Calibrating Iiyama AS4332UT LCD monitor

[Mike 289]

I am generally very pleased with my Iiyama AS4332UT BK LCD monitor. However, I am NOT happy when trying to calibrate it for use with Photoshop 7. The Adobe Gamma routine seems just to crude and imprecise. It has an auto calibrate facility, but prints from my Canon i950 are not a close match – although there may be factors other than monitor calibration.

Has anyone found a reliable method of calibration – and do any of the optical systems available in the UK actually work?

Also, in PS View/Proof Setup, what is the correct choice for routine use?

Regards,

[chris.bailey]

I use a Spyder which works really well but it is not cheap. Got mine from Colour Confidence and it arrived in a couple of days. Some good workflow articles with it too.


http://www.colourconfidence.com/homepage.html

[Jesper]

If you really want to do it well, you can't get around buying a Spyder or another device - measuring the response of your monitor with a device is much, much more accurate than trying to estimate it with your own eyes, as what you're doing with Adobe Gamma.

Chris Bailey already gave you a link to Colour Confidence, a shop in the UK that sells all kinds of color calibration and profiling hardware and software.

ColorVision (http://www.colorvision.com) (the manufacturer of the Spyder) now has a cheap package, ColorPlus, geared towards home users.

View / Proof Setup: If you want to see what the image (approximately) is going to look like when you print it, choose Custom... in the menu and choose the ICC profile for your printer / paper combination that you're using. You can switch proofing on and off with Ctrl + Y (View / Proof Colors) and with Shift + Ctrl + Y (View / Gamut Warning) the colors that don't fit in the gamut of your printer will be indicated.

I was also using Adobe Gamma before I got the Spyder. With my Adobe Gamma profile, if I chose View / Proof Setup (using the profile of my printer for proofing), the colors would go completely yellow or green. That doesn't happen anymore with the monitor profile I created with the Spyder, so probably it was because my Adobe Gamma profile was just not accurate.

[Mike 289]

Thanks - it seems that the answer is a Spyder type device. I presume that this works as well on LCD monitors as for CRTs.

Jesper wrote:- View / Proof Setup: If you want to see what the image (approximately) is going to look like when you print it, choose Custom... in the menu and choose the ICC profile for your printer / paper combination that you're using.

This is helpful as my setup has been to use Custom all the time, in the belief that the image should be viewed as it will print. Presumably the error here is that, if another paper is used, the image will be wrong.

Regards, Mike

[chris.bailey]

The Spyder comes with an adaptor for an LCD screen so that the suction cups dont mark it. It made a big difference for me as my portrait prints always looked a bit too warm compared with the screen. The Spyder solved all of that at a stroke.

[Jesper]

Yes, don't use the suction cups of the Spyder on your LCD screen, because that might damage your screen - the suction cups are for CRT monitors. Just read the instructions that come with the Spyder carefully, about how to use it on an LCD screen.

The way colors are printed depends on the printer, ink, paper and printer resolution settings you use. With my Epson printer, I've got a number of ICC profiles for different paper types. You should choose the correct one for proofing and for printing. Also, when you print and let Photoshop do the color management, make sure that color correction / management settings in the printer driver are switched off, otherwise both Photoshop and the printer driver will try to manage the colors and your print will look bad.