Any web designers out there? Colour/calibration question

I received a phone call yesterday from a bloke asking for monitor calibration advice. Usually I get these calls from photographers, and the advice is "For God's sake, calibrate!"

But this guy is a web designer - not a particularly high-end one, from what I could tell, but an established one nonetheless.

His story goes:

> Up until very recently been working on a CRT. Been very happy with the colour of the images on his sites (and the colour of the sites generally) displayed on that monitor.

> Just purchased a new computer, and with it a sexy 22" Samsung monitor.

> While he loves the extra real estate, he hates the coolness and brightness of the colour. Not only in photos, but in all the colours on his sites.

So he was asking me if a calibration device would fix the problem.

What is the correct answer? I told him yes, calibration would almost certainly make his photos look more like his faithful old CRT; it would make skintones look warmer, it would make his CSS colours look the way he remembered, and so on.

But then I tried to discuss the implications of this for a web designer. (Keep in mind that this was entirely new ground for me, so I was talking off the top of my head, or out of another part of my body, as the case may be.)

I suggested that Joe Average, who will be looking at his sites, probably has a straight-out-of-the-box, blue-as-sin, never-been-calibrated LCD screen just like the Samsung he was currently looking at. For that reason, I thought there was wisdom in leaving it as is.

Then he told me there was another LCD monitor in the house, an Acer, which showed colours "more like his CRT". (From the description, it sounded like the bigger brother of the Acer I have at home, which I have indeed found to be a nice "moderate" screen even at factory defaults without calibration.)

Once he told me that, I suggested he should consider running two screens - one calibrated and one not, to have a foot in both camps. He could view his sites in both "correct" colour, and "how-the-rest-of-the-world-sees-it" colour.

By the end of the conversation it became apparent that he'd zoned out after he heard me say "yes, calibration will make your colours better". I expect he's gone out today to get a calibrator.

Ultimately, it's no great concern of mine. He seems to be stuck on the idea that what he sees is all that matters, and what his customers and their customers see is irrelevant.

But I'm curious to hear other people's advice/experiences. Is the two-monitor setup the way to go? Should you aim for what's right, or what's popular, or something in between? And lastly, have you ever heard of a web designer who continued to use a CRT right up til mid-2009???

My tuppence worth: if he calibrates his monitor using a Pantone Huey, for instance, at least 'his' image will be as near 'correct' as possible. Then at least its not his fault if the customers view with non-calibrated monitors. He ought to know that you have no control over your web site visitors' computers/monitors.

Damo77 wrote in post #8789265
...But I'm curious to hear other people's advice/experiences. Is the two-monitor setup the way to go?...

The office I work for is not a web design house, but my supervisor, the head graphic artist/designer, does occasionally create some graphics for our website. While we have a few Samsung LCD monitors in use, we only use them for non-color critical production purposes. All graphics design is done on Apple displays driven by Mac computers. Our graphic artists don't use dual monitor setups with the Apple displays, but that's just personal work style, as these ladies are not young 20-something, just barely out of college. They're quite "seasoned".

Damo77 wrote in post #8789265
...Should you aim for what's right, or what's popular, or something in between?...

What's right IMHO.

Damo77 wrote in post #8789265
...And lastly, have you ever heard of a web designer who continued to use a
CRT right up til mid-2009???

Yeah... There are still many out there.

I use a CRT for web design, mainly because it's the only one that displays 1024x768 accurately which accounts for around 1/4-1/3 of sites traffic.

If you're doing any kind of design you should have a calibrated monitor. It doesn't cost much and it saves a lot of tedious arguments.

Calibrated monitor will help. Profiled monitor (the second step of the 'calibrating') will only do good if he uses a color managed browser. And either FF 3.0 or 3.5 with full CM, or images with embedded profiles. Which creates it's own problems in Safari / FF3.5 at default.

I'm trying to wrap a web designers head around that at Adobe forums right now
http://forums.adobe.co​m/message/2303384

I'd work on a calibrated screen, color managed, then check on "any old Dell" to see what "Joe Average" will probably see.

René Damkot wrote in post #8796393
Calibrated monitor will help. Profiled monitor (the second step of the 'calibrating') will only do good if he uses a color managed browser.

He's using FF3.5, I checked.

René Damkot wrote in post #8796393
I'd work on a calibrated screen, color managed, then check on "any old Dell" to see what "Joe Average" will probably see.

Yep, that's more or less what I told him. But he didn't listen.

Most Samsung monitors can't be properly calibrated. They can be profiled, but not calibrated to match his older CRT or even a good high end print output. The reason is simple - the Samsung more than likely can't display a wide color gamut, that is, AdobeRGB 1998 standard.

You're looking at 1000 dollar minimum in a LCD display to accurately render the colors on output and accuracy. The only exception that I've found would be the NEC P221W display. 10 bit LUT, 22 inch, 92% of the Adobe RGB standard, which goes for about 400 dollars through Provantage. Much of the time though, I would recommend the NEC 26 inch offerings as well as the Eizo. Lacie is just a relabeled NEC with additional cost and shorter warranty, with exception of the 724 model, which is a relabeled Samsung XL series (discontinued).

Samsung monitors are typically washed out and overly bright. You can't just turn down the brightness on the monitor either as it introduces a color shift due to the backlighting characteristics. You ordinarily want about 80cd/m2 in brightness for accurate photo editing/proofing. The "brighter is better" slogan definitely does not apply to monitors.

You can color profile all you want with a Huey, Spyder, etc on the Samsung, but if it's a non wide gamut display, you won't really come close. At least not in my experience. This also includes the Apple Cinema display monitors - all of them. They're not built for accuracy, that is, wide gamut panel, DDC programmable LUT, 10/12 bit or better palette, etc. Macworld UK had a very honest review of the Apple 24LED display. The US Macworld was just marketing fluff.

Have your friend look into a NEC 90 series. Probably the best bang for the buck right now in terms of performance and color accuracy. Also, get the spectraview 2 software and the DTP94 colorimeter if available. Having the monitor automatically calibrate with no user intervention is much easier than having to mess around with brightness/contrast, etc. NEC and Eizo will come closest to the CRT contrast and color gamut that he's used to.