Just out of curiosity, these hardware calibration devices, are they available for rent somewhere ? I want to get my monitors calibrated, but I find it hard to justify spending $200 on something I'm going to use infrequently.
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Just out of curiosity, these hardware calibration devices, are they available for rent somewhere ? I want to get my monitors calibrated, but I find it hard to justify spending $200 on something I'm going to use infrequently.
if you are in Adelaide, call Total Photographics in Kent Town, you can hire the Color Munki calibrating hardware for 2 days for only $10. The device is around $600 to buy and is much more accurate than the cheap Spyder calibrators.Originally Posted by khendar
Awesome. Cheers, I'll check that out.
seriously!... while it's all well and good to say that your minitor is calibrated, the calibration is simply as a refernece point. That is, the reason you want your monitor calibrated is so that when you reference it against something, it will look similarly on those 'something else's'. Imagine those something else's to be prints, web upload., other monitors or LCD photo frames or whatever else. But the most common 'other output' type is print.
So, if a calibrator device is not available, having a print as the reference point is just as good.
Main thing to watch out for is tone graduations, and colour accuracy, and makingf sure that the brightness levels are 'similar'.
Note that brightness levels will never be the same between a print and a monitor, and the monitor will always look brighter as the monitor is powered via it's own lighting system.
So what you'll end up doing, is to be sitting in your PC room, and comparing the differences between a print and a screen. As long as you understand the differences in brightness between the two mediums, there should be no differences, once you've adjusted your scren tpo match the print.
I did this, but in reverse. I have basically no prints of any of my images, but had a calibrated monitor for ages. This point always played in the back of my mind.. are the prints actually going to look the same in print, as they do on my monitor(under the same light conditions). So I had an A4 print made up of an image with a lot of contrast range and colours and they were as close as they needed to be to each other. I fine tuned the screen a little bit here and there, reset the gamma a touch, and the next print I made turned out as close to perfect as I coudl have hoped for
For $10, that'd have got me 4 A4 prints, rather than a small time use with a calibrator .. and I get to keep the print
Nikon D800E, D300, D70s
{Nikon}; -> 50/1.2 : 500/8 : 105/2.8VR Micro : 180/2.8 ais : 105mm f/1.8 ais : 24mm/2 ais
{Sigma}; ->10-20/4-5.6 : 50/1.4 : 12-24/4.5-5.6II : 150-600mm|S
{Tamron}; -> 17-50/2.8 : 28-75/2.8 : 70-200/2.8 : 300/2.8 SP MF : 24-70/2.8VC
{Yongnuo}; -> YN35/2N : YN50/1.8N
My main concern is the web, seeing as that's how I publish most of my photos (I do prints occasionally but that's a separate issue). So I want my screen to be fairly neutral so that I can be confident that my shots will look pretty close to normal on other people's screens.
Incidentally, the Colour Munki can be used to calibrate your printer as well, which I'm going to give a try tonight. Calibrating my screen didn't work too well (doesn't appear as if it likes calibrating two displays for some reason).
it will take u a few tries to get the Color Munki to perfection.
dont try to calibrate to the ambient lighting of your room, but instead with the luminance level of 120 which is like the industry standard for professional editing etc. Also make sure the white balance is at D65 too.
seriously!... while it's all well and good to say that your minitor is calibrated, the calibration is simply as a refernece point. That is, the reason you want your monitor calibrated is so that when you reference it against something, it will look similarly on those 'something else's'. Imagine those something else's to be prints, web upload., other monitors or LCD photo frames or whatever else. But the most common 'other output' type is print.
So, if a calibrator device is not available, having a print as the reference point is just as good.
Main thing to watch out for is tone graduations, and colour accuracy, and makingf sure that the brightness levels are 'similar'.
Note that brightness levels will never be the same between a print and a monitor, and the monitor will always look brighter as the monitor is powered via it's own lighting system.
So what you'll end up doing, is to be sitting in your PC room, and comparing the differences between a print and a screen. As long as you understand the differences in brightness between the two mediums, there should be no differences, once you've adjusted your scren tpo match the print.
I did this, but in reverse. I have basically no prints of any of my images, but had a calibrated monitor for ages. This point always played in the back of my mind.. are the prints actually going to look the same in print, as they do on my monitor(under the same light conditions). So I had an A4 print made up of an image with a lot of contrast range and colours and they were as close as they needed to be to each other. I fine tuned the screen a little bit here and there, reset the gamma a touch, and the next print I made turned out as close to perfect as I coudl have hoped for
For $10, that'd have got me 4 A4 prints, rather than a small time use with a calibrator .. and I get to keep the print
sorry but thats bad advice, then again it is just your opinion. Calibrating your monitor/printer with a good calibrator is invaluable and has many benefits rather than comparing it to a print. Sorry, rather spend that $10 and calibrate my monitors than not do it at all and have 4 extra A4 prints.
you have stated yourself in the past that you rarely print at all, thus you dont need to have that colour accuracy that perhaps, other ppl might require or wish for.
Last edited by JM Tran; 23-08-2011 at 6:34pm.
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