Dell 2408 calibration prob

Am really hoping someone has a good idea here...!

I got a Dell 2408wfp about a year ago and I've had ongoing probs with calibration.

I used a Pantone Huey calibrator to set the monitor up. I tried a couple of different companies to print pics but the red colours come out consistently more saturated than on screen. It's particular noticeable on skin tone where typically people look like they are blushing!

In an attempt to solve it a I got a Spyder Pro 3 calibrator. The screen calibrates fine, looks fine. I've now tried another pro lab and the pics are still coming out as before.

I use Lightroom. Pics from camera are AdobeRGB and I export to jpeg in sRGB before sending for printing. I've confirmed that files are indeed in sRGB they view fine on screen in colour managed apps such as PS and Firefox but when looking at them in non-colour managed environments (Int Ex) they look over-saturated. Coincidentally I suspect very similar to how they print.

I really don't think I have the colour management process wrong. i have seen others discuss having probs with this monitor in this respect and am wondering if I just need to try again with a new monitor.

Any idea before I do? And if I do swap, anyone like to suggest a good monitor at a simian price point?

Cheers

Geoff

The fact that when you open it up in non-color managed software the colors are off, leads me to believe there is something going wrong with your color space conversion. Although, the lightroom conversion in the export process is pretty straight forward, and you did confirm that the final files are at least labeled as srgb. None of your issues seems to imply it is the monitor to me.

james_in_baltimore wrote in post #9345166
The fact that when you open it up in non-color managed software the colors are off, leads me to believe there is something going wrong with your color space conversion. Although, the lightroom conversion in the export process is pretty straight forward, and you did confirm that the final files are at least labeled as srgb. None of your issues seems to imply it is the monitor to me.

I'm not sure about that. Being a wide gamut monitor it's widely reported that pics appear over saturated when viewed in non-managed apps. I've also tried the conversions in PS with exactly the same results....

The images should appear oversaturated in a non-colormanaged application on a wide gamut screen..

Are you sure the printer is doing everything correct?

What does the softproof look like? (assuming you have their profile)

geofflove wrote in post #9345676
I've also tried the conversions in PS with exactly the same results....

What conversion?

Thanks for the suggestions so far with this. I had an email back from the lab today:

Our software suite applies the printer profile at the time of printing - and does a conversion to this from whatever profile you have selected. If your file has no profile attached it assumes it's a sRGB (which normally only happens in some album software like JAD from Jorgensun)

The way it works means you should never embed it at your end - that's a bit of a cheat some labs use of they've not got the £30,000+ software system we use - and as we rebuild this often you'd be applying out of date profiles quite quickly....

I've not tried using it for soft proofing - I'll try that here - but on the screens I've looked at the high end onles like the top end dells, eizo, lacie etc all get very close particulary if you supply in sRGB

Printers like the Fuji Prontier and the Noritsu have a printspace not much larger than sRGB

This seems to be a bit at odds with some of the advice... as I say this is a steep learning curve for me! The email went on to suggest that I might have desaturation turned on in photoshop - which was a good theory but I checked and haven't. He also suggested I should check the lighting under which I was viewing the prints. Again, a valid suggestion but I don't think it fully explains the redness as I have noticed this is daylight as well.

I have however tried something which I suspect has no logic but is interesting none the less....

I thought I would bring a second monitor home to try and compare with my Dell. Bear in mind this is a fairly cheap LCD so I wasn't expecting anything too perfect... anyway I plugged this in alongside my other and have them running as an extended desktop. I then used the spyder 3 to calibrate each with its own profile. So far so good... and although the colour of the two monitors aren't the same, given that one is a very cheap one I can see that they are pretty close...

I now open Lightroom with a pic open in the library mode on the Dell screen. If I then slide the who window across to the cheap screen it is a first a little paler, but then once most of the pic is fully onto the cheap screen the colour changes so it is once again a similar tone. I assume here that there is a point at which the computer changes to using the second monitor profile rather than the first and that gives this step change?

If I now move the screen back across to the Dell there is again a brief period (about 0.5 seconds) where the pic is displayed more saturated (the opposite of going the other way). I assume here it is because it is still using the second monitor profile and has to change back to the first again. The interesting part for me is that this brief, more saturated display of the pic almost exactly matches the print in the way this is mains some of the reds which are more saturated!

I'm not suggested that this is the key to what is wrong - I strongly suspect the match is just conincidence, however, if I would love to display like this for a while to investigate if it does indeed match the prints and if using this profile would solve my problem.

I did go into the windows 7 colour management settings and try to selcted the monitor 2 profile to use on the Dell. However, the screen looked awful and nothing like the way the pic was displayed during the 'change' period described above.

So... does anyone know what Lightroom is doing for this brief period between monitor changes and can I emulate it?

This may well lead you to conclude I am completely mad and don't know what I'm talking about, but please humour me and tell your thoughts.... and thanks for the help so far.

I'm really starting to wonder now if there is actually something wrong in my system....

The weird issue I described with lightroom briefly displaying the image as it appears in the print got me trying a few more 'problem' photos. Although I can only display them briefly(!) they so accurately resemble the print it seems to be too good to be coincidence - if I could get that close a match I would be well chuffed! I have CS4 and Lightroom installed. I remember when I first installed lightroom it did not display photos properly - it was as if they were not being colour managed. After much head scratching I changed a setting in PS. After this all was displayed 'correctly' in Lightroom. I'm wondering now if somehow I have messed things up.....!

OK - I just tried this - it's probably printers sacrilege but it might help solve the real problem.... if I go to PS colour settings I have the working space set as AdobeRGB - which is the colour space I have set on my camera. (I always use LR to convert to sRGB as I export). If I change the working space to the monitor profile created by the Spyder 3 and then import an sRGB file igniring the warning about discarding a colour space the image then displays in PS EXACTLY like its printed.

I know it's wrong to set the monitor profile as your working space... but does it give any clues as to what might be going on......?

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!

I have PS colour settings with the working space set as AdobeRGB which is also what I have the camera set on.

I shoot RAW and I have lightroom set so the external editor choice is also set to 16bit and AdobeRGB and to match this. When I export from lightroom to convert the photos to send to you I choose to export as jpeg and choose sRGB as the colour space.

I think this should be correct.

However, I have just noticed something interesting. If I import one of these sRGB files into PS I get correctly informed of an embedded profile mismatch as I’m trying to import it into the AdobeRGB working space. If I select to either ‘use the embedded profile’ or ‘convert document’s colours to the working space’ I get identical outcomes – the photo is displayed ‘correctly’ in other words how it also appeared in lightroom etc. However, if I opt to ‘discard the colour profile (don’t colour manage)’ I get a much more saturated image displayed – in fact it is displayed EXACTLY as it was printed. The match is completely identical – ie a generally warmer image with particularly more orange/reds in skin tones leaving people with a red blush. It is so accurate a match I can’t believe it’s coincidence. If I could get that degree of match in my prints I would be delighted!

So, I’m now wondering if there is something wrong in my system setup or exporting/conversion process which is messing things up. The main bit I don’t get is that if I were somehow sending you AdobeRGB which has been mistagged as sRGB files the reverse effect would happen (I think!). The fact remain though that if I display my sRGB files in an AdobeRBG colour space without properly using the profile to convert they look EXACTLY like my prints..........

Any thoughts?!


I appreciate you taking the time to wade through my ramblings....! I hope you can make sense of it all......I really need to crack this one!

I'm not a color expert by any means but I do have a 2408 and I'm very happy with the monitor. I use sRGB all the way through. Raw files converted to sGRB jpgs by Photoshop CS4, sRGB working space, and final process jpgs. I went to an Xrite i1 calibrator, and all my Pro9000 printed pictures are "essentially" exactly as they appear on the screen. I did waste some time initially trying to correct color issues caused by tungsten viewing light until I took one outside and it looked SO MUCH better. Daylight viewing makes a BIG difference.

Just a thought.

i recently got the 2408wfp and used my spyder pro3...
like you even after countless calibrations it nuclear red....
after getting the software update... even tho my spyder was just bought a few months ago... it killed the red.

if you want i can give you my settings on the r g b and the profile mine used an see if that helps...
pm me if you want.

Make sure the monitor's driver is loading, if so, try uninstalling and reloading.
http://support.dell.co​m …t=1&libid=0&fil​eid=235071

Set color profile to the monitor's RGB ICC profile and make sure the monitor is set to default color, brightness, and contrast settings.
Make sure the vid card software is set to default settings if present.
With the Spyder you may have to set a different color temp then it recommends.
Make sure the Spyder walks you through the brightness adjustment or the calibration will be trashed!

geofflove wrote in post #9355146
However, I have just noticed something interesting. If I import one of these sRGB files into PS I get correctly informed of an embedded profile mismatch as I’m trying to import it into the AdobeRGB working space. If I select to either ‘use the embedded profile’ or ‘convert document’s colours to the working space’ I get identical outcomes – the photo is displayed ‘correctly’ in other words how it also appeared in lightroom etc. However, if I opt to ‘discard the colour profile (don’t colour manage)’ I get a much more saturated image displayed – in fact it is displayed EXACTLY as it was printed.

If you discard the profile, PS will "assume" the image is in the default working space and display it as such. This has the same effect as assigning the default working space.

Don't know what your working space is, but it sounds like you are assigning a larger gamut space to a smaller gamut image. Thus oversaturating the image.

Edit: Re-read your posts. Yep: assigning AdobeRGB to an sRGB image.

If this closely resembles the printed image, then something is wrong. Either on your end or on the printers end. You are embedding a profile in the images you send them?
They say they are converting to the printers space, but are they? I've had a lab assigning the printer profile... I stopped using that lab

If you are unsure about your monitors calibration, try a "standard" test image.
A few are linked from the "color problems?" thread.

If the images are printed on a Frontier, then sRGB is fine. The machines gamut is smaller then sRGB: http://www.drycreekpho​to.com …i/frontier-370-gamuts.htm

Thanks for the help. I've now sent the lab 3 copies of the same inage with different profile embedded. They're going to print them all for comparison and then see what we can deduce from it.
I've also sent the origional pics to a differert lab who asks you to convert to their printer profile before you send them to them.
Once they all come back I'll see where I stand.......

Cheers

Geoff