Laptop screen calibration

[gandini]

OK, I did a search on the forum, but really only found 1 thread that was relevant, so I'll ask the question.
Having used a Sony 21" CRT monitor for a while, which is pretty well calibrated, I know what a good screen should look like, photographic-wise.
I recently got the latest-greatest Dell laptop (don't ask why...) and it comes with a pretty fancy graphics card and screen. The screen is a wide-aspect (16:10) WUXGA, which means it's Ultra for a wider "bright viewing" angle, and it has a native resolution of 1920x1200 (!) It's supposed to be the best available laptop screen at the moment (which is fleeting, I'll admit.)
As many people have mentioned TFT screens are very sharp and bright compared to CRTs. And because of the technology even though they refresh at 60Hz, they do not have the fatigue/headache factor of CRTs running under 75Hz.
However, this screen, and others so I am told, no longer come with contrast adjustment, only something called "brightness." Asking a Dell tech support guy, he said the contrast was preset at Max, which is good for photography. But the brightness adjustment does not seem to work as it does on a CRT. It just seems to make the overall image darker, and so I can't keep the whites to get stronger blacks or even midtones--which suggests these screens really don't support Max contrast! But it's not adjustable.
I ran Adobe Gamma, and got good adjustment response, and the colors are reasonable, but the dynamic range of the screen seems to be particularly limited compared to the Sony 21".
I ask if these observations ring true with other's experience?

thanks for any input.
cheers,

[Rudi]

Philip,

Yes, my laptop is more difficult to calibrate than my desktop monitors (be it LCD or CRT). The lack of contrast adjustment is something that really hurts the calibration, IMO. Even using the Spyder, my laptop is never as accurate as my desktop LCD, and I have to fine tune it "by the seat of the pants", comparing the two views. It is still never absolutely perfect, but it IS close. :)

[CyberDyneSystems]

LCD's have yet to acheive level of color rendition and detail of the best CRTs. And they are far less adjustable (especially in resolution where they really should only be run in there "native" resolution)

FYI,. unlike CRT's LCD displays do not "refresh".

The 60Hz refresh rate setting you see in your display properties control panel is the setting of the analog output of your Laptop's graphic'c card. It bares no relation to the screen itself.

Unlike a CRT that "fires" pixels of light at a given speed (refresh rate) the LCD pixels are "Allways On" untill they are told to change or turn "off" (this occurs only when the display image changes)

LCDs have come a long way,. but the Best CRTs are still far superior for graphics work.

In the case of your Sony 21",... you are comparing that LCD to one of the best screens made. (you didn't give the model number,. but I've yet to see a Sony 21" that wasn't at the top of it's game :) )

[gandini]

Thanks CyberDyne and Rudi:
Actually I have been pursuing this issue a bit more since I posted the original message here.
I asked Dell support for some help with color profiles on my laptop: I got some gobbledygook back that referred to screen resolution... and then another email saying that Dell doesn't ship laptops with a color profile (yeh, right, a screen *must* have a color profile, even if it's hard wired by default, surey?)
Anyway, the computer boots with a screen setting, then switches to one of the profiles I created for it, which is far superior in terms of midtone detail and color balance.
What has surprised me most is that while a number of people are converting to laptops as "desktop replacements" (industry buzz), they seem to take the LCD as a *fixed* factor. Now we've seen elsewhere that the ONLY people who ever care about their monitors and maybe even calibrate them are digital photographers, and so we can readily conclude that the vast majority of computer users are looking at a poorly calibrated monitor (I'd guess 95+%). But when I posted a message about screen calibration on the Dell forums it got a big fat "0" response! So nobody really cares--I even offered to share my .icc files with them, but no takers, Oh well.
I can understand here that few use their laptops for editing, but surely people use them to view photos?

btw, CyberDyne, I have Dell's latest WUXGA screen, that has a native resolution of 1920x1200. It's pretty darn impressive at this resolution. I have started making wallpaper for it, due to the odd ratio and size, and hence my interest in editing images so they look good on the actual laptop.
And thanks for the "60Hz" information!

cheers,

[neilmerton]

hi gandini,

i've got a dell Inspiron 9100 that displays @ 1920x1200 and would love a decent .icc profile.

any chance you could email it to me at neilmerton[at]hotmail.com ?

i would really appeciate it!

thnx for an interesting post guys.

[PhotosGuy]

I don't have a laptop, but here's an idea. Goto...
http://desktoppub.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hutchcolor.com%2 FImages_and_targets.html
...and download a test target. Make sure that it looks OK on your desktop computer in PS.
Then open it on your laptop at the same time as an image that you want to evaluate. If they both look OK at the viewing angle your using, then the image you're evaluating is probably OK, too.

[neilmerton]

thanks PhotosGuy, I'll try that out later tonight.

[Yaderp]

I would certainly like to try a copy of your ICC profile! You may email it to me at:

ewilhite[at]rockislandgraphics.com

Thanks so much!

[ed.]

I used the eye one display 2 on my 6400 Inspiron but I think I need to re-calibrate it.
I'm using the DELL drivers from their site and it allows me to adjust some settings of the screen.

[Lowner]

Ed,

I have a Samsung 910N flatscreen monitor and calibrate it with the same Eye One display 2 that you use. I was having problems and asked GretaMacbeth for help.

They told me to return everything to the maufacturers defaults and run the calibrating again. But this time to ignore ALL the contrast/brightness adjustments and ONLY run the colour matching part of the programme. They also suggested I might try Laptop rather than LCD calibration. The first worked like a dream, so much so that I've not needed to try the second suggestion.

The original problem? I'd spotted that the three colour channel responses were getting farther away from reality every time I ran the calibration. According to GretaMacbeth its not unusual.

Richard

[UncleDoug]

gandini,

Lowner gave you some really good advice as to the calibration & profiling process for LCD monitors.
You may already know this but calibration & profiling of laptop screens can be a bit trying though due to the fact that laptops are portable and you may be making adjustments to images in quite varying lighting conditions. Which directly affects the viewing experience and thus your interpretation of the colors represented on your screen.
Getting one profile that will "work well for image editing" in all lighting conditions is almost impossible.
We have three profiles for our laptops. One for indoor controlled lighting conditions (our shop), one for outdoor daylight conditions and one set for for typical indoor lighting. A bit overboard, but it allows us to be allot more confident in our image representation on screen.

LCD's have come a long way. Barco and Sony Artisan monitors were the industry standards for may years. However Eizo LCD monitors now go toe-to-toe with these(The Sony is no longer produced though). Especially the Eizo ColorEdge CG241W. Personally I'll never go back to CRT's after using Eizo LCD monitors.

Good luck.

[rammy]

Seeing as this thread is over 4 years old I doubt if the OP needs to calibrate their laptop, it's probably broken down by now! ;-)

[UncleDoug]

Ooops!

Did not even look at the dates!

[canonphotog]

Never hurts to revive a calibration thread.

I calibrated my SyncMaster 912n yesterday with a Monaco OPTIX xr.

Took a couple of tries, but I can see the difference. Next step is to profile the 30D and 5D for ACR, then see what happens to my prints.

Ken