Re: calibrating monitors to what?
Re: calibrating monitors to what?
- Subject: Re: calibrating monitors to what?
- From: "R. Lutz" <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:24:04 -0500
A couple of questions and replies came up on another list that I would
like to run by this group. As a little background, the other group is
populated by photographers who work primarily with RGB workflows. Most
use in-house printers (Inkjets and Pictrographies) but also use
professional labs for a good share of their work. The concern was how
best to set up their monitors to predict how the prints would look when
they returned from the lab. I will paraphrase for brevity.
Question 1. My lab sent me a calibration file and print and told me to
use the gamma settings on my monitor to make the calibration file look
like the print that they supplied. I find this is difficult to do.
A.) Is it better to do this or to use the Colorvision spyder and
software (or any other product) to calibrate my monitor?
B.) If the latter (spyder and software), how does the monitor calibrate
to the color lab printer so your prints from the lab match what you see
on your monitor?
Reply 1: If your monitor and your lab's monitor are calibrated and
profiled to the same standard, they should display images very much
alike. In which case, if your lab has their printer profiled to match
their monitor, it should also match yours. ... we should all use
calibrated monitors and we should expect our labs to do the same.
Reply and Question 2: (from a professional lab) In reading through these
posts, everyone says they want a calibrated monitor. My question back to
them is what is the monitor calibrated to? Is the monitor calibrated to
look good in your viewing environment? Is it calibrated to look good to
what specific output device? Is it calibrated to an industry standard
that has yet to be embraced by everyone?
Additional comments from the lab:
...The adjustments that we do make [to your files] are done via the
Frontier environment, they also have their limits. In extreme cases,
better adjustments can be made in Photoshop than through the Frontiers.
...In explaining color management... I often use my dart board analogy.
If you are playing darts, and you can get your dart to the dart board, I
can get you a bull's-eye. If you stick your dart in the wall, there it
stays. So, if your color is close, we can get great results, but if the
color is really bad, there is not a lot that we can do. With good white
balance, good exposure, most files will be acceptable.
I hope I haven't butchered this exchange too badly. I would be
particularly interested in a response to the question in reply 2 (what
is the monitor calibrated to?).
Dick Lutz