Matching Prints to Monitor

[martincregg]

Martin, I just re-read you post. I overlooked the B&W part. In my experience, the paper you print on can have a HUGE impact on tonal range, especially with dye inks. I am a cheapskate and use Epson Premium Presentation Matte for day-to-day B&W prints, knowing full well that more expensive papers will yield much better results in the dynamic range department. What paper are you using for B&W?

I'm using Canon Photo Paper Plus Gloss II and Canon Photo Paper Plus Semi Gloss.

Although I did reference B&W in my first everything is still valid for color.

 

[Emulator]

Have you tried DisplayCAL GUI, that is if you use Argyll CMS, it really is informative regarding your display calibration?

 

[The Hat]

Playing around with your Monitor setting will get you nowhere very fast, yes you can get it satisfactory for a while, but before too long you’ll be back tweaking it just a little bit more.

Take one of these test photos from Northlight Images and set your printer with the proper Media settings and print, then while viewing the on screen image, edit the test photo to where you think it should be and alter/adjust your histogram accordingly, now print the newly edited image once again.

You will then see clearly where the real problems are by viewing both prints side by side, it won’t be the printer, monitor nor the test image either, its always the Pebkac who’ll never take the blame.

If you are really serious about continuity with you output quality, then @Emulator has the right answer in his post above.

Sorry for been so blunt guys, but you could be there for ever discussing this endless subject, you'll have to admit to yourself where it’s going wrong first before you can start to put it right...
P.S. I would recommend starting with the "Frontier image" first.

 

[mikling]

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

Also try this site as an alternate. Before even using any hardware calibration. Go back to the default settings/reset button on the monitor, the pass the tests on the site, and then proceed to hardware calibrate. You will want to get the brightness and contrast correct or in the ball part first.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

In the final analyses, if you are not using a hardware device, preferably a colorimeter, if necessary a spectrophotometer you are NOT going to get reliable and reproducible viewing results on your monitor. There are any number of reasonably good instuments at reasonable prices available for the amateur.

Eyeball calibration with random tweaking will lead you to nothing but a world of pain, and you will be forever "tweaking" the display.

With your printer you can get by with one of the many profiles available from any of the reliable paper suppliers. But without a reliable monitor setting you have no idea what you are looking at before you print, and your results will ALWAYS be unpredictable.



rs

 

[martincregg]

In the final analyses, if you are not using a hardware device, preferably a colorimeter, if necessary a spectrophotometer you are NOT going to get reliable and reproducible viewing results on your monitor. There are any number of reasonably good instuments at reasonable prices available for the amateur.

Eyeball calibration with random tweaking will lead you to nothing but a world of pain, and you will be forever "tweaking" the display.

With your printer you can get by with one of the many profiles available from any of the reliable paper suppliers. But without a reliable monitor setting you have no idea what you are looking at before you print, and your results will ALWAYS be unpredictable.

rs

As per my original post, I have my monitor calibrated using a Spyder 3. I am using the supplied Spyder Elite 3 software. Is this not a suitable device to calibrate my monitor with. My Gamma is set to 2.2, white point at 6500k and brightness at 80, but I then have to reduce the monitor brightness using the OSD to zero.

Seems strange that I have to reduce my monitor brightness down to zero.

I'm wondering if I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong with the calibration.

 

[mikling]

I've used that setup for years. First turn off the calibration from Spyder software. Then go back to the site I referred you to. Then recalibrate with spyder.
Spyder is WRONG to leave monitors alone and then try to do it with software only. You will get a better result if you are able to get a decent whitepoint with the settings from monitor first. The the spyder software is then used to trim the results to a better result.

So go back to the site I referred you to. If you are hard headed, then you are on your own.

The best result with the given hardware you have is to use displaycal gui. It uses a complex iterative multi polynomial method to generate excellent gamma correction curves that commercial software don't perform because it takes too long but IS the correct way to do it, if you had some math background you'd immediately see why. Displaycal uses a different wording in what it is doing and can confuse you. They promote exactly what I am referring to. First get the monitor dialed in as best you can and the calibration done with the white point. Then they create a profile which they call chracterization. Spyder tells the user to do all of these in software. The reason they do this is because in trying to dial in and calibrate the monitor, very often it can be frustrating because adjusting one color channel will affect the other channel, so it requires a bit of "skill" and most users do not have the ability to adapt to this adjustment process. ...thus calling for support.

I've used the exactly what you are using for years and it is able to provide good results and very good results with displaycal. Don't try displaycal first though. get it right with the spyder software first and then you can try displaycal.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

As per my original post, I have my monitor calibrated using a Spyder 3. I am using the supplied Spyder Elite 3 software. Is this not a suitable device to calibrate my monitor with. My Gamma is set to 2.2, white point at 6500k and brightness at 80, but I then have to reduce the monitor brightness using the OSD to zero.

Seems strange that I have to reduce my monitor brightness down to zero.

I'm wondering if I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong with the calibration.

Spyder 3 is pretty old by now, but should give you a workable calibration. What you are reporting seems non standard.

I don't think I can help. Bur some random thought that come to mind:

Your original post referred to B&W prints. Are we talking only B&W prints, or your Monitor calibration over a range of colours and images.

Also luminance of 80 is rather low but within parameters. With that setting I am supposing you have very dim ambient lighting.

Most calibration procedures reduce monitor brightness significantly. Usually this seems to counter the human tendency to like displays bright and white. Down to ZERO though seems very strange. Are you making the adjustment to ZERO following on screen prompts, or does the software make thus adjustment automatically.

On my own dell with a brightness scale of 1-100. Factory default is 75 - Calibration brings it down to 27.

As emissive display monitors age they tend to get dimmer, and the tendency is to increase the brightness over time to compensate. My second monitor 6 years old requires a brightness setting of 70 - six years ago it was in the twenties.

One thought - you do have a reasonable quality monitor capable of being calibrated - right? At the very least an IPS panel less that 5 years old. If you are using a budget laptop you are essentially wasting your time trying for an accurate calibration.

Usually the requirement is to set the monitor to factory defaults before starting the calibration. I am assuming you did that.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. This is a very difficult issue to trouble shoot remotely, and colour variables are so hard to describe verbally.

rs

 

[mikling]

As per my original post, I have my monitor calibrated using a Spyder 3. I am using the supplied Spyder Elite 3 software. Is this not a suitable device to calibrate my monitor with. My Gamma is set to 2.2, white point at 6500k and brightness at 80, but I then have to reduce the monitor brightness using the OSD to zero.

Seems strange that I have to reduce my monitor brightness down to zero.

I'm wondering if I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong with the calibration.

Depending on the monitor you have , most monitors require the brightness to be dialed way down to get a decent result. This I consider to be normal depending on the category of monitor you are using. Pro monitors are not sent out from the factory with eye blinding levels of brightness are are in the ballpark out of the box and will look unimpressive next to a lower category monitor. Because the typical uninformed consumer wants a "bright" monitor. "See how bright this model is!"

 

[martincregg]

I've used that setup for years. First turn off the calibration from Spyder software. Then go back to the site I referred you to. Then recalibrate with spyder.
Spyder is WRONG to leave monitors alone and then try to do it with software only. You will get a better result if you are able to get a decent whitepoint with the settings from monitor first. The the spyder software is then used to trim the results to a better result.

So go back to the site I referred you to. If you are hard headed, then you are on your own.

The best result with the given hardware you have is to use displaycal gui. It uses a complex iterative multi polynomial method to generate excellent gamma correction curves that commercial software don't perform because it takes too long but IS the correct way to do it, if you had some math background you'd immediately see why. Displaycal uses a different wording in what it is doing and can confuse you. They promote exactly what I am referring to. First get the monitor dialed in as best you can and the calibration done with the white point. Then they create a profile which they call chracterization. Spyder tells the user to do all of these in software. The reason they do this is because in trying to dial in and calibrate the monitor, very often it can be frustrating because adjusting one color channel will affect the other channel, so it requires a bit of "skill" and most users do not have the ability to adapt to this adjustment process. ...thus calling for support.

I've used the exactly what you are using for years and it is able to provide good results and very good results with displaycal. Don't try displaycal first though. get it right with the spyder software first and then you can try displaycal.

I'm not hard headed... Just a lot for me to take in... I'm getting there though and will try and do as you advise... BTW looking forward to getting my PC inks soon!