Calibrate using 300D?

[richardtallent]

I've been trying to get my two LCD displays (one with ATi card, one with nVidia), standard applications under Windows XP, my printer, and color-managed applications like Photoshop and C1 to all agree roughly on what a color looks like, preferably using the sRGB colorspace (I photograph for screen mostly, not print).

I've seen these fancy color calibration tools (costing several hundreds of dollars) that you can just point at the monitor, get a reading, and make some adjustments. So I got to wondering: why can't my 300D (or any camera with raw output for that matter) be used for this? The color response in a digital camera is pretty much a known quantity, it's a digital transfer all the way through, it's certainly easy enough to get an accurate reading that either does or does not take ambient lighting into account, and the people most likely to be interested in adjusting their monitors are the ones who have fancy digital cameras.

My point is, I'm just a hobbiest. I can't imagine that such a tool wouldn't be (a) better than I can get staring at calibration images and (b) close enough for what I want to accomplish. Is there any such software out there? Is it any more reasonable (say, < $50) than the hardware-based solutions?

[defordphoto]

Your LCD's will not give you the color gamut you need to properly process your photos. Invest in a decent CRT.

[Malaxos1]

Your LCD's will not give you the color gamut you need to properly process your photos. Invest in a decent CRT.

I have to agree, while I like the look and size of LCDs, I will never get rid of my Trinitron. The contrast is too much and highlights will look blown out on an LCD. I bought a laptop so that I can show clients there photos and have found it to be a waste of money. I once showed a couple there wedding photos and all of the detail was lost in the wedding dress. It was not even close to being blown out on the prints or my Sony...Dean

[PacAce]

I've been trying to get my two LCD displays (one with ATi card, one with nVidia), standard applications under Windows XP, my printer, and color-managed applications like Photoshop and C1 to all agree roughly on what a color looks like, preferably using the sRGB colorspace (I photograph for screen mostly, not print).

I've seen these fancy color calibration tools (costing several hundreds of dollars) that you can just point at the monitor, get a reading, and make some adjustments. So I got to wondering: why can't my 300D (or any camera with raw output for that matter) be used for this? The color response in a digital camera is pretty much a known quantity, it's a digital transfer all the way through, it's certainly easy enough to get an accurate reading that either does or does not take ambient lighting into account, and the people most likely to be interested in adjusting their monitors are the ones who have fancy digital cameras.

My point is, I'm just a hobbiest. I can't imagine that such a tool wouldn't be (a) better than I can get staring at calibration images and (b) close enough for what I want to accomplish. Is there any such software out there? Is it any more reasonable (say, < $50) than the hardware-based solutions?

The monitor calibration is not just about adjusting the monitor controls. It also involved creating a profile which gets loaded by the operating system every time you reboot your PC. Photoshop comes with the gamma loader (I think that's what it's called) that will load your monitor profile if you use its calibration tool. If you get a tool like Spyder and Optical, it also creates a profile which is loads at boot up.

[richardtallent]

On LCD vs. CRT: Yes, that's probably true for many LCDs. Mine, however (a Samsung 191T) kicks my old 19" Trinitron's butt around the block. I'm extremely happy with the contrast (>500:1) and brightness (250cd/m) (both of which are adjustable, I actually find it way too bright at full strength). My only issue is that the Samsung default profile is not perfect, and I've had trouble getting Windows, Photoshop, and C1 to agree.

Also, I realize that the goal is to create a profile. What I'm suggesting is that the cost of creating a calibration profile could be diminished quite a bit if it were possible to use our DSLRs as the calibration software's input (i.e., point it at the screen from a given distance with manually-set ISO, distance, exposure, etc.).

Again, please remember what I said originally: my photos are for my personal enjoyment. I'm a hobbiest family photographer, I rarely print (and I'm already pretty much happy with what I get out of a cheap HP inkjet), and all I'm looking to do is get *my* monitor adjusted right so I can have some hope that photos I post online or email to family will, on *average*, look decent.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Richard,

Calibration tools don't cost a lot of money because they don't give better results that you get by eyeballing the screen. However, there are some free options. If you are a Photoshop user, as someone's already pointed out, you get Adobe Gamma thrown in - check in the Control Panel for this. If you check this article (http://www.rogercavanagh.com/helpinfo/24_workflow_c1.htm), I have links to another piece of software that does the same thing, which free for monitor profiling, and some additional instructions on using the software from Norman Koren. Look in the Colour Management section.

Regards,

[theoldmoose]

I kind of doubt that Richard has invested the dough in Photoshop. For most folks that don't make a living doing photography, it's kind of difficult to justity the pricetag. That's unfortunate, because the more affordable alternatives all seem to have various gaps in giving digital photographers just the subset of operations that would be the most useful to them.

Anyway, I wanted to point out something about device spectrums, though, that I hope will convince Richard that using a camera sensor might be very misleading. That is, LCD's and CRT's put out a very uneven, spikey color spectrum, that we perceive (usually) as being useful for rendering colors for our eyes.

However, the camera sensor has its own set of color filters, that in all probability don't come anywhere close to matching the peak outputs in the spectrum from the CRT or LCD. That's why a lot of folks find that making pictures of CRT screens with a digital camera sometimes produces very surprising results, with wierd color shifts, etc.

Spend some time with Bruce Fraser's Real World Color Management. The initial chapters have a really nice explanation of how we perceive color, and how various light sources and input/output devices deal with color reproduction.

And, yes, Roger and Norman have some very good stuff on their sites. Highly recommended.

[PaulB]

Consumer level LCD screens do not approach the colour gamut of a Trinitron tubed CRT - that is a fact of life I'm afraid.
You have to spend serious, serious money on a LCD to approach the quality you need for professional image manipulation whilst a modestly priced Triniton or Diamondtron tubed CRT will do a much better job.
Granted that the cheap LCD will LOOK impressive - it is more contrasty and 'in your face' but doesn't have the subtlety and smooth tones that are required for good, consistant colour profiling.
All you can really do is to use the DVI output on your graphics cards, make sure you have your monitor profiles loaded into Windows, use the Adobe colour set-up and Gamma Loader at Windows start-up and set-up your printer by doing lots of test prints until you get the results you like - repeatably.