Monitor calibration and black crush

[oldmankit]

I'm considering purchasing a hardware monitor calibrator (e.g. Spyder 3) but have a couple of questions first.

I primarily want it to reduce the 'black crush' that I get with my Samsung F2380 monitor. I love the monitor, but despite trying different brightness/contrast/gamma modes, deep greys all get squashed to black - albeit it a lovely black. Will colour calibration help me there?

Can I expect significantly (enough to justify the expense) better results using dedicated hardware? Should I just live with black crush as a flaw in my mid-priced monitor?

The monitor ships with an icc profile which I can use for specific programs only (e.g. the gimp). It didn't seem to help black crush, only changed the colour temperature.

[arith]

It did help on mine; but I have a different monitor. After calibration I can see all blacks on this page;
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php

where before I couldn't.

[Pictus]

Your monitor got an amazing high contrast and deep blacks, as it is not wide gamut or LED, the *only* instrument that is not more expensive than your monitor and able to deal with the deep blacks is the DTP-94 and calibrate using the high quality and free Argyll + dispcalGUI

[Colin Southern]

I primarily want it to reduce the 'black crush' that I get with my Samsung F2380 monitor. I love the monitor, but despite trying different brightness/contrast/gamma modes, deep greys all get squashed to black - albeit it a lovely black. Will colour calibration help me there?

Hi "Old Man" (I thought that was me!)

Short answer is "yes".

Long answer is that what you're talking about is primarily monitor profiling, not monitor calibration (people often confuse the two, but they're actually different things), but more importantly, you're really doing two things here - colour correction "colour calibration as you'd call it" is one thing, but also getting the levels correct, which is what you'll benefit most from.

Can I expect significantly (enough to justify the expense) better results using dedicated hardware? Should I just live with black crush as a flaw in my mid-priced monitor?

If you're serious about your work then the ONLY way that your results aren't going to be a "lottery" is if you're working from a standardised display - and the ONLY way to achieve that with any degree of accuracy is to use a colorimeter like the spyder III (or other brand). Adjusting an image so that it looks good on an un-profiled monitor could well mean that it looks significantly different of everyone elses (albeit many of those will be unprofiled as well, so it becomes a "double lottery" with "twice the chance of losing"!).

The monitor ships with an icc profile which I can use for specific programs only (e.g. the gimp). It didn't seem to help black crush, only changed the colour temperature.

The included profile is next to useless because it can't compensate for the characteristics of the video card.

In summary, can I just say that we've had these discussions here from time to time in the past - many here have taken my advice and made the "leap" to the likes of the Spyder III (which is what I use). Many have reported significant improvements, and (correct me if I'm wrong folks), but I don't think a single person has regretted the purchase.

[Donald]

Many have reported significant improvements, and (correct me if I'm wrong folks), but I don't think a single person has regretted the purchase.

I wouldn't dare!

I'm a Spyder 3 Pro user as well.

One of the most important things to consider, given that you're serious about getting into photography, is that you'll want to display your images to others.

So, if you're doing it electronically, you'll want to know that what you're seeing on your screen is the same as the person on the other side of the world is seeing. Unless you've got the screen set up properly (with the help of a colorimeter), you're guessing as to what the other person is going to see.

I'm not a printer, but it seems to me that getting it right on your screen is a significant stepping stone in making sure that what comes out of your printer is going to be correct.

[Colin Southern]

Your monitor got an amazing high contrast and deep blacks

Which I might add is generally NOT a good thing for image processing because it's something that paper prints can't come close to. It's interesting that Eizo's top-of-the-line professional monitor (with Eizo being the undisputed king of professional monitors) has a contrast ratio of not 10,000,000 to 1 nor 1,000,000 to 1 nor even 10,000 to 1, but 800:1.

[Colin Southern]

So, if you're doing it electronically, you'll want to know that what you're seeing on your screen is the same as the person on the other side of the world is seeing. Unless you've got the screen set up properly (with the help of a colorimeter), you're guessing as to what the other person is going to see.

I might add that unless the other person also has a profiled screen then we're STILL guessing, but not much we can do about that - unfortunately

[Donald]

I might add that unless the other person also has a profiled screen then we're STILL guessing, but not much we can do about that - unfortunately

But I knew that the person on the other side of the world would be a dedicated enthusiast and would have his/her monitor properly set up!!

[Pictus]

Which I might add is generally NOT a good thing for image processing because it's something that paper prints can't come close to. It's interesting that Eizo's top-of-the-line professional monitor (with Eizo being the undisputed king of professional monitors) has a contrast ratio of not 10,000,000 to 1 nor 1,000,000 to 1 nor even 10,000 to 1, but 800:1.

True about the contrast, but the deep black is very welcome, yet hard to calibrate...

[arith]

Which I might add is generally NOT a good thing for image processing because it's something that paper prints can't come close to. It's interesting that Eizo's top-of-the-line professional monitor (with Eizo being the undisputed king of professional monitors) has a contrast ratio of not 10,000,000 to 1 nor 1,000,000 to 1 nor even 10,000 to 1, but 800:1.

I have a professionally printed print of a bridge, and the blacks are clipped deeper and it looks better to me as a result.
But now I test print brightness and contrast on a wide gamut printer, and I can get very close if not identical without changes. A nearly black scene came out exactly the same with 20% gain on brightness.
I can see the 254 white point as well as the 1 black point, but I have to have correct ambient light and squint a bit, it is a little bit harder than the black.
Cheers Pictus; my display was purchased before I thought about photography and is more like a games display, but I'm stuck with it unless I win the lottery.

[oldmankit]

More replies than I had expected. Many thanks, everyone!

@Pictus, thanks very much for the Linux software suggestions. Am I really supposed to take it seriously that there is only one profiler that can deal with deep blacks as I want?

@Collin

The included profile is next to useless because it can't compensate for the characteristics of the video card.

Thanks for clarifying that one for me.

@Arith I can already make out all the difference between the deep blacks on http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php. Maybe my black crush isn't as bad as I thought. It just seems that when I put some images on both my laptop screen (which is awful) and my nice new screen, the deeper shades are easier to make out on the laptop. Perhaps that is because none of the blacks are truly black on that screen - in fact, they're not even close.

I can see that there is really no way for me to know how things should look without some callibration. The question therefore will be which one.

I'm quite limited by my location (a city in Northern Thailand), but can get something ordered or brought-over with a friend from Europe.

I may want to start printing my own photos in a year or so. Should I think about a callibrator that will be able to do both monitors and prints? Does such a thing exist, and if so, is it much more expensive?

[Pictus]

More replies than I had expected. Many thanks, everyone!

@Pictus, thanks very much for the Linux software suggestions. Am I really supposed to take it seriously that there is only one profiler that can deal with deep blacks as I want?

Spyder/huey/Eye One 2 will not do, the DPT-94 is the king of darkness
Sadly is not made for wide gamut or LED, but the Quato iColor Display
implement correction matrices and some people are getting good results...
Can do the same for Argyll, but you need to have a spectrometer to create the correction matrices...

The ColorMunki Photo can calibrate any type of monitor and also printer and it is supported by Argyll.

[Blazing fire]

Which I might add is generally NOT a good thing for image processing because it's something that paper prints can't come close to. It's interesting that Eizo's top-of-the-line professional monitor (with Eizo being the undisputed king of professional monitors) has a contrast ratio of not 10,000,000 to 1 nor 1,000,000 to 1 nor even 10,000 to 1, but 800:1.

Those large numbers represent dynamic contrast ratios, but their static contrast ratio should also be 700-1000:1.

[Colin Southern]

Those large numbers represent dynamic contrast ratios, but their static contrast ratio should also be 700-1000:1.

Funny how they never seem to make that particularly clear in the marketing guff

[bambleweeney]

I've got (possibly) the same monitor, Samsung mid price, great build quality, good colour and a wide range of viewing angles.
Profiling wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do though. It took about 2 days
playing around with a Spyder III pro and comparing with my secondary monitor. One of the most useful things I found were some downloadable black and white jpegs from Northlight
see :-
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/a...st_images.html
They come with explanations of what you should see in the shadow and highlight areas - really helpful stuff.
Now the screen display is really good, better than my secondary monitor (which used to be my primary and which proved quite useful in the profiling process comparing the two displays) the black crush effect is still there, more than I'd like to be honest but
drastically less than before.
I've not printed any new images since I acquired the monitor but I'm reasonably confident there won't be any big surprises.

[Pictus]

Try with Argyll + dispcalGUI and the results will be much better...
The calibration/profile time will be around one hour and half in high quality...
If you check the log, will see that the Spyder had a hard time in the dark parts.
Anyway, no other software comes close in quality, here a guide
This settings may be better


Reference images:
http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/C...nsitivity.html
http://www.gballard.net/nca.html#getagoodfile

An executable that creates gradients
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/download..._Gradients.exe

[Blazing fire]

Funny how they never seem to make that particularly clear in the marketing guff

It's marketing , as you've said!

Cheers!

[oldmankit]

I am very impressed by the responses I've got to my first post on this forum. Thank you everyone.

I've got (possibly) the same monitor, Samsung mid price, great build quality, good colour and a wide range of viewing angles.
Profiling wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do though. It took about 2 days
playing around with a Spyder III pro and comparing with my secondary monitor. One of the most useful things I found were some downloadable black and white jpegs from Northlight
see :-
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/a...st_images.html
They come with explanations of what you should see in the shadow and highlight areas - really helpful stuff.
Now the screen display is really good, better than my secondary monitor (which used to be my primary and which proved quite useful in the profiling process comparing the two displays) the black crush effect is still there, more than I'd like to be honest but
drastically less than before.
I've not printed any new images since I acquired the monitor but I'm reasonably confident there won't be any big surprises.

I had a look at the test images and blacks didn't do too well. Hopefully with calibration they will improve.

[Colin Southern]

Hopefully with calibration they will improve.

And with profiling they'll improve even more

[gap]

oldmankit, did you get the colorimeter after all? Did it improve the blacks? I have the same monitor, I just bought a colorimeter, and I cannot calibrate the display in a way that will solve the black crush. I don't know why that is, I tried pretty much all settings combinations allowed by the software (dispcalGUI + Argyll).

I also have a profile for this monitor that I found on the Web, and that one works great for black crush, but it has a color cast.

Anyway, did you make any progress on the matter?