color calibration, flexview screen, external CRT

[allen]

i'm setting up my new T60p for professional photo work, by the loose term professional i mean mostly selling photos for editorial/publishing
i used to only use adobe gamma on my desktop CRT, and it actually worked great. things that ran in magazines and even printed from adorama matched up very close with my CRT.

so i'm ready to set it up and run into a few problems. i'm open to using something other than adobe gamma, but would prefer to stick with it since it's very simple and has worked for me.

1) how could i calibrate my T60 screen (for when i'm away from the desk, out of town/on location and can't hook up to my external CRT) and also calibrate the CRT? because with something like adobe gamma i dont think you get 2 different settings.

2) adobe gamma asks you to increase contrast to 100% and then set brightness accordingly. can this be done on a T60 screen? the brightness increments with Fn Home and Fn End seem way to large

3) the T60 screen brightness changed depending on if it's plugged into AC power or not, even with my battery settings set for maxmimum performance, how would i factor this in to my color calibration?

if i remember correctly there were definetly photographers on here, any help would be amazing!

[Ken Fox]

1) how could i calibrate my T60 screen (for when i'm away from the desk, out of town/on location and can't hook up to my external CRT) and also calibrate the CRT? because with something like adobe gamma i dont think you get 2 different settings.

2) adobe gamma asks you to increase contrast to 100% and then set brightness accordingly. can this be done on a T60 screen? the brightness increments with Fn Home and Fn End seem way to large

3) the T60 screen brightness changed depending on if it's plugged into AC power or not, even with my battery settings set for maxmimum performance, how would i factor this in to my color calibration?

I've been inactive with photography for the last year but have lots of equipment and intend to get back into it.

Adobe Gamma is not used by any serious photographers, at least not by any I encountered in photography forums and articles when I was more active in the pursuit. You need to get a device that, along with software, will calibrate your monitors. The one I have is a bit dated by now, and was made by a company called Gretag-Macbeth. There are quite a few competing devices made by several companies, and I'm out of the loop right now on what are the best and most cost-effective choices.

Since I'm out of date when it comes to this stuff, I would not recommend anything specific to you. Rather, I would recommend that you hang out on some of the photography forums and ask your question in subforums with titles like "photofinishing" or "Digital Darkroom," or something like that. These can be found on websites such as http://www.dpreview.com/ and http://www.fredmiranda.com/ and several others.

Another source of information would be http://www.luminous-landscape.com/ which has a lot of excellent articles and tutorials.

I doubt you will find that sort of information in a laptops forum such as this, and in any event I'd be asking photographers this question rather than people with computers who take pictures

[WPWoodJr]

1) how could i calibrate my T60 screen (for when i'm away from the desk, out of town/on location and can't hook up to my external CRT) and also calibrate the CRT? because with something like adobe gamma i dont think you get 2 different settings.

2) adobe gamma asks you to increase contrast to 100% and then set brightness accordingly. can this be done on a T60 screen? the brightness increments with Fn Home and Fn End seem way to large

3) the T60 screen brightness changed depending on if it's plugged into AC power or not, even with my battery settings set for maxmimum performance, how would i factor this in to my color calibration?

1) Get a professional color calibration program/device like Eye-One Display 2 by GretagMacbeth - it will handle 2 monitors and give you great color too.

2) Just leave your brightness at full.

3) You can set your screen to not darken on battery - start up "Thinkpad configuration" and set LCD brightness to high when running on batteries.

[allen]

thanks for the suggestions,
i do like to keep things as simple as possible, and adobe gamma was simple, and suprisingly worked great for me. i have always heard it's really not good, but i don't want to spend the extra money on a spyder unless i absolutely feel like it's necessary, which if i want to calibrate the laptop and external monitors, it's not possible huh?

i guess i could try and find a friend that might have one of those things right?

got my screen to not darken on battery, thanks.
so if i go with adobe gamma, leave brightness at full and just use the gamma slider?

going to other forums isn't a bad idea, i just figure most people there wouldnt know what to do with a pc laptop screen, silly mac users! haha.

thanks guys

[allen]

hi, so i've borrowed a colorvision spyder2, this seems to be a simple quesitons, but i can't find the answers anywhere.

after calibrating, it creates a color profile.
do i set photoshop, my printer and scanner to use that profile? or continue to use adobeRGB1998?

do i remove the other profiles associated with my monitor in dispaly properties - advanced - color management? i.e. TPFLX? or the adobeRGB1998 profile i had before?

thanks

[own6volvos]

Care to email me your calibrated profile for the better of mankind

[Scratch]

Unfortunately profiles are display specific. It might get you close, but it might not.

I use a ColorVision Spyder for calibration and have used it with great success in conjunction with prior ThinkPads (up to my A30p) and external displays. The results have been very consistent since I have built color profiles for my output devices and local printing sources using the print and scan solution provided with the CV Spyder Pro. It has to be done for each printer/paper combination. I have had somewhat less success with the laptop panel due to the huge variation in ambient light conditions when on the move.

That being said, the profiles created for my T60p work well when I first set them for a given session, but the ATI software seems to override the setpoints whenever the system sleeps or is restarted.

Anyway to answer your question..profiling the monitor is a start and a critical path item to a calibrated workflow, but it has to be done on a regular basis, is good for a given set of lighting conditions, and will vary from panel to panel so the attached panel and desktop display will require different profiles.

This site has some excellent information on creating a calibrated workflow.

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/home.htm

Let us know how you fare.

I've asked on the forum here in the past if anyone has run into or found a solution to the issue. So far no response other than "I can get it to work" or "No problem here" type answers.

[Ken Fox]

hi, so i've borrowed a colorvision spyder2, this seems to be a simple quesitons, but i can't find the answers anywhere.

after calibrating, it creates a color profile.
do i set photoshop, my printer and scanner to use that profile? or continue to use adobeRGB1998?

do i remove the other profiles associated with my monitor in dispaly properties - advanced - color management? i.e. TPFLX? or the adobeRGB1998 profile i had before?

thanks

Once again, you really should be asking these questions in a PHOTOGRAPHY forum and not in a computer forum

I don't have a spyder rather I have an eye one. It calibrates the monitor(s) then automatically puts the profile in the right directory so that windows and Photoshop use it by default. I'm not familiar with the software that comes with a spyder and I can't tell you how to manually do these things; I've never done them manually, they just happen after calibration. I find the calibration results to be just fine for all computing purposes as well so I use the new profiles for everything, not just for photoediting.

Perhaps someone in a photography forum can tell you how they use their spyders?

[WPWoodJr]

hi, so i've borrowed a colorvision spyder2, this seems to be a simple quesitons, but i can't find the answers anywhere.

after calibrating, it creates a color profile.
do i set photoshop, my printer and scanner to use that profile? or continue to use adobeRGB1998?

do i remove the other profiles associated with my monitor in dispaly properties - advanced - color management? i.e. TPFLX? or the adobeRGB1998 profile i had before?

thanks

You need not remove the other profiles associated with my monitor in display properties - advanced - color management, but set the default profile to be the one created by Spyder.

This profile has no affect on your printer and scanner, it is only used by programs like Photoshop which use it to display images as accurately as possible.

Be sure to run the Spyder profile loader at startup. This loads a calibration curve into the video card's LUT table. That, in combination with Photoshop's interpretation of the profile, determine how the image will look.

[allen]

so setting my printer or scanner profile... to adobeRGB1998, does that even do anything?

and, when i'm calibrating my CRT plugged into my laptop via advanced mini dock, if i have the display set to dual extended display and just calibrating the CRT, do you think it'd be different than having the laptop's LCD off and calibrating the CRT?

thanks

[kruzo]

Adobe 1998 is a COLOR SPACE, although sometimes called a Profile,
which causes a lot of confusion. the profile you created, an ICC profile for your monitor works together with 1998a. You should still use it in PS.
As someone mentioned, you are asking this at a wrong forum -- go to
dpreview-- forums and search for "profile monitor". There is more info then you will be able to read!

[FrankK-F]

Let me add my 5 cents...

With the Spyder or other Hardware/SW calibration setup you should be able to calibrate your TP monitior as well as your external monitor and save under filenames that distinguish one from the other.

If you use both monitors (dual monitor setup), only the primary monitor will run under a calibrated color profile, while the secondary runs on default settings. (I don't have a feel on how this works on extended desktop setups, I haven't tried and would not really know how to interpret what I might see. I have observed, however, that my dual monitor setup presents differently the same image .. but cannot tell is this color temperature difference or some other monitor characteristic ... and I am comparing LCD with LCD external.)

If you have multiple profiles you can select which one to use Under Display Properties - Settings - Advanced - Color Mangement. For example if at the office you might want use your external CRT .. and you now set that profile as you default, and when on the road you select the calibrated profile for the TP's monitor.

The wisdom is that you should calibrate your monitor every couple of weeks. And this may well be true for a CRT ... its phosphors and drift are the culprits. I think an LCD monitor tends to be more stable, requiring lower recalibration frequency.

Of course calibration wont help if you don't control the ambient illumination where you do your image processing. A subdued light envirionment, preferably where the light source does NOT play directly off the monitor is perhaps the best. You should NOT adjust your monitor intensity or other settings as this will invalidate your calibration settings ... you should subdue the ambient light. It's a wysiwyg world, after all .. and it is the image on the screen that is of interest.

Hope this helps.

Frank K-F

[allen]

what about if i just want a simple yes or no answer without all the explanation, without having to sort through all the other forums? any help? you could call me lazy, or trying to be efficient. why should i have to be an expert on calibration if i just want to know what to set everything as?

[FrankK-F]

Well, Allan, let me suggest that if you want to make an omlette you have to break some eggs. We can point you in the direction and what needs to be done ... but you have to do the calibration ... because your monitor's setting are almost certainly different from another.

Moreover, color also has aspects of what is pleasing to the viewer, or what gives the image the punch ... and for that you'll need to invest some of your precious time.

[WPWoodJr]

what about if i just want a simple yes or no answer without all the explanation, without having to sort through all the other forums? any help? you could call me lazy, or trying to be efficient. why should i have to be an expert on calibration if i just want to know what to set everything as?

Because there are no simple yes or no answers in the color calibration world! Unfortunately color calibration is still way too difficult and requires an investment of time to understand and appreciate it. You have a beginner's view of calibration and it would take us some time to bring you up to speed. (Don't even get me started on dual monitors!) I recommend this article from the website that someone else had posted above as a good starting point:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps9_colour/ps9_1.htm

[allen]

i've already read that site as much as possible, and read more a bunch of info that doesnt answer my questions, it gets frusterating, but i did call Colorvision and they gave me the yes or no answer i was looking for about the dual monitors, but forgot to ask what to do with printer and scanner settings, if it has any affect.

also, do these T60p's have a pci express card? colorvision says you can only calibrate both monitors on a dual monitor setup if you have that type of card, and from what i can tell with profile chooser, i can. which i only really felt the need to calibrate the CRT when using extended desktop setup, cause the LCD would just have the tool palettes, but hey even better.

p.s. using microsoft pro tools which so many said to use, gets really confusing with dual monitor setups, the profile chooser works fine.