OT:: CPU Monitor Color Adjustment Software

I use the d65 color profile on my main cpu monitor. I use it because it is the closest i can get to my broadcast monitor. Meaning that it makes my viewer and canvas the same in chroma as my external but the luma/gamma is different.

I am with in 10% and i know it will not ever be perfect.
However, i was wondering if there was some software that might give me a color setting to tweak it a bit more.

My monitor does not have separate color, tint, contrast, brightness controls. It just has presets.

Is there such a software?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

The overwhelming majority of computer monitors come from the factory calibrated to a standard-by-convention color temperature and set of tristimulus values, and the gamma is determined by the operating system. Changing any of these settings is fine and all ? it won't hurt anything ? but it's utterly pointless, as you won't get it to match, and you'll just end up making everything else you see on your screen look wrong.

yeah, its about as good as it gets. thanx

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

I guess your talking about your computer monitor, but here's what I have done and it seems to work very well. I realize that the purist amongst us may take exception to this.

There are several color calibration software packages available, I don't remember the one I have at work but if your interested I can check tomorrow. These are designed to calibrate your monitor, scanner and printer. I realize that this has nothing to do with broadcast, however this software also provides you more control over the settings of your computer monitor and sets it up to a "known" state.

I also have the MXO2 which provides all the adjustments I need to set up a flat panel to color bars. After a little tweaking I have not had any programs that go to IVC for QC kicked back. In fact we have sent 100% of our programs out using Color and this system. We have a Davinci 2K that is seldom used.

Yeah, let me know what that program is because i am really close to matching my external monitor. I don't want to count on my main monitor for CC, or grades but it would be nice if they were closer in overall chroma and luma.

I do a lot of web stuff and i want it to be as close to my broadcast cc as possible.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

You see the fundamental problem with that, right? You go screwing around with your graphics monitor, and nothing you deliver via the Web will look right on any other, factory-default graphics monitor.

It'd be just like twiddling the knobs on a broadcast monitor to get it to look like your graphics monitor. Sure, they match, but your monitor is no longer standard.

I understand that. I never trust color unless i see it on the external anyhow.

When you are trying to create a look or enhance a particular color, it is distracting to look at the monitor and see blue looking purplish. All of my web stuff is based on my external when it comes to color. I feel like the monitor is lying 85% of the time.

However, i don't have the parts to get an external feed in Color, so i want it to be closer on the screen. I stop worrying about the difference between web color and broadcast color and just shot for broadcast every time.

I have seen my video look a hunerd (that the southern word for hundred) different way on a hunerd monitors. It will never look the same on every monitor. I just gave up on that and started just trusting the external only.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

"The most wonderful thing about standards is there are so many to choose from..." Mackie mixer manual.

There is no ?factory standard? that all new monitors are carefully calibrated to. Even if there were it would've been useless all through the era of CRTs because the phosphors in them change colour on a gradual but continual basis. IE- a ?factory calibrated? CRT will not diplay the same colours as a new one after six months of use. LCDs are better in this regard, but not generally capable of the same degree of subtlety, especially in the dark tones.

Computer monitors can be calibrated to a precise standard, using quite inexpensive hardware/software calibrators to measure the actual output of the screen. This must be done on an individual basis, and re-done often. This topic is a big deal in the realm of still photography, where colours on the screen must match colours on printing paper as closely as possible.

Here's a starter:
[www.booksmartstudio.com]

randy

It's not that there's a standard to which computer displays are calibrated; I guess I really overgeneralized there. It's just that all computer displays come from the factory set in a more-or-less vaguely consistent way, using sRGB tristimulus primaries and a gamma curve that's determined by the operating system, plus the native color temperature of the LCD backlight being used. A computer monitor is not ? and is not intended to be ? a god monitor, but they're all more-or-less basically consistent.

Going in and screwing with that basic consistency just doesn't make any sense. It's not possible to dial in a computer monitor to Rec. 709 color specifications, not least because computer monitors use six or eight bits per color and TV uses ten. And if your target is online delivery, you want a monitor that's representative of what your audience is going to see. Just like in a typical commercial edit suite there's a god monitor for the editor and a consumer television for the client. The consumer TV isn't calibrated to anything, really, because it's meant to be representative, not absolute.

Matching a computer screen to ink-on-paper is really kind of a different deal, because it involves telling the computer how to transform colors (using what more or less amounts to a LUT) to emulate the white balance and color gamut of CMYK inks on paper. It's never been an exact science, and my understanding is that it's physically impossible to make a perfect match between screen and paper due to the physics of transmitted versus reflected light. But because computer screens have such different color characteristics, it's considered wise in some circles to make a best-effort approximation that gets the screen pretty close.

In this case, since he's talking about delivering online, it would be more like adjusting the ink levels in your printer to try to more closely match your computer screen, even though that's not what your work will look like coming off any other printer, just because you fetishize the notion that they should be the same.

I dunno, this is all just opinion-talk, and my opinions are worth no more than anybody else's. But the whole idea of dicking around with your graphics monitor to try to make it emulate a broadcast monitor ? when it can't, and when you're delivering over the Internet anyway ? strikes me as just appallingly wrong-headed.

The software that I was referring to is Spyder Elite 3.

I don't think the issue is so much about matching the deliverable as it is starting with a known or calibrated state enabling you to make consistent color decisions. If its wrong at least it will be consistently wrong and you can adjust from there.

I don't try to make my computer RGB monitor match my broadcast YUV monitor, I calibrate each to a known standard using color bars. Its just that the Spyder Elite 3 and MXO2 software and hardware provides the necessary control over the monitors.

As far as Jeff's statement - "It's never been an exact science," it is an exact science that's well understood and the tools to manage it are much more affordable. But I can get my scanner, printer and monitors to match.

Again, I'm not as worried about matching as I am about knowing where I'm starting from and having the tools to be able to easily make adjustments. This has been working so well for us I don't even worry about it anymore. Like I said we do the majority of our grading with Color, primarily because I have seven seats of that instead of having to pay a single high priced colorist on a Davinci.

Originally our attitude was if someone complained about using Color or insisted on using our Davinci 2K we would, but surprisingly our customers haven't.

I don't think its wrong headed to have a better handle on managing your color pathway. It might not make financial sense if all you deliver is web content that you may not get paid as much for, but I'm not sure that's the case, we outsource our web stuff just because we don't have the in-house expertise to deal with it cost effectively.

Hope this helps.

Chuck That is a very hot tool. Thats what i am looking for exactly.

I do 75% webwork and the rest is broadcast (5%dvd). I just want to aim for broadcast since the broadcast grades looks good online also.

THANX

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Glad I could help...

Do be aware all the usual provisos apply (IE money counts) Colour calibrating a cheap LCD will be roughly like like setting up bars and tone on a cheap TV- it'll be as good as it gets, but....

randy