Calibrating Monitor: I'm a new member (3-4 wks) and this is my first post. Looking for recomendations on the best product to calibrate my monitor. Tired of working in LR4 and then...

stevesla

I'm a new member (3-4 wks) and this is my first post. Looking for recomendations on the best product to calibrate my monitor. Tired of working in LR4 and then printing and getting a different results.

Appreciate all your feed back.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

stevesla wrote:

I'm a new member (3-4 wks) and this is my first post. Looking for recomendations on the best product to calibrate my monitor. Tired of working in LR4 and then printing and getting a different results.

Appreciate all your feed back.

Welcome to our forum. Calibrating my monitor is the least of my concerns, but there are people here who know all about it.

rocar7 Loc: Alton, England

I use a ColorMunki to profile my display and printer. I get very good results. There are plenty of products, at various prices, and I would guess that, like most things, you get what you pay for. Most are not cheap!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

rocar7 wrote:

I use a ColorMunki to profile my display and printer. I get very good results. There are plenty of products, at various prices, and I would guess that, like most things, you get what you pay for. Most are not cheap!

Without going into too much detail, how can you adjust the colors of the monitor?

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Good monitors are not cheap either, but there was a thread here recently that covered that and one brand was relatively inexpensive..Asus, I believe.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-25304-1.html

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

GoofyNewfie wrote:

Good monitors are not cheap either, but there was a thread here recently that covered that and one brand was relatively inexpensive..Asus, I believe.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-25304-1.html

We have basic Dell and Hann monitors, about 21". I'm not doing graphics for a living, and I'd rather spend my money on something else. The need just isn't there.

I remember my first IBM, with the green characters, and then having the color and mono monitors side-by-side. I guess they couldn't figure out how to do what Apple did with their color monitor. Even then Apple was ahead with graphics.

rocar7 Loc: Alton, England

jerryc41 wrote:

rocar7 wrote:

I use a ColorMunki to profile my display and printer. I get very good results. There are plenty of products, at various prices, and I would guess that, like most things, you get what you pay for. Most are not cheap!

Without going into too much detail, how can you adjust the colors of the monitor?

The ColorMunki does it for you, so to speak. What it does is to profile the monitor, adjusting brightness and contrast, then measuring colours, so that the end result produces prints that match what you see on screen. It's quite a process. Have a look at the Joe Brady video on their website:

http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1115

One thing not mentioned is that it also measures the ambient lighting, which affects how you see the colours on the monitor, so you can re-calibrate if you change from daylight to tungsten lighting in your workspace.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

rocar7 wrote:

quote=jerryc41 quote=rocar7 I use a ColorMunki t... (show quote)

Thanks. I'll take a look at that.

stevesla

I appreciate everyone imput. For me it is worth buying a calibration tool. From what I've finding out some state it should be down every couple of months.
I do a lot of printing and it's frustrating to get what I want in LR4 but not on the output from the printer.

Thanks

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

Good Graphics cards most certainly help too...you can easily spend a couple thousand for Nvidia Quadro graphics cards. I do use my computers for 3D graphics and hi end 3D Rendering on Samsung monitors, and I still have to monitor my colors...I also use 3 monitors...so it can get to be as expensive as photography equipment.

BboH Loc: s of 2/21, Ellicott City, MD

I found several on the web tha were free dto download and use. Did so and have been quite pleased. Lost the site address so can't offer it to you

rocar7 Loc: Alton, England

BboH wrote:

I found several on the web tha were free dto download and use. Did so and have been quite pleased. Lost the site address so can't offer it to you

Several what?

BboH Loc: s of 2/21, Ellicott City, MD

rocar7 wrote:

BboH wrote:

I found several on the web tha were free to download and use. Did so and have been quite pleased. Lost the site address so can't offer it to you

Several what?

monitor calibration facilities/devices/programs/proceedures - whatever you want ot call them. Just google "Calibrate monitor"

Wendy2 Loc: California

You can get much better results if you calibrate your monitor. I certainly do.

I use the ColorMunki Photo and the ColorMunki Display. The ColorMunki Photo is capable of calibrating your monitor and the paper you print on!

The CM Display is strictly for calibrating your Monitor and is under $200. The CM Photo is between $400-$500.

CM Display works as well, or maybe better than the CM Photo and it is the least expensive way to go. But if you want the complete package, ColorMunki Photo will calibrate all of your photo paper and that will help you even more in getting the results you want.

I have had the CM Photo for a couple of years and it works great but I recently read that CM Display was better, so I ordered that last week. I see very little difference, if any, in what my monitor looks like after calibrating with both. But if you have photos that have a very wide range of color (out of the typical gamut?), the CM Display is supposed to be better.

I purchased the CM Display on ebay for $144. That is quite a deal!

problem child Loc: Kingman AZ

I've been using a Pantone Huey here.. It's cheap enough and I get great results.
http://www.pantone.com/Pages/products/product.aspx?pid=562