W520 Pantone Calibration is terrible

[tpribors]

Last winter I bought a W510 with the high res/high output monitor and the color calibration option. It is drop dead gorgeous. The computer performs post processing from a Mac based Nikon Coolscan 9000 and that is about all it does. Now I'm going through about 3000 Nikon RAW files from a Grand Canyon river trip. Its an awesome photo machine.

My old T60p is starting to get fan failure so I ordered a W520. The plan was to put the 520 as the workhorse and take the 510 as my new "daily driver".

During installation I ran the monitor calibration. I thought it looked strange - the blue background suddenly got a yellow tinge. Last night I started installing all of my apps, connected to the server, and did a side-by-side of a post-processed frame. The 510 vividly captures the reds of the canyon. The same image on the 520 has a horrible yellow or green cast to it. Basically unusable. I reinstalled all the software and didn't do the calibration and it's much better.

The X-rite software on the 510 seems to be newer and have more features than the supposedly new version on the 520. I can't even disable the calibration on the 520 whereas the 510 version has a "erase" option.

Has anyone else wrestled with this?

I was going to do some OS swapping between the two machines to see if it follows the hardware but right now I'm inclined to simply return the 520 for another in the hope that it is the built-in sensor.

[ausmike]

Sorry to say ,,,,,,,,,,,, Yips my older W510 IS LOTS better @ that ; and sadly found out that the newer W520 sucks at same thing. > so much for LENOVO making "QUALITY IIMPROVEMENTS" - when I called Lenovo support with 'my actual results - facts". They told me - ". quote .....there has been lots of improvements but we cannt quantufy as to where these UPGRADES are and how they affect the PHOTOGRAPHY SETUPS"...." blah bah ,,,,,, and even results was I got a PSREF sent to me " saying the THINKPAD 'photography models = WITHDRAWN !!

So end result , if I was you; and as I did ; keep the W510 updated and handy!

sorry mate , thats the best i got , cant be of much help.

cheers

[davidhbrown]

I can't even disable the calibration on the 520

To manage color without using the third-party software, open the start menu, type all or part of colorcpl.exe until it appears and run that to open the Color Management control panel.

Select the correct display device (Identify monitors if necessary) and select the desired profile. "Lenovo ThinkPad LCD Monitor" is the uncalibrated default. The PANTONE/X-Rite profiles are in the format, "ThinkPad Display 1920x1080_D65_09092011_171426.icm" where 1920x1080 will be the resolution of the screen, D65 will be whatever white point you requested, and the remaining numbers are the date and time of calibration.

[tpribors]

Yesterday I spoke with the great service folks at IBM in Atlanta (it's great they still have someone who speaks American English). After describing my side-by-side comparison they are sending me a replacement palm reset with the color sensor. We'll see if it is a faulty sensor.

Second, they suggested I try the HueyPro software from the W510 (which was a bear to find) on the W520. That actually seemed to make a big difference in the calibrated result, but it is still too yellow for it to work which does lead me to believe the sensor is at least part of it. I reinstalled Win7 last night and will surgically excise the X-Rite Pantone software and install the HueyPro version (still X-Rite) and compare some more.

I also have the dual-mode graphics whereas the W510 has only external. I am going to force the graphics on the W520 to be nVidia only.

If this doesn't work then I'm going to return it for a swap (I'll return and reorder) since it may also be the panel itself.

I'm going to be pretty picky on this as it has a functional purpose...

[tpribors]

I started a reinstall again this morning and got home tonight with the intent of (from scratch) removing the original Pantone calibration software before it even got a chance to muck with stuff and install HueyPro. During that process I noticed a one or two pixel void all the way across the bottom that almost lines up with the task bar line. I didn't notice it because it was so close and usually hidden.

I'm going to call tomorrow to return the system and order a replacement.