Calibration

Hi I calibrated my new monitor with the Colormunki display and leave it plugged in. When I did it, It was daylight with the curtains open but when it gets dark and I put the light on, it want`s to alter the calibration. Doe`s anybody know what bulb to get to make it the same as daylight. I have seen some on the web, one is a blue, it says it will make it daylight, Another one is 6000 kelvin. Which is the right one.

Hi I calibrated my new monitor with the Colormunki display and leave it plugged in. When I did it, It was daylight with the curtains open but when it gets dark and I put the light on, it want`s to alter the calibration. Doe`s anybody know what bulb to get to make it the same as daylight. I have seen some on the web, one is a blue, it says it will make it daylight, Another one is 6000 kelvin. Which is the right one.

Neither.... Disable the option for the device to automatically set the luminance based on ambient lighting conditions and unplug the puck.

Neither.... Disable the option for the device to automatically set the luminance based on ambient lighting conditions and unplug the puck.

It is far better to use a similar ambient light for editing and calibrate at that level. It is often recommended that you use 120 cd/m^2 which I do. It is then not a good idea to let the calibration device alter the settings to react to different ambient light. Firstly, if you use consistent low ambient light it will not be necessary and do you really want the display to change while you are actually editing? This means closing the blinds in my computer room if I am photo editing during the day. Dave

It is far better to use a similar ambient light for editing and calibrate at that level. It is often recommended that you use 120 cd/m^2 which I do. It is then not a good idea to let the calibration device alter the settings to react to different ambient light. Firstly, if you use consistent low ambient light it will not be necessary and do you really want the display to change while you are actually editing? This means closing the blinds in my computer room if I am photo editing during the day.

Dave

Just to add... whilst 120 cd/m^2 is often the recommended it is not necessarily correct and depends on a number of factors such as ambient and final use of the image, to reinforce what Dave has said you [u]do not[/u] want any piece of hardware or software trying to change your display whilst you are editing.

Just to add... whilst 120 cd/m^2 is often the recommended it is not necessarily correct and depends on a number of factors such as ambient and final use of the image, to reinforce what Dave has said you do not want any piece of hardware or software trying to change your display whilst you are editing.

OK, I will close the curtains and recalculate, Then print with the curtains closed. Thank you all. robertt

OK, I will close the curtains and recalculate, Then print with the curtains closed.
Thank you all. robertt

Forget the daylight bulb, the device isn't measuring the colour of ambient light. It's simply trying to work out, based on how strong the light is hitting the screen, how much it should adjust for that. Only doing critical editing on a night time is easy to achieve at this time of year. You can forget all about the effect of daylight. It's the bright daylight that makes us turn up the backlights inside our monitors to full brightness, we end up leaving them there. Because the monitors are so bright we see shadow detail easily, shadow detail that will only be visible on a print when a very bright light is shone onto that print. However, we tend to look at our prints in dimmer light and complain that they are too dark So we buy calibration tools, yet the calibration tool has no idea whether you will look at your print in bright sunlight or in a dimly lit dining room. People put too much faith into the calibration and fail to see a simple fact that their screen is lighting images brighter than their ceiling light illuminates prints.

Forget the daylight bulb, the device isn't measuring the colour of ambient light. It's simply trying to work out, based on how strong the light is hitting the screen, how much it should adjust for that. Only doing critical editing on a night time is easy to achieve at this time of year. You can forget all about the effect of daylight.

It's the bright daylight that makes us turn up the backlights inside our monitors to full brightness, we end up leaving them there.

Because the monitors are so bright we see shadow detail easily, shadow detail that will only be visible on a print when a very bright light is shone onto that print. However, we tend to look at our prints in dimmer light and complain that they are too dark

So we buy calibration tools, yet the calibration tool has no idea whether you will look at your print in bright sunlight or in a dimly lit dining room. People put too much faith into the calibration and fail to see a simple fact that their screen is lighting images brighter than their ceiling light illuminates prints.

What do the instructions with the Colormunki say about calibration? I have a Spyder 4 Express and the instructions state that there should be no light falling on the screen, which makes sense to me. I always calibrate at night with no room lights on and if I have any critical editing to do during the day I close the (heavy dark blue) curtains. I only calibrate about three times a year and get very little variation on my 14 year old Sony monitor.

What do the instructions with the Colormunki say about calibration? I have a Spyder 4 Express and the instructions state that there should be no light falling on the screen, which makes sense to me. I always calibrate at night with no room lights on and if I have any critical editing to do during the day I close the (heavy dark blue) curtains. I only calibrate about three times a year and get very little variation on my 14 year old Sony monitor.

Does your Spyder 4 Express measure the ambient light; I recall that my Spyder 2 Express did not. For some years now I have used a Spyder 3 Pro and the first part of the calibration process is to check the ambient light level and set to a target value 120cd^2 in my case though other values can be used. You then set the brightness of the monitor to suit and the Spyder enables you to set the correct value. Only after this does in go on to create a colour calibration profile. Given that one of the most common problems for those printing is to produce prints that are too dark, it may often be because the brightness of the monitor is not correctly set. I think it is worth paying the extra for the Pro version of Spyder to do the calibration properly. Incidentally, I was at an event sponsored by a well known company who market photographic printing products and calibration devices and they stated that, if you have Windows 10, you need the Spyder 5. This was interesting as I use the Spyder 3 Pro on W10. It may be a case similar to some old accounting software I run which runs if previously installed when you upgrade to W10 but you cannot install it from scratch into W10. Anyone had any problems with pre-Spyder 5 and W10? Dave

Does your Spyder 4 Express measure the ambient light; I recall that my Spyder 2 Express did not. For some years now I have used a Spyder 3 Pro and the first part of the calibration process is to check the ambient light level and set to a target value 120cd^2 in my case though other values can be used. You then set the brightness of the monitor to suit and the Spyder enables you to set the correct value. Only after this does in go on to create a colour calibration profile. Given that one of the most common problems for those printing is to produce prints that are too dark, it may often be because the brightness of the monitor is not correctly set. I think it is worth paying the extra for the Pro version of Spyder to do the calibration properly.


Incidentally, I was at an event sponsored by a well known company who market photographic printing products and calibration devices and they stated that, if you have Windows 10, you need the Spyder 5. This was interesting as I use the Spyder 3 Pro on W10. It may be a case similar to some old accounting software I run which runs if previously installed when you upgrade to W10 but you cannot install it from scratch into W10. Anyone had any problems with pre-Spyder 5 and W10?

Dave

No, the Spyder 4 Express doesn't measure ambient light. I'm quite happy with it. But as I said, the room is always completely dark.

No, the Spyder 4 Express doesn't measure ambient light. I'm quite happy with it. But as I said, the room is always completely dark.

I'm using Spyder 2 on Windows 10 without issues.Could't use the original software but was able to use version 2 2.3.5 which i downloaded from datacolor a while back when using Win 7.

I'm using Spyder 2 on Windows 10 without issues.Could't use the original software but was able to use version 2 2.3.5 which i downloaded from datacolor a while back when using Win 7.

The Colormunki Display and various versions of the Spyder are compatible with DisplayCal (open source), which is often mooted as the best calibration software available. One of the limitations of the Spyder Express package, as I recall, is that the software does not permit you to measure the screen's luminance nor set a target in cd/m². Thus, a fair proportion of people would potentially end up profiling a display that is too bright (as far as that is objectively possible).

The Colormunki Display and various versions of the Spyder are compatible with DisplayCal (open source), which is often mooted as the best calibration software available.

One of the limitations of the Spyder Express package, as I recall, is that the software does not permit you to measure the screen's luminance nor set a target in cd/m². Thus, a fair proportion of people would potentially end up profiling a display that is too bright (as far as that is objectively possible).

A good point daniel66. I did own an Express version initially but would never go back to that as I agree that setting the screen luminance is as important as the colour profile. The Express versions only do half the job. However, I used to get away with it because I was aware of the issue. I knew that most monitors as delivered then to be set to 80% or more brightness but advice was that you should really use a figure of about 45-50%. So I set a value just below 50% before calibrating. However, since using a Pro version for many years I find that, for a new LCD/LED monitor, the correct value is just below 50% but as the monitor ages, you have to increase the brightness to compensate. Earlier this year one of my two monitors needed to be set to 100% according to the Spyder so I decided to replace it as it was 6-7 years old. Up to this point, I was able to calibrate is reasonably OK. I always keep my newest monitor for the actual editing. Dave

A good point daniel66. I did own an Express version initially but would never go back to that as I agree that setting the screen luminance is as important as the colour profile. The Express versions only do half the job. However, I used to get away with it because I was aware of the issue. I knew that most monitors as delivered then to be set to 80% or more brightness but advice was that you should really use a figure of about 45-50%. So I set a value just below 50% before calibrating. However, since using a Pro version for many years I find that, for a new LCD/LED monitor, the correct value is just below 50% but as the monitor ages, you have to increase the brightness to compensate. Earlier this year one of my two monitors needed to be set to 100% according to the Spyder so I decided to replace it as it was 6-7 years old. Up to this point, I was able to calibrate is reasonably OK. I always keep my newest monitor for the actual editing.


Dave