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Please recommend a monitor color calibration device

BeO
Top Commenter
Hi,

My system is C1 version 11, Windows 7, NVidia Geforce 960 gfx card, monitor Eizo ColorEdge CS240.


Which software should I use, Eizo's ColorNavigator or the software of the (yet to be bought) calibration sensor? Which calibration sensor is best suited for my system?

On a side note: With the monitor set to AdobeRGB (menu of the monitor), soft-proofing (switchting) an image via C1 recipe sRGB and Adobe RBG does not show me any difference. I would have expected that within the wider AdobeRGB space setting of the monitor, when I switch to the smaller sRGB recipe, I should notice at least some difference.

Thanks,
BeO
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Comments

18 comments

Date Votes
  • Robert Whetton
    you'll notice it more in the greens than anything else..
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    Thanks. Not even in the green nor greys I see any difference. I see the values change in the color readout, but the image is identical. I see differences when softproofing with a printer profile.
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  • Robert Whetton
    Calibration wise, looks like X-Rite are the only ones that will over paper calibration as well as monitor..
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  • Class A
    [quote="BeO" wrote:
    Which software should I use, Eizo's ColorNavigator or the software of the (yet to be bought) calibration sensor?

    ColorNavigator would be the recommended choice if your monitor had a hardware-LUT, which it does.

    It is important that the software you use writes the calculated LUT data into the monitor's hardware (via a USB cable connection). Otherwise the graphics card will perform the LUT transformation and that can lead to slight colour seepage and/or banding. Also, I would generally choose the one that allows you to select your specific monitor model. ColorNavigator may or may not do this but it has a chance of using specific calibration parameters even by automatically recognising your monitor model.

    Knowing the exact monitor model is helpful for avoiding errors when manually selecting the background light type which is important for colorimeters.

    [quote="BeO" wrote:

    Which calibration sensor is best suited for my system?

    That depends on whether you want to calibrate other devices as well, such as projectors and printers. For printer calibration, you'll need a spectrophotometer which would also avoid the problem of exactly accounting for a colorimeter's filter characteristics with respect to a type of background light. Disadvantages of spectrophotometers are that they are more expensive and are not as good as reading low light levels.
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  • IanS
    [quote="BeO" wrote:
    Hi,

    My system is C1 version 11, Windows 7, NVidia Geforce 960 gfx card, monitor Eizo ColorEdge CS240.


    Which software should I use, Eizo's ColorNavigator or the software of the (yet to be bought) calibration sensor? Which calibration sensor is best suited for my system?

    On a side note: With the monitor set to AdobeRGB (menu of the monitor), soft-proofing (switchting) an image via C1 recipe sRGB and Adobe RBG does not show me any difference. I would have expected that within the wider AdobeRGB space setting of the monitor, when I switch to the smaller sRGB recipe, I should notice at least some difference.

    Thanks,
    BeO


    I use the Xright Colour Munki Photo so that I can make profiles for monitor and paper.

    With regard to not being able to see any difference between sRGB and aRGB I think you need to reset your expectations.

    There is a lot of "talk" about wide gamut monitors and yes, they are able to display a wider range of colours than sRGB. However, the practical point is that it can display some "extra" colours in certain ranges, particularly the greens as has already been stated. Your photo has to contain these extra colours in order to be noticeable and sRGB works for the majority of "normal" photos.

    If you construct artificial targets of pure colour swathes you will be able to see the differences more easily. If you consider a real photo you have many thousands of colours present, which are the same in sRGB and aRGB, and you are looking to find a few colours within the scene that are slightly different. Remember, I think you don't "loose" the colours they are just shifted in hue and intensity to within the sRGB colour space. How they are shifted is controlled by your rendering intent colourimetric, perceptual etc. As you have found in practice that results in an observation of "very, very similar results".

    Having been down this rabbit hole I personally decided to constrain my working colour palette to sRGB. Obviously this is far more colours than if I choose B&W, but looses certain greens. 😊

    My Lab for prints and the Photo Book company wants images in sRGB so the only real gain in certain green (if the photo contains them) colours is when I print at home.

    The advantage is that I have a very easy WYSIWYG workflow and the results I get back from the printers matches perfectly to my screen image, within the physical transmitted v reflective limits.

    Just my "practical" 2 pence worth.

    Ian
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  • SFA
    At the basic level of viewing if the image is to be seen by anyone via a browser or some non-photoediting viewer, they will usually be viewing in whatever their device screen supports of the sRGB palette. To provide anything else, for most people who are screen viewing, may be worse than pointless.

    If the objective is printing and especially if colour matching in the final output is commercially extremely important then the game is different but likely to require some notable investment in hardware and software to get a fully functional working system that is not too demanding of endless fine adjustments when printing, and a good understanding of the media onto which you are printing.

    In most cases, in my opinion, unless colour accuracy is ultra critical for a client (or just to satisfy your own passion/obsession) the viewer is unlikely to know precisely how the colours should look and in any case probably do not care that much.

    Either that or they have a completely different opinion of their own about how the colour should look and you will never be able to interpret and replicate it!

    Just my opinion of course.

    Back to the original question.

    BeO,

    Is the Eizo CS240 one of the monitors supported by the Eizo calibration built in to C1?



    Grant
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    Thanks Class A.

    [quote="Class A" wrote:
    [quote="BeO" wrote:
    Which software should I use, Eizo's ColorNavigator or the software of the (yet to be bought) calibration sensor?

    ColorNavigator would be the recommended choice if your monitor had a hardware-LUT, which it apparently doesn't.



    I believe it has a hardware-LUT, no?

    "Individually Adjusted at the Factory
    The gamma level for each ColorEdge monitor is adjusted at the factory. This is accomplished by measuring the R, G, and B gamma values from 0 – 255, then using the monitor’s 16-bit look-up table (LUT) to select the 256 most appropriate tones to achieve the desired value."

    https://www.eizo.com/products/coloredge/cs240/
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    Thanks Ian.

    [quote="IanS" wrote:


    With regard to not being able to see any difference between sRGB and aRGB I think you need to reset your expectations.


    Yes, I can find some subtle differences in my images (most of my images are in nature), but indeed the question if it makes a valuable difference is very valid.
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    Thanks Grant.
    [quote="SFA" wrote:


    BeO,

    Is the Eizo CS240 one of the monitors supported by the Eizo calibration built in to C1?

    Grant


    It does not have an in-built sensor. But it has a hardware LUT and will benefit from Color Navigator?

    https://www.eizo.com/products/coloredge/cs240/
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  • Class A
    [quote="BeO" wrote:

    I believe it has a hardware-LUT, no?

    Yes, indeed.

    I must have confused your model with another one, sorry about that.

    I updated the respective part in my original post. Make sure your calibration software can communicate with your monitor via a USB cable. Otherwise, you won't be using the monitor's hardware LUT, which would be rather unfortunate.

    N.B., C1 only supports monitors with a built-in calibration device but this C1 convenience feature is typically not very useful anyhow as its (non-configurable) calibration target won't be appropriate for the majority of users.

    Finally, the sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces are rather different; not only in the greens but in the reds as well. The respective primaries are very different and you should be seeing a big difference with unmanaged applications. With proper profiling, colour-managed applications, and images where all colours are within the sRGB colour gamut, you should ideally see no difference when switching colour spaces (via software, not the monitor controls).
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  • C-M-B
    Well the thing is that any hardware calibration can change over time, that's why they ship their high-end displays with built-in sensors.
    So it's a good idea to have an external device for calibration anyway - besides Eizo software also gives you the option to check the mointor claibration with an external device.

    I recommend xRite i1 Display Pro or similar stuff, I've had it for years an calibrated 4-5 devices with it, ranging from semi-expensive Dell screens, Macbook Pro screens, Dell Laptops to high-quality Eizo and I also used it to verify the built-in calibration on Eizo screens.
    It's super precise and you can also use it with software like DisplayCAL if you don't like the xrite software.
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    Thanks all.
    Yes, I have ordered a i1 Display Pro, it seems to be a popular colorimeter, probably for a good reason.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    [quote="BeO" wrote:
    Thanks all.
    Yes, I have ordered a i1 Display Pro, it seems to be a popular colorimeter, probably for a good reason.

    I would say to not even bother installing the buggy x-rite software.

    Go with DisplayCal out of the box. Top notch software.
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  • Class A
    [quote="BeO" wrote:
    Thanks all.
    Yes, I have ordered a i1 Display Pro, it seems to be a popular colorimeter, probably for a good reason.

    Yes, very good choice!

    Regarding the calibration software: I understand that displayCal cannot upload an LUT to your monitor. You'd be forgoing one of the best features of your monitor, if you used a third-party calibration software that doesn't make use of the monitor's hardware LUT.

    If, for some reason, you don't want to use ColorNavigator exclusively, at least do a first calibration with ColorNavigator -- thus loading up LUT data to your monitor's hardware LUT, correcting any-nonlinearities -- and then, if you really must, use displayCal for profiling.

    BTW, ColorNavigator is compatible with the i1 Display Pro, so you should be fine. I haven't used ColorNavigator myself yet but I'd be very surprised if you found it lacking in some way.
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  • BeO
    Top Commenter
    [quote="Class A" wrote:

    Calibration with ColorNavigator -- thus loading up LUT data to your monitor's hardware LUT

    ColorNavigator is compatible with the i1 Display Pro, so you should be fine.


    Yes, that's the plan, the hardware LUT, good reviews about the factory calibration and homogenity of the display properties across the screen paired with a reasonable pricing were the reasons why I purchased this Eizo model in the first place.
    (I don't play games at all).

    Thanks
    BeO
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  • Permanently deleted user
    D'oh, I missed the HW LUT point completely. Sorry.
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  • NNN636697755413562758
    [quote="gusferlizi" wrote:
    [quote="BeO" wrote:
    Thanks all.
    Yes, I have ordered a i1 Display Pro, it seems to be a popular colorimeter, probably for a good reason.

    I would say to not even bother installing the buggy x-rite software.

    Go with DisplayCal out of the box. Top notch software.


    I have been enjoying DisplayCal.
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  • C-M-B
    DisplayCAL is good but it may be overkill and you need to really dig into this whole stuff. The X-rite Software isn't great and it was quite buggy, but at this moment it's fine and works very well and you can get a very good calibration very quickly.
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