Monitor Calibration

[Littlebike]

Are there any good free applications to assist with Monitor Calibration?

I am using an ATI all in Wonder 128 video card and an optiquest V95 monitor. My machine is a PIII 1GHZ machine.

The differences between what I am getting on my Monitor and on the LCD are just too far apart for me and I have to believe my monitor is off.

Unfortunately I do not have a photo printer to compare it to either.

[Vegas Poboy]

It's not the best but I use Adobe's calibration thats included in Photoshop or you may want to try the following website
http://www.easyrgb.com/calibrate.php. Good luck the pro setup runs about $300.00 + stay away from using sRGB that is usaully good for websites not large prints.

[CyberDyneSystems]

When you say LCD are you referring to your camera's LCD?

If so,. that is one thing you should not worry about. The little LCD on the camera will never really represent well the images you have. To help cope with keeping the LCD visible in strong sunlight, the LCD is much brighter than what the image actually looks like.

The only thing you will need to calibrate is your monitor to the prints you make. Untill you get a printer, just use your monitor settings to get a decent image.

[Littlebike]

I have my on camera LCD notched down a step from the stock setting, and, after reading an article about histograms I am using that more as a baseline than the LCD image.

Anyway, I think my monitor is set to dim but I fear messing with the settings too much because I am partially colorblind, Thus, I want to make it as fool proof as possible. One day I will get a pro calibration system but there are many other things with a higher priority than that such as a 70-200 2.8, 50 1.4, 15 2.8, 85 1.8, etc, etc ,etc ,etc.

[hawg]

try this site: http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/monitor_profiling.shtml .It help me out before broke down and got a mac.

[partialresponse]

I have used the photoshop (v5.5) calibration routine and my prints (on a Canon S-600) look exactly like what I see on my monitor.

I don't know whether PSE2 also has this calibration routine.

Kofi

[Littlebike]

A friend of mine let me borrow his spyder yesturday, I hope to have time to calibrate tonight.

The Mac is the machine of choice but my G3500 is just to slow for the duties. When I go G5 I will be Mac only in regards to photo/video editing.

[Arnie]

Littlebike wrote:
A friend of mine let me borrow his spyder yesturday, I hope to have time to calibrate tonight.


Geez, i wish i have a friend like yours :)

I haven't had any luck trying to calibrate my monitor using the Adobe Gamma :(

[sdommin]

I haven't had any luck trying to calibrate my monitor using the Adobe Gamma :(


Really? Adobe Gamma is considered one of the best "free" ways to calibrate.

Why hasn't it worked for you?

[Littlebike]

After using the spyder the difference is amazing. I immediately went back and reviewed some pictures I took weeks ago to see how they look.

What I really learned from this is, you should never let a colorblind gut try to set your monitor settings. (I'm partially colorblind) instead, let a computer do it.