Calibrating screens for Photoshop? Help!

[RomerojpgX]

I just got a SONY KLD40W2000 40 inch LCD TV and its resolution of 1920x1080 is far bigger than my crappy 4 year old 17 inch TFT I use for Photoshop now.

It also seems to be light years ahead in quality and ease of use, editing and viewing pictures on a big screen just seems so much easier (less zooming for starters).

So I am wondering whats the best programme, test or way etc.. to get my New screen perfect for editing photos? as my old screen was perfectly set so that when I got any images printed they looked identical to the picture I edited.

As its a TV and not a true PC screen I am wondering what I should do and if anyone else uses a bigger screen to do their photo stuff, as its so nice seeing your pictures so large I think :)

Any help will be great :thumbs:

[silverpenguin7]

I woulsn't bother to be honest. I've used my 42" plasma with my Mac Mini for a couple of years now as media pc thing downstairs and photos never look as good as on a monitor, if I get something right on my pc then look at it downstairs it just doesn't look right.

A friend of mine also has the same setup but with the 52" X series Bravia and even that doesn't look as good as his Dell pc monitor (which is in the same room so its easy to compare). Although seeing your images on a 52" screen is still nice of course lol. Just not accurate enough to do any real editing - you can't beat a dedicated pc screen.

Still, if your happy with the look you get then go for it. If you can't compare directly you may not notice the difference so you'll be fine :)

[tdodd]

I view my photos on a 40X2000 and think the viewing quality is outstanding. I have used it for editing in the past but now use my laptop, which is far higher specced than my Media Center PC.

For the TV I perform initial calibration of black point and white points (brightness/contrast) using test images such as those produced by the free Tireal TFT Test software, available here - http://www.tireal.com/ - and then complete calibration using Colorvision Spyder2Pro (Express would be just as good for your/my needs) to get an accurate colour balance across the full tonal spectrum. You can find other test pattern generators here - http://test-patterns-swicki.eurekster.com/Philips+Test+Pattern+Generator/ . I particularly like the Philips one. I should add that on the TV I use a custom picture profile and I have disabled all the gimmicky picture processing tweaks and zeroed out all adjustments apart from brightness, contrast and backlight, which I've adjusted to get the right black/white points.

The TFT on my laptop gets calibrated with Spyder2Pro alone as there are no adjustments other than backlight on the laptop.

The resulting colour match and contrast is pretty good between the two screens and photos look superb on either. It would really not matter which setup I used for editing as both give superb results.

[silverpenguin7]

I must admit I've never been a fan of using laptops for photo editing as they never seem to match up to monitors, probably not helped by the fact the contrast/brightness changes (slightly, but it does none the less) unless you look at the screen totally dead on at all times. I'd say my experience with large screen tv's does equal that of laptops so your spot on there I think.

Don't get me wrong photos viewed on the 52" X series look superb but I still stand by the comment they aren't as good as a decent pc screen though.

If its a money/space saving idea though I'm sure you'll be happy enough using your tv as I said before. Get some pics up once its running :)

[RomerojpgX]

tdodd thanks, will give them a quick blast.




Don't get me wrong photos viewed on the 52" X series look superb but I still stand by the comment they aren't as good as a decent pc screen though.


I think thats my problem, the PC screen I have now is 4 years old technology, so my TV is probibly (in theory) better by a long way :D

[tdodd]

I think thats my problem, the PC screen I have now is 4 years old technology, so my TV is probibly (in theory) better by a long way :D
The laptop I use (Dell XPS M1710) is only 3 months old and has a 17" 1920*1200 screen with glossy finish. It is perfectly up to the job of photo editing. I agree there is a need to have the correct viewing angle to get optimum results.

My previous laptop was 6 years old (Dell Inspiron 8000 with 15" 1600*1200 screen) and the backlight was quite yellowy, a bit dim, and impossible to correct using the Spyder2. Contrast was also rubbish and the old style matt finish did nothing to help there. It is certainly true that some monitors/screens are not up to the job and I dare say that with age the problems may well become worse.

With the TV, 8' away, there really is no problem getting a good viewing angle and a head movement a few inches up, down or sideways does not affect the picture at all. It certainly is an almost infinite improvement over my old laptop and my old 32" CRT TV for viewing/editing photos.

[silverpenguin7]

With the TV, 8' away, there really is no problem getting a good viewing angle and a head movement a few inches up, down or sideways does not affect the picture at all.
Thats one of the things I like about the latest LCD's and the bravia series. You can move a long way off center with no problems.

[RomerojpgX]

I sit right next to my Bravia always directly in front too :) 6 foot for films, and closer for PC, the picture so far close is great and I do see many things in photos you dont see on a smaller screen. I will be trying my hand at setting the TV up and seeing how close I can get to perfection soon, if its unusable then so be it :)

[silverpenguin7]

Oh it won't be unusable, don't worry about that! :D

[RomerojpgX]

May as well bump this for a really good calibration programme, image etc.. as my screen recently went mental and just discovered on the Perpetual Photography Thread XI that my brightness/black levels have been knocked out :( it was perfect a while back, now its blatantly not.

Any more good links etc..?

This one with an animated gif at the bottom seems ok, but I really want actrate blacks.

I did not see any change on that gif until 15!!!!!! so it shows you how wrong my blacks were.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm

Looking at some of my images with the blacks ajusted like that makes some of my images look frankly hideous, looks like I have been processing with the wrong blacks for a while, they look staggeringly different :( the noise and objects I never saw before are really nasty :(

Thing is looking back on many images of mine I now see things I never wanted seen, the darkness is gone and I see things I wanted to be dark and in shadow. Which as you can imagine is bad for the last few hundred images I edited. Nopise is esspecially bad,as I have sometimes used Shadow/Highlight in Photoshop and brought parts a little lighter, when in reality I was rasiing it a large amount and everyone but me could see evil colourful noise :(

[the ghost]

if a spyder II any good i can lend you mine
but delivery only

[RomerojpgX]

Thanks fopr the offer, not really thinking I need that. I would say all I need to do is get the blacks right, all my previous printouts, photo prints and posters etc.. were all almost identical to my screen, so in the past it was right.

Now I just want some images, tests to get it back to where it was as really I think my screens went a bit odd latley. Surley there are images online like this? where something pops out at you when you get the black levels the right way.

:)

[still average joe]

Like a monitor test chart? (http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/)

[RomerojpgX]

Thanks keep em coming :) the black test on that link, does everyone have it set so that the very first square is just barley visable? just owndering what others have theisr set to, I have pumped up brightness up so I can see the first box (just).


I tried a few other ones and none seem to get it perfect like it was when I first did it. Sadly I have no clue now what I used back then to calibrate my screen, which as you can imagine is a bit of a pigdog!

[pkr]

You could try Adobe Gamma. If you have PS, you should have the "Adobe Gamma.cpl" file somewhere. IIRC, you just copy it into the Windows folder with all the other cpl files ( e.g. c:\windows\system32 ), open Control Panel and double click it ( can't remember if you have to restart or logoff/logon to enable the Control Panel to pick up the file ).

Crude but it does sort of work.

[RomerojpgX]

Thanks again everyone, it is all helping :) been fiddling a lot with the settings, I am amazed how bad my brightness was!


One new thing I have noticed now that I never really caught on to before is when viewing images with a dark background, or a light background the images again look vastly different. Like when editing in Photoshop, which has a white background, then when I view that edited image in my image viewer (Irfanview) with the black backing the image is much easier to see the problems.

I assume thats the same for everyone?

I have just went back over many of my past images, it looks like many images are gutted beyond words :( I will have to edit them all over again, hundreds of them! I am mortified! :( they do not just look different, they are so different its like some evil joke.

Looking back to even when I was not editing on this screen, the images still look a little wrong. I am starting to think my current screen is broke now.