RE: Colorimeters and third-party developer support
RE: Colorimeters and third-party developer support
- Subject: RE: Colorimeters and third-party developer support
- From: Roger Breton <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:19:16 -0400
Richard,
> The features of the bundled calibration / profiling software are minimal
compared with competitive products. In addition, the
> software does not have a simple pass/fail verification routine, nor does
it show "target / achieved" results for luminance, gamma and
> white point, let alone a verification routine where one can change the
input dataset (grayscale, evenly distributed colors within the
> display gamut, SWOP, etc.) and look at the delta E's of measured/reference
values. In our experience, comparison of the luminance
> and white point achieved after calibration and profiling were
significantly different from the target values when checked with an
> EyeOne Pro spectro driven by BasICColor Display 4 or PatchTool. Support
(from HP) for this software is essentially nonexistent, and if
> for whatever reason the software hangs or crashes consistently and won't
run, you simply cannot calibrate the monitor.
This is lame, any way you look at it. But I understand why, from a
manufacturer's point of view, HP would want to restrict the range of
acrobatics that could be performed on their monitor. Take the primaries of
this display. If I'm not mistaking, this was the first monitor ever to come
out with accessible and selectable CIE x,y chromaticities for each red,
green and blue. I mean, I don't know what the experience of other users on
the list is with this display but this, to me, was unheard of, I personally
had never come across such an "advanced" feature on a monitor before. Now,
of course, it seems that this feature is spreading to other makes, like NEC,
for instance, who makes it available in its latest PA series. And I suspect
other manufacturers will follow suit. It's just a natural evolution of
display technology, right? BTW, I remember comparing the DreamColor's
reported primaries chromaticities with the EyeOnePro and, I don't know what
your experience and that of other owners of this monitor is, but I was
pleasantly surprised to find the measurements were almost on the nose with
HP's OSD values! Which mean that, to some extent, we can ask a question like
why bother measuring in the first place if the monitor's provided values are
so close to the kinds of instruments most folks like you and me would have
access to? Indeed, that's a valid question. Which comes back to the idea
that, provided a manufacturer does a superlative job of "calibrating" a
display to some documented gamma and supply useful controls in the OSD for
setting the white point and primaries to some desired chromaticities, to
what extent are "external" calibrating software important/useful/required?
But I concur with every one of your point, nevertheless, because, as
advanced users, you and I and a host of others, want to have access to every
possible features a given display is capable of -- why not? If I believe I
can "outsmart" the manufacturer, why would I be denied that pleasure? In the
case of HP, I think it's a case of wrong product positioning. The display is
a gem but someone at HP must have believed that anyone buying this display
expected a "turnkey" system and not a color management laboratory.
Let me make one last point at the risk of sounding like a broken record.
There are many, many applications for monitor display. But for those that
need some level of visual match between the image on the display and the
image on some kind of physical support, the overriding criteria of quality
may very well be how "flexible" the provided tools are in supporting the
user in its application. Having the best instrument in the world with
supposedly the best monitor is no guarantee of any kind of visual match to
anything. Sorry. I've seen this too often in my humble experience,
regardless of monitor make or software make or instrument make. Even my
CS-200, here, can't give me that :(
Best / Roger
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