[Muzman]

I'm having a hell of a time setting up colours etc on a monitor. This is not for me so it doesn't have to be set to artistic perfection, and it's second hand and not a major brand so there's no software or documentation. Video card drivers are no problem, but there was some talk here once on programs and web pages for setting up ICC settings.
Can someone tell me where these things are?
thanks

[chrisk82]

I lot of new NVidia based cards come shipped with a program called Colorific. You can buy seperately, but it works pretty good.

Actually, colorific may also come with another program to help with brightness and contrass in games - but I'm not sure.

------------------
Chris Konchalski
www.geocities.com/clk8211

[Muzman]

Cheers; I really need stuff that's free though.
(I suppose I could stick Photoshop on there and use Adobe Gamma or something)

[Loki]

I usually disablem all the software calibration tools on my machine - for the following reasons:

Some software calibration tools basically apply a color correction before the image hits the gfx-card and goes to the monitor (adobe gamma).
Gfx-cards nowadays have their own little gamma setting options built in the driver software which usually messes with thye DAC before the image goes to the monitor. Which is basically also a colorcorrection.

The problem is, that running them quite often degrades the image. Especially when one is working with images that have a quite dark base level, you can run into problems - like mach-banding.
The reason for that is, that most displays work with 8-bit per channels(24-bit in total, without alpha). Sometimes you already get banding with the airbrush, when you work with a low opacity brush applying a similar color as the background. There are not enough colors to blend the colors smoothly - thefore you get banding (steps in the colorgradient).

This happens without any calibration software already. Now, when the image is displayed on your monitor, it get's colorcorrected again, to obey the gamma (brightness) setting you demanded int he calibration tool. The result is even more banding.
The problem is that you can't rely on what you see on the monitor is really the image in the computer's memory.

Sometimes I encounter machines that run adobe gamma, the gfx-card gamma setting AND a calibration software (like Optical) on top!!!! What a mess ...

So, what I do is the following:

* I disable all the calibration-software I can find. Usually the gfx-card ones can't be disabled, so I just st those in their neutral position.

* I go into Photoshop and navigate to Color Settings / RGB Setup. In there I disable "Display Using Monitor Compensation", which is basically ANOTHER color correction, degrading and distorting your image.

* Set the color temperature of your monitor to 6500-7500 degrees. That's a good medium. It might look warm at first, but trust me, your eyes will adjust in a few minutes. 9500 is usually too cold - even though it looks nicer at the first glance.

* Then I create a black image in PS on which I put a gradient from 0% black to 100% white. If everything's ok the gradient should look balanced and the gradient should be smooth without any steps and breaks.

Usually you get choppy gradients when calibration software goes haywire.

* If the gradient looks unbalanced do the following:

Set your contrast up to 100 (contrast doesn't matter in calibration - it's just the 'power' of the display, but doesn't change it's linarity)

Adjust the brightness so the dark side of the gradient sinks into the black background. The last few colors on the dark side shouldn't be visible anymore.

Remove the gradient and adjust the brightness further (carefully) so that the black of the image is slightly brighter than the unused black border of the screen.

And that's pretty much it. Just make sure the lightsituation in the room is as it is usually when you work.

Don't fiddle with the brightness after this adjustment. EVER.

If things seem weird after a while, just bring up the grayscale again, and look at it - it will quickly tell you what's wrong.

Oh - one last thing: Colortemperature is not as important as correct brightness, since you can always pull out a little bit of red from the image - what hurts is if your image is too dark and you can't colorcorrect it, because it falls apart.

That's it

[ozenzo]

how about getting things to print out the color they are on the monitor

to give an example...I'm workin on this card for someone, and the green I'm using is a nice bright green ..on screen...but when I print it out it turns out very dark ..it's driving me crazy...I don't expect it to be exact , but at least close...can anyone help?

[This message has been edited by ozenzo (edited June 30, 2000).]

[Danny]

Hey Loki,

those are some quality tips you gave there.
I've always been struggling with the whole calibration issue.
What is your view on embedding ICC profiles within the images and the colourspace settings you can run in PhotoShop?

Thanks,
Danny



------------------
[email protected]

Trust in Trance

[Muzman]

Hey, great stuff Loki! Cheers
know exactly what you mean, in a less experienced kind of way: I used to spend ages adjusting setting on my PC with several copies of the same picture- one up in picaview, one in Photoshop at least- and then fiddling with half a dozen pieces of software : Adobegamma, windows' gamma, Photoshop's own gamma, Nvidia Gamma etc etc.

Anyway, my sister's problem appears to be fried card now so...
But that list needs to be on an FAQ somewhere
(which reminds me, where were we kurisu? )