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Choices for Calibration of Monitors and Profiling Printers!

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Andrew,

While we are discussing use of calibrated/profiled monitors, I'd love to know to what extent I'm really shortchanging my work in not upgrading from my original eye one spectrophotometer and my Eizo Eizo CG 210. I just now have acquired a viewing booth, a TRV-1 D5000 Reflection/Transmission Viewer by GTi graphic Technology, bought used. It does not seem to have a way to adjust brightness.

Asher
 

Andrew Rodney

New member
I’ve yet to see a calibration software product that has no way to adjust brightness (backlight intensity). The EyeOne Spectrophotometer is fine for the task albeit not as precise in measuring shadows as a good Colorimeter.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I’ve yet to see a calibration software product that has no way to adjust brightness (backlight intensity). The EyeOne Spectrophotometer is fine for the task albeit not as precise in measuring shadows as a good Colorimeter.

Andrew,

It's counterintuitive, to me, at least, that the iOne Display Pro spectrophotometer, costing well over $1500, albeit in 2006, could be bettered by a simple $100 colorimeter the X-Rite iOne Display 2 - colorimeter / color calibrator or for $250 the Pro version.

Again, do we know from experience of folk that sell their work that having a modern wide gamut RGB monitor is of practical advantage in delivering their prints.

So what is the practical difference that one gets in upgrading in both these cases?

Asher
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Andrew,

Well, I am gob-stopped! Such a clear well-wrtten article. I have in elegant laboratory spectrophotometers and had looked down on simple colorimeters. However, as this article points out, measuring must be looked at n reference to ones actual needs. It then becomes obvious that mimicking the way the eye is more efficient approach. In our eyes, cones, sensitive to just R, G or B, together provide proportional signals sufficient for our brains to construct an experience of a particular color!

Where the great gain is in simplicity, just 3 sensors with and R, G or B filter, the pay off s much less background noise in the very dark colors where a narrow window spectral instrument, (such as a sectrophotometer or spectroradiometer), would have just a tiny fraction of the total original light portioned to it for measurement.

Thanks, again Andrew for this stellar link.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What's interesting is that Xrite offers a ColorMunki Display (also seems to be called ColorMunki Create), a colorimeter and then ColorMunki Design, ~ $400 online and ColorMunki Photo, both spectrophotometers! (They don't say how this compares to the more costly iOne line of spectrophotometers.) So it's a real detective trail to follow to discover what each one does.

One needs to read this table to fathom the differences.

Aslo, nowhere does it state that it's best to use the cheaper colorimeter for monitor calibration. In summary, the colorimeter is good for emissive work.

The spectrophotometers work for emissive, ambient and reflective work and so can be used for profiling printers and projectors too as well as sampling colors from materials.

I'm impressed, at least by a video showing how one can use the ColorMunki spectrophotometer, (either design or photo) to profile a printer. It provides a nifty way of scanning a print output of 50 colors in 5 strips. If one does that strip right then one goes to the next one. After reading that 50 colors, it generates another set of 50 colors based on the first measurements. The software is that smart. Of course, I have not the slightest idea as to accuracy or adequacy as I've heard arguments for thousands of colors to be sampled.

Still, the electromechanics of the ColorMunki does make the process of scanning targets simple. If it's effective, I'm sure folk will jump in!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
If someone needs a basic system just for their monitor, here's a bargain at B&H at $69.95!

Someone grab it! Note this is just for the monitor, not for printer profiling.

Asher
 

Michael Tapes

OPF Administrator/Moderator
i1 Display 2 Colorimeter

Hi Andrew,

Can I assume that the i1Display 2 Colorimeter and the Colorimeter in the ColorMunki Create package are the same?

Thanks.
Michael
 

Andrew Rodney

New member
ColorMunki is a brand. i1is a brand.

ColorMunki (original) is a low cost Spectrophotometer that builds profiles for displays and printers.
ColorMunki Display is a new product, a low cost Colorimeter.

i1Pro is a Spectrophotometer for the higher end (pro market).
i1Pro Display is a Colorimeter for the higher end (pro market).
 

Michael Tapes

OPF Administrator/Moderator
ColorMunki is a brand. i1is a brand.

ColorMunki (original) is a low cost Spectrophotometer that builds profiles for displays and printers.
ColorMunki Display is a new product, a low cost Colorimeter.

i1Pro is a Spectrophotometer for the higher end (pro market).
i1Pro Display is a Colorimeter for the higher end (pro market).

Hi Andrew,

I understood all of that. I will put my questions more directly.

Is the ColorMunki Display colorimeter the same hardware as the old Gretag Macbeth i1Display 2. Since they look identical in terms of their shape and construction, I was wondering if the guts are the same or different.

Or put another way...learning from your discussion that using the inexpensive colorimeter will do better job of calibration than my i1Pro Spectro, can I assume that my GM i1Display 2 colorimeter will give the same results as the newer, but identical looking ColorMunki Display.

Thanks :>)
 

Andrew Rodney

New member
Is the ColorMunki Display colorimeter the same hardware as the old Gretag Macbeth i1Display 2.

They don’t look the same and are not the same. The ColorMunki Display looks just like the i1Display Pro expect for a different paint job. For all I know, they are identical otherwise and with something in either software or firmware, the ColorMunki Display is slower. The software is far less complete in terms of control over calibration targets.

Or put another way...learning from your discussion that using the inexpensive colorimeter will do better job of calibration than my i1Pro Spectro, can I assume that my GM i1Display 2 colorimeter will give the same results as the newer, but identical looking ColorMunki Display.

One may be better than the other in some cases, not in others. As Karl’s article points out, consumer grade Colorimeters (the ones we can afford to purchase) are better at measuring darker emissive colors than commercial grade Spectrophotometer’s. But Spectrophotometer’s are better at dealing with a display who’s backlight is mixed or undefined. Colorimeters need filter matrices that have some assumption of the kind of display used (that’s why you often see options in the software to select: Laptop, CRT, LCD). The newer Colorimeters from X-rite actually have provisions to update the matrices although its too early to know why they will allow this update to be done (via a software patch, over the net?). The older Colorimeters like the i1Display-2 had filters that assumed an sRGB like display. They didn’t do all that well with some backlight technology (LED). The newer Colorimeters don’t suffer this issue because of the filter matrices which presumably offer more choices based on what you are measuring.

The bottom line is this. A colorimeter with matted filters for a panel is a better (more accurate) instrument. When you buy an NEC with their colorimeter (OEM’d from X-Rite), the filters are exactly matched to their panels. We saw this with the older Sony Artisan, Barco’s, PressViews. You get very precise measurements of the white point thanks to the matted filters and really good dark measurements.

A Spectrophotometer is a multiple purpose tool. Because how it measures colors, custom filters are not necessary to nail the white point but they do not measure dark colors as well as a Colorimeter. They cost more but they also provide the functionality of measuring reflective colors well such you could build a printer profile.
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Asher,

I would just like to comment on your opening title here.

At issue here are the calibration and profiling of displays ("monitors") and the profiling of printer systems.

I'm sure that you (prudently) truncated the title for editorial reasons. Still, I think it is important that we recognize that calibration of a printer system and its profiling are two different (although related) things, both of great interest.

To summarize the distinction:

Calibration of a display chain means to adjust its lookup tables and such so that its colorimetric response, at its input interface from applications, implies a color space that is as near as practical to some standard color space (usually sRGB, although we are rarely told that). It in effect seeks to give the display chain itself a response matching a standard color space, so far as is practical.

Profiling of a display chain means to develop a precise description, in a standard format, of its colorimetric response (with its calibration adjustments in effect, if applicable). It in effect seeks to precisely define the color space under which the displayed chain (with its calibration in place, if applicable) operates.

One objective of calibration is that in situations where the application does not recognize profiles, and assuming that its output is in terms of the sRGB color space, the response of the display chain will hopefully produce "very nearly" the proper colors.

The objective of profiling is that a "profile-aware" application can take the colors in an image about to be displayed, represented in terms of some color space, and transform them to the specific, parochial color space of the particular display chain in use (as defined by its profile).

Typically instrument-software packages for use with display chains will perform calibration and/or profiling, as we direct. The usual approach is to have the tool first calibrate the display chain and then, for the chain with the calibration in effect, to profile it.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Andrew,

Thanks for all your insights into the complexities of this matter and the current realities.

Best regards,

Doug
 
As a user of i1Pro and i1Profiler, it is humbling to be told that a cheaper device can do the job of the thing that made my eyes water to buy...

However, would I be right in thinking that calibration of the display would be best done with a colorimeter, and that profiling may be better done with the spectrophotometer ? This introduces my next question: I see no direct way of using TWO instruments in the same calibration+profile operation - or is there a way to do it ?
 
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