Help?Advice on Calibrating monitor and ICC profiles

[93octane]

OK I spend all weekend trying to Calibrate my Samsung 245T. I never had any problems with my NEC 19" S-IPS monitor it calibrated wonderful. This Samsung is a bit harder to calibrate, not that it's impossible just a bit harder. Any way at work I have a Dell 2407 which I love the way it looks. Today I checked the settings on it and if I go under display properties->settings->advanced->color management tab there is no profile set. DPP and PS use the standard SRGB ICC profile and the monitor looks great. Even Microsoft Office Picture Manager that is not color aware/color managed the pictures look great and very close to DDP and PS. On my Samsung I used a Pantone EYE-ONE to calibrate the monitor the profile is set as the profile for color management under windows, but the pictures look too red under MS picture manager. Under DPP and PS I guess they look good. My question is why is it that if the system is not using a color profile under windows and defaults to srgb everthing looks good on the Dell but the samsung being calibrated and using the calibrated profile pictures look too red in MS picture manager??? If I shoot RAW and it's converted into SRGB color space wouldn't it make sense to have DPP use an SRGB color space. I know PS coverts or uses the files colorspace so they always seem to look good in PS but I don't use PS to convert my RAW images. Does PS even use the windows color profile for anything???

[Damo77]

Ok, I finally struggled through your post. Perhaps consider pausing for paragraphs next time, to make it a little easier to read?

May we have a little more information?

This Samsung is a bit harder to calibrate, not that it's impossible just a bit harder.

In what way is it harder?

at work I have a Dell 2407 which I love the way it looks. Today I checked the settings on it and ... there is no profile set.

If it isn't calibrated, I wouldn't use it as a basis for comparison ;)

DPP and PS use the standard SRGB ICC profile and the monitor looks great.Even Microsoft Office Picture Manager that is not color aware/color managed the pictures look great and very close to DDP and PS.

Do you mean the RGB Working Space in Photoshop's Color Settings is set to sRGB? That's good practice - no problem there. But as I mentioned above, if the Dell isn't calibrated, I wouldn't take much notice of it. Are you doing colour-critical work on this Dell monitor?

On my Samsung I used a Pantone EYE-ONE to calibrate the monitor the profile is set as the profile for color management under windows

... yep, that's right ...

but the pictures look too red under MS picture manager. Under DPP and PS I guess they look good.

This comes up a lot. I've never seen it answered to my satisfaction. My suspicion is that it has something to do with forcing the monitor to a non-native white point, but I'm not sure.

My question is why is it that if the system is not using a color profile under windows and defaults to srgb everthing looks good on the Dell but the samsung being calibrated and using the calibrated profile pictures look too red in MS picture manager

Well, I'd never use MS picture manager to judge colour by. You should only be making judgments in colour-managed applications like Photoshop.

So that poses the question - if you put your calibrated Samsung and your uncalibrated Dell beside each other, with the same photo loaded in PS, would they look the same? If not, which one would the "right"? The calibrated one, surely.

Does PS even use the windows color profile for anything

ABSOLUTELY. The monitor profile allows the colour-managed application to correctly interpret the image's colour for that display.

[93octane]

I set the windows color profile to SRGB, DPP to SRGB, and Photoshop to SRGB. Of course my camera's working profile to SRGB. Well, with this setting all pictures look good to my eyes and very close to the finished printed product. I'm not sure if I'm doing this right or wrong by going this route. I tweaked the monitor via the OBD as recommened by some other people in another forum. As of right now I'm happy with the outcome. To me it seems the profile created by the Pantone Eye-one is fine and works great in color managed apps but not outside color managed apps. Windows, DPP, PS and me seem happier by going the SRGB route. If I'm happy and looks good to my eyes and prints is there any need to use the Eye one profile

[Damo77]

I set the windows color profile to SRGB

How are you doing this?

If I'm happy and looks good to my eyes and prints is there any need to use the Eye one profile

Well no, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess. But you might run into problems if:
a) You send your images elsewhere to be printed
b) You start to have problems with your printing, and it's hard to identify where the problem lies - is it your monitor or your printer? If the monitor is calibrated regularly, you know you can eliminate that factor when troubleshooting.

[93octane]

display properties->settings->advanced->color management tab.

well I don't do my own printing I'm going by the two places I take my prints to. I guess they use SRGB and they have a guy that will color correct the pics if anything looks off.

[René Damkot]

If you set DPP and windows to sRGB as monitor profile, it's logical that all applications look the same: They *all* show the image wrong! (Since no application uses the proper monitor profile)

The difference you are seeing in picture viewer, if you calibrate the monitor, and set the proper profile in the OS and DPP, is the difference between your monitors profile and sRGB.

Calibrate the screen, and use a color managed program for color-critical work.