Colour management and monitors.

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Mitchell Rodda - 25 Oct 2006 21:13 GMT

Time to shoot a few birds with one stone....

1. I'm wanting to calibrate the colour my monitor displays - thinking of
using either Huey Pantone or Spyder2Express. Has anyone any experience
with these? Is one noticeably better than 't other? Both are avail for
around £65-70.

I'm just a keen enthusiast so not really looking to shell out much more than
this (so maybe not that keen ;-). Next step up would be £130 for Spyder
suite or Eye One. I'd need persuading that these are worth the additional
dosh.

2. My monitor is a trusty old 19'' CTX PR960 (flat trinitron beast)- which
has done 9 years solid service, but recently has started switching off for a
few seconds then coming back on. Does it once a week or so at the moment. I
fear it'll become terminal before much longer. Whats the general perception
of LCD vs CRT monitors for image processing work in terms of quality for
your £? . I know theres been lots of advances with LCD stuff over the past
12 months, but I'm guessing you still get a better quality CRT (in terms of
resolution and colour fidelity) cheaper than equivalent LCD? Thoughts?

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Keith - 25 Oct 2006 23:19 GMT

> Time to shoot a few birds with one stone....
>
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> 12 months, but I'm guessing you still get a better quality CRT (in terms of
> resolution and colour fidelity) cheaper than equivalent LCD? Thoughts?

I use the Gretagmacbeth eye-one, works a treat, bought it from Robert
White http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/ at a reasonable price here in the
UK.

One point - my 21" Apple monitor wouldn't calibrate properly - eye-one
tech support were very good - but it would appear my monitor was too old
and wouldn't put out enough brightenss... Works ok on a newer 30" LCD
though.

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Mitchell Rodda - 26 Oct 2006 20:22 GMT

Thanks Keith.

Interesting point re your old monitor. Is it CRT or LCD? Did it seem to
have a lack of brightness when you were using it??

>> Time to shoot a few birds with one stone....
>>
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> and wouldn't put out enough brightenss... Works ok on a newer 30" LCD
> though.

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Keith - 28 Oct 2006 13:31 GMT

> >> Time to shoot a few birds with one stone....
> >>
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> > and wouldn't put out enough brightenss... Works ok on a newer 30" LCD
> > though.

> Thanks Keith.
>
> Interesting point re your old monitor. Is it CRT or LCD? Did it seem to
> have a lack of brightness when you were using it??

It's a CRT and it still doesn't appear too dark, but the eye-one can't
calibrate it properly.

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if - 31 Oct 2006 03:05 GMT

>> > One point - my 21" Apple monitor wouldn't calibrate properly - eye-one
>> > tech support were very good - but it would appear my monitor was too old
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> It's a CRT and it still doesn't appear too dark, but the eye-one can't
> calibrate it properly.

A CRT loses half it's brightness after 10-15,000 hours use, which is around
3-5 years or so depending on usage. Over the years I gradually had to crank
up the brightness on my old iiyama, originally 50% was fine but after about
6 years it was up to around 75% to get the same shadow detail. Curiously my
new iiyama CRT had to be set to 75% out of the box to get a properly
adjusted image for photos, I don't think they make them to the same
standard as they used to - price has halved but so I suspect has build
quality.

LCDs are inherently much brighter but this also means the black point can't
be set low enough due to backlight bleeding through the black pixels.
(Individual LED backlights for pixels in some recent monitors might fix
this.)

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