Re: Monitor calibration and print viewing
Re: Monitor calibration and print viewing
- Subject: Re: Monitor calibration and print viewing
- From: tflash <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 00:53:14 -0500
>
> I have a basic misunderstanding of the purpose of calibrating a monitor.
>
> I was under the impression it was so that we all standardized on something,
>
> so that if files got passed along we could be certain they would look the
>
> same (within the limits of differing hardware etc.) at all locations. But
>
> if
>
> we are able to choose different white points and gamma doesn't that just
>
> throw the whole notion of standardization out the window? As a photographer
>
> who intends most of his work to end up printed I reckon I should calibrate
>
> to 5000k, gamma 1.8, and work in a color space of Colormatch RGB or Adobe
>
> RGB 1998. I understand that I can tag my files with the colorspace, but
>
> that
>
> still does not assure me that someone working on this image downstream
>
> will
>
> see it as I do if they have calibrated their monitors differently than
>
> I
>
> have. So what am I missing?
>
>
I have a matching pair of monitors on my machine, and if I calibrate one to
>
5000k, 1.8 and the other to 6500k, 2.2 (OS9 and PhotoShop 6 required to
>
manage multiple profiles simultaneously) then the same image on both looks
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very much alike. The difference is rather subtle, and not a crisis-level
>
mismatch. The eye adapts pretty well for different white points, within
>
reason; and different monitor gammas are compensated for in the workingspace
>
to monitorspace conversion. The biggest problem is that by running them side
>
by side, the brighter monitor interferes with seeing white on the other as
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truely white. Without the brighter monitor adjacent to it, the eye will
>
compensate and make do with the lower light level. After all
Hmm. Couldn't the same could be said for un-calibrated monitors too? I
thought the point of calibration was to stop relying on, or should I say
allowing, our eyes to attempt to compensate for, or conjecture differences
in color and brightness. I thought the point was clinical accuracy,
repeatability, and standardization.
I'm going back to Adobe gamma....
Thanks CD,
Todd