibration systems have different capabilities. Unfortunately, technology in this case has not reached the point where it can be considered a "commodity" - everything same-same. There is information available on the web (www.drycreekphoto.com is one) which will provide you with comparisons. Knowing this would help you decide how far you can push the envelope.

5. Know the limits of technology and work with it. It would make your life easier and less stressful. :)

Good luck.

Would you know if there is an online version of the manual of your device/software, if you have the link kindly let me know so I can help go through it with you.

Mr. Louie,

I uploaded the user guide here (http://www.f3mphotography.com/images/DigiPhoto/Spyder2UserGuide.pdf). My system is not the PRO one so some of the things mentioned in the guide does not apply to me. Mine is the Spyder2 only.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Marco

I can already tell you one thing that calibrating to a Luminance of 251.4 cd/m2 is probably too bright. So maybe that's why your images look brighter than you mentor's now. In the studio we are using a Apple Cinema monitors and ours is calibrated to 110 cd/m2. I suggest you look at this again and pay close attention. One post said you calibrated in a dark room. A 251 cd/m2 is not for a dark room I can assure you that.

I recalibrated my monitor again and here's what I did and what I got as a result:

1. On the White Luminance screen, I increased my Brightness to 55 (default is 50).
2. After adjusting the RGB, here's what I got:
Color:
Target: 0.314, 0.324xy
Current: 0.314, 0.321xy
Difference: 0.42 Dab

Kelvin:
Target: 6500
Current: 6500


Luminance:
Target: na
Current: 251.4 cd/m^2

The printout on my Pixma printer now almost closely have the same luminance as what I see on the screen. For the Selphy though, it's still a bit off. I now have to send some to be printed to Mpix so I'll see how it would show.

My problem is my wife still thinks the monitor is still off. She used to compare my colors against my mentor's and she now find that my mentor's photos are too dark. She would not believe that my mentor's photos could be that dark.

Maybe you could look at this website (http://www.pbase.com/sachiv/sonnyjen2) and please tell me if the photos really are dark, or it could be just on my monitor.

Thanks again.

Marco

Thanks to all who responded especially Mr Nick. I will be sending my photos to my laboratory and see if I'll get the same color and brightness on the prints as what I see on my monitor. I'll keep you guys informed.

Thanks again,

Marco

Okay, I checked the manual. Its nice to see they have tried to make an easier to read manual this time with all those little graphics. Its terribly confusing though how they organized it. I wish they had organized it according to what model one was using because in its present form it is such a waste of time. You have to sort through everything just to find the little things you are looking for.
Anyway, attempt to set the luminance through visual mode. And yes, as Nick said, the luminance values you got were way too high. Its unfortunate that this device/software doesn't allow you to set the target values so that you can input it and the device would guide you till you reach it. Your alternative is to calibrate the luminance levels visually. The mode wherein you would see blocks of different shades from black - grays - white.

Hello all. I finally got my prints and it now looks almost the same (almost only, :Grin:) as I see it on my monitor.

Thanks for all your help!

Marco