Colour matching monitors...

[Gadders]

Hi folks, this has been bothering me for a while...

How do i know that the pictures i take and view on my Viewsonic at home will have near enough the same colours, contrast and vibrance on other monitors? In particular when i look at the photos on the macbook screen the colours are more washed out with less contrast - they dont have the same edge.

Can i calibrate it to a standard or something?

taaa
Phil.

[petikas]

Laptop monitors are often less bright than desktop ones because they design them with battery consumption in mind. Make sure your laptop is plugged-in and that the brightness is turned to full and then try and adjust it to be as close to your desktop monitor as possible.
If you have the MacBook screen already adjusted as above then try to make Viewsonic one to match it.

[CakeBoy]

You can buy a calibration gizmo from camera shops Gadders, around £60-£70 if my memory serves me correctly. Not sure if it can be fully calibrated manually.

[Gadders]

Hmm cheers chaps I ordered a couple of free prints off photobox so i can see which screen is closer to the hard copies

...ill get back to some coffee posts soon heheh

[Jasonscheltus]

i realise this may be a little rudimentary, but have you tried turning the brightness of the screen up?

Edit: Ooops, read thread then post.... sorry Petikas

[GMRK]

I used to use Macs for image editing before moving exclusively to PC (way back when Photoshop was only available for Mac - v2.4 I think?).

In the Macintosh monitor settings there was an option to use Windows gamma which is darker and more contrasty than Mac gamma (I think this was something to do with Mac's dominance in print application as there was a 'Page White' option also).

I'm not sure if current Macs still have this as an option.

Also:

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/cb/gamma.html
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=mac+windows+gamma&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

(Apologies for posting the Google search results - not sarcastic as it's sometime's taken I'm just rushing out the door to work...)

[bruceb]

I thnk it's important to realise that this is not a trivial problem. Color calibration is a big field and the equipment to do it correctly is expensive. For fluorescence microscopy we use Eizo/Nanao monitors that cost about 6 times the price of a normal 22" screen and we use "spiders" to read color temperatures on the screen and special calibration software to assure faithful color reproduction. It's difficult to come even close without this excessive effort, I'm afraid. Also, if you have hard copies made you will undoubtedly find that they vary greatly from day to day.

Phil, I'm not saying you shouldn't try, but be aware of the numerous pitfalls and difficulties in doing it right.

[Goat]

In the Macintosh monitor settings there was an option to use Windows gamma which is darker and more contrasty than Mac gamma (I think this was something to do with Mac's dominance in print application as there was a 'Page White' option also).

I'm not sure if current Macs still have this as an option.

They do, or at least something similar.

Go to System Preferences->Displays->Color(sic)->Calibrate.

It's the 3rd option in.

There are a few ways to calibrate your photos, depending on time & money.

Get a color chart. Gretag Macbeth's is the most common. £44 here.

This is manual one though. Use it to take a test photo and then calibrate the screen's RGB values to match those on the chart. Useful for one or two pics but a PITA for a lot.

Get Pantone's Huey, Eye One or Spyder. These will calibrate the screen for you but are more expensive.

Personal opinion: run the colour calibration under System Preferences then get down to your uni's art department and sweet talk someone into borrowing theirs. Offer them a coffee as payment

Bruce is right though; to do it properly is time consuming and expensive. The benefits of that will depend on what you're doing with the end result.

[shuurajou]

The i1 Display 2 is an excellent calibrator .

[Gouezeri]

Sorry, I'm with Bruce on this... it is far from a trivial situation, which is really best dealt with by proper equipment. Have a look at the colorvision spyders as a good value option (prefer them to the gretag eye ones). After that, it's down to using a quality monitor and stable lighting.

[Gadders]

Ah blimey, cheers for the replies folks I dont think i have the time or money to get into proper calibration so i'll just have to get over the fact that the photos will be different on each monitor and hope they'll be close enough to mine =)

[Bombcup]

I don't think it comes out right on my screen Phil. That expresso looks all reddish brown to me. I know it's meant to be a yellowish off-white.

[Gadders]

Haha damnit!

[Gouezeri]

"That expresso looks all reddish brown to me. I know it's meant to be a yellowish off-white.

I didn't know Phil had taken to drinking "expressos". Are you drinking dodgy French coffee mate?