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Please note: To get the best graphic impression of this and all other color management websites, you should have your screen size set to at least 1280x1024pixel and at least 16bit color. Smaller screen sizes are possible but will cause the screenshots to be displayed not a optimum conditions.
Color Management as easy as 1-2-3
Hundreds of websites deal with color management - for scanners, printers, monitors, projectors, sharing, publishing and many other applications where color needs to be predictably, consistent and controlled. It is not the purpose of the tutorial to repeat, which others have already published just for the sake of adding another tutorial to the existing ones. What I wanted to explain and demonstrate is that color management for photographers can be easy, intuitive, fast and affordable. There are many systems on the market for color management - from very expensive ones for top-end applications to low-end inexpensive little gadgets, which are not really worth the price you paid. I want to present and demonstrate color management with two systems of a leading, probably the leading supplier for color management tools and systems - Gretag Macbeth . Most photographers know GretagMacbeth from one tool, which is probably the most photographed object in the world - the Color Checker - the standard color rendition chart with 24 colored squares. The Gretag Macbeth system is a modular system which allows you to start with one easy to use measurement device and expand it according to your needs and level of desired sophistication. I will present two devices, the first one is the GretagMacbeth Eye-One Display 2, which is the right choice if you like to calibrate/profile your monitor. The second device is the Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Pro device, which is the all-in-one device with the ability to do all color measurement tasks - calibration of monitors, profiling of scanners, printers and beamers. If you prefer to go directly to another calibration task, click on the links for:
Go directly to: SCANNER PROFILING Go directly to: PRINTER PROFILING
The Eye-One Display 2 - Monitor Calibration When you get this little device, it comes in a neat cardboard cube, about 6x6x6 inches and contains the measurement head with the USB cable, the installation CD, the manual and the ambient light cover, which also acts as protective cover for the measurement head. A little counterweight, which can be mounted on the USB cable to counterbalance the weight of the measurement head (131g) for calibration of LCD monitors is included as well. Your computer needs to run either Macintosh (ver.10.1 or later) or Windows (98,2000, ME or XP), needs at least 128MB RAM, at least 48MB available HD space and the monitor should have at least 1024x768px resolution, all requirements which are easily met by PC's on which you want to run Photoshop. There is no version available for Linux users and the current version of CrossOver Office does not support this software. As its name already indicates, this device is the first choice when it comes to calibration of monitors. Both fundamentally different types of monitors, CRT and LCD, can be profiled with it in two easy, quick and reliable modes - the Easy Mode and the Advanced Mode - even Laptop Monitors with the new Laptop profiling option in Eye-One Match 3.0.1, can become optimized for most neutral grey balance, best smoothness and highest color accuracy on laptop screens. In the Easy Mode, all you need to do is to follow the on-screen instructions and within 5 minutes or less, your monitor is profiled. Here the details: This is the starting screen when the program opens - you can see all devices, which you could calibrate/profile - the Eye-One Display 2 can profile a monitor but not the other decides, so as soon as the program starts, you see that all other devices are not active, just the monitor stays active. If you need to profile also other devices than just the monitor, you can buy another Eye-One Package, according to what your needs are.
As you can see, I had the Eye-One Display 2 device connected to the PC, so only the monitor option was active. Now you select the monitor profiling level - Easy or Advanced and proceed to the next screen. I have selected "Monitor" and Easy Mode so, as soon as you select to work on your monitor, a monitor picture is seen on the left part of the program window It is noteworthy to mention that you always find guidance in what you are supposed to do on the right side of the screen - here the text tells you to choose the monitor type and click the right arrow to continue - a very nice feature for starters who are not sure that what they do is right or not. The different types of monitors are presented to choose from - after selecting the monitor type, in our case LCD and clicking the "next" button, the one pointing to the right, the next screen appears after the automatic calibration, which is done within a few seconds but just pressing the calibration button on either the measurement device or clicking with the mouse on the screen's "Calibrate" selector
Now you just need to place the little mouse-like measurement device (without the protective white plastic cover - ambient light measurement cover) on the screen as shown. The little counter weight helps to hold the head in place - the rubbery front ( with the suction cups which have been designed to stick the head on the front glass of CRT monitors) prevents the plastic screen front of LCD monitors from being scratched - and once the head is mounted, you can press the next right button. Everything starts to work automatically now (that's the beauty of the Easy level) - the location of the head is found automatically, then the contrast, brightness and the color temperature is measured and then the profiling starts - you see various colors been displayed to the measurement head and after a minute or so, the entire process is finished and you see the measurement results.
Do not be too surprised if the color rendition, brightness and contrast of the monitor changes during the before described procedure - the program needs to determine the operating parameters and limits of your monitor to end up with the right profile. Now, as the entire measurement process has been completed, the results are shown - you see the color temperature, the gamma, the luminance level and the color rendition curves and the color space covered by that monitor (which happens to be not a very suitable monitor for color controlled photographic work) The profile is saved and you are told that this profile will be from now onwards used as standard default profile for this monitor. To make sure that your monitor profile is up to date, you are reminded to recalibrate your monitor after a certain timeframe - LCD and Laptop monitors are likely to change their color profile but for CRT monitors, it is a wise precaution to recalibrate your monitor after a couple of weeks if not weekly.
That was all - the entire monitor profiling was done in about 5-10 minutes and now you can use it in a known color/contrast/brightness status - one of the key prerequisites for any photographic work on a PC. THE ADVANCED MODE If you decide to make the profiling more sophisticated and to decide on certain parameters yourself, you can choose the "Advanced" calibration option. The screens are similar, just more options are displayed for selection.
On the left side, you see that after the initial selection of the monitor type, several settings need to be done - calibration, ambient light check, contrast, RGB, luminance etc. As before in the Easy Mode, you are guided through these steps with clear and short commands plus pictures showing what and how to perform the requested operation.
Calibration Settings You can choose the white point ( Color temperature setting for White ) - I use 6500Kelvin, the Gamma ( traditionally, but not really necessary anymore, PC monitors are set to a gamma of 2,2 whereas Mac monitors are set to 1,8 ) and for the luminance level, I have choosen the recommended value - but you can also choose not to change the current value . To see if the level of intensity of the ambient light is not too high, I have checked the "Perform ambient light check". Here is its explanation: Ambient Light Measurement One feature, I would like to explain in the following, is the ambient light measurement, which is often of significant importance to ensure consistent and good results. When you work on a PC with e.g. Photoshop, most of your work is done by looking at the (now calibrated and profiled) screen and judging the results subjectively. If your room or work environment is brightened up by either daylight and/or artificial illumination, then you have probably got more or less disturbing light around you. Sometimes you have to work in a larger open office space, where others need enough light for their (different) work. Color work is sensitive to subjective influences like the intensity and color temperature of the ambient light - with other words, a workstation for digital photographic work needs to be located in an environment of a rather subdued and controlled light level.
The little white cover, which comes with the measurement head, is used together with the program option Ambient Light Measurement to determine if the light level on your workspace is optimal or not. It is not a must, but highly recommended, to adjust the light intensity level according to the measurement to have it within the recommended range. The color temperature of the ambient light on the other hand should be close to the working color temperature to avoid a perceived color distortion of the visual on-screen impression, which would have a negative impact on the output quality. It is also not recommended to work in a totally darkened room as the contrast between the bright screen and the dark working environment creates excessive strain on the eyes and overstates the brightness and color saturation of the on-screen images. To make this measurement is again very easy - just place the white cover over the measurement head as shown below and hold it in front of the monitor facing the environment. Now press the measurement start button and the program does the rest. Adjust the ambient light according to the results displayed, measure again and repeat this cycle until both values are within the recommended, green range. Just to mention it again - this is an option, which you might want to choose to add to the other measurements but it is not mandatory. Advanced Measurement Process After these initial adjustments, you have to place the measurement device on the screen - same way as on the Basic Mode - and then move forward to the next step - contrast calibration, RGB and luminance. Do not be surprised, the screen will change its color rendition, its brightness and maybe will look at bit strange during this process until the final calibration data are stored and evoked. In the following you see a few photographis of the actual screen which were taken during these process steps.
The measurement device is placed on the screen - preferably it should be in or close to the center, but in my case, the monitor adjustment dialog cannot be moved away, so I had to position the device excentrically. The contrast adjustment ( and the other adjustments as well ) is done manually with the actual measured value in feedback - increase or decrease the contrast ( luminosity...) until the black bar is within the green range - then it is done.
Measurement screen:
This second to last screen summarizes the calibration and data in numerical and graphical mode:
You can see the linearity of your screen for R,G and B ( input vs output ) and the color space covered by it - a very attractive and informative way to present otherwise rather dry data. All other important data derived from the calibration process can be seen as well - gamma, luminance, color temperature. Again, as before mentioned for the Easy Mode - you are reminded to recalibrate your monitor ( if you want ) after some time to make sure that nothing changed too much. After you have stored this calibration in the same way as for the Easy Mode, you are done - your monitor is calibrated and ready to be put to work. That was easy, right? For those who want to dig deeper into this system, there is much more and detailed information available at the GMB website, with can be found here: Eye-One Display 2 Monitor calibration - is this all you need? Well, it depends...a well calibrated monitor is most definitely the basis for all color work but -calibrating your monitor is only the first step to achieve "good color". Two additional procedures are usually necessary, at least highly recommended, to get to really good color rendition and predictable, consistent results - you need to profile (your) scanner and (your) printer. For these tasks, you need to use another Gretag Macbeth color management device - the new Eye-One PRO, which is capable of not only monitor calibration but also all other color management calibration and profiling tasks. Here you will see what it can do and how it works: Profiling of Scanner and Printer
RELATED TOPICS AND THEIR LINKS: Are you interested to learn about a very attractive, powerful yet easy to operate scanning program for over 350 different scanners - you can find my review of this program, VUESCAN, on this link: VUESCAN-The Image is Everything If you are interested in a review of the Epson 4870 Photo flatbed scanner and its performance compared to the Epson 3200 Photo scanner and the Canon 9900F scanner, then you might want to navigate to my review which you find here: Epson 4870 vs. Epson 3200 ( and Canon 9900F )
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The
measurement starts as soon as all these adjustments are completed and works
fully automatically - the measurement device gets illuminated by various colors
and intensities. After a short while, the process is finished and the screens
displays the achieved measurement data.