calibrating my monitor

I have now rectified the problem, stupidly I was using old software that did work but not as its supposed to with Vista..

So after looking into the problem extensively I found the updated software and it calibrated both monitors :)

How can I confirm how accurate this calibration is? especially when viewing photos?

Is there a site I can go to which would read my monitor settings / profile?

I did see the before and after results in the software used to calibrate my monitor but I wanted to test this further..

Thanks for your help
 
That's fantastic news, xirokx, I'm glad you got it sorted.

There's only one piece of software that I know of that can give you a report on your monitor's accuracy and that comes with the LaCie Blue Eye Pro. You'll have seen the results - it's the bar graph that's used extensively on monitor reviews, particularly those on TFT Central. Unfortunately you'd need to purchase the calibration device as the software isn't available as freeware.

The next step is to see how close your on-screen results come to the printed versions. Do you own a photo printer or do you use an online service like Photobox?
 
it's the bar graph that's used extensively on monitor reviews
Click to expand...

I have indeed seen this familar bar graph which states my monitor is calibrated correctly however for some reason I think it may be a tad "tiny weeny" bit dark - i'm guessing and am not sure hence my initial request...

I do have a epson dx3800, are you saying a correctly calibrated monitor displays an image 100% the same as it prints?

Thanks glitch :)
 
What the graph shows is the difference between the perfect colours and the colours your monitor is currently showing. It doesn't change anything, just merely gives you a nice graphical representation of what's what.

If you could get hold of a copy of the LaCie software you'd be able to use your Spyder 2 to run a calbration test and see how you're monitor is performing. It's a bugger to get hold of though - although there might be some very old versions knocking about the interweb somewhere. All a bit dodgy though, but you never know your luck.

As for printing, that's really the essence of why we calibrate our monitors. The more accurate your monitor is the better chance you have of getting the results you want from your printer. You need to get hold of an ICC profile for your printer - I think it would have come with one on the disc, but this is a generic one and not necessarily going to be completely accurate for your own printer. It'll do fine though.

What we do is use this ICC printer profile in Photoshop to 'proof' your images so you can see on screen what they should look like when printed. This is under View > Proof Setup > Custom to get the ICC profile working once it's loaded onto your PC and then View > Proof Colours to simulate the results. The more accurate your monitor is and the profile are the better the results will be.

I don't have a home printer but I have profiles for the online labs I use and their devices. I know my monitor is about as accurate as I could want, give or take a little tweak now and again, so when I proof my colours I know how my work will look on paper/canvas/whatever. Usually you need to save a separate version of your image that has been tweaked to look 'right' once its printed as the standard version and the proof very rarely look the same!
 
Hi glitch,

What can you recommend / use for photobox? i use them and have received a sample 6x4 print in gloss from them that i manually adjust my pix before uploading. is there a better way or is that basically it? my screen is calibrated with a Huey Pro but when i print, i had to in the past brighten pix for printing ie. my screen was probably too bright.

Having said that, I print in matt so the photobox sample is useful but not 100% accurate but close enough.

thanks in advance.
 
There have been murmurings around the web that the quality of Photobox's service is gradually declining but that shouldn't make any difference to what I'm going to try and explain. I'm sure you're aware that they use three difference printers; anything under 15" x 10" is printed by a FujiFilm Frontier 370 or 390 and anything larger comes from a Polielectronica Laserlab.

Photobox say that the Fuji machines strip out any embedded profiles but I used to have a set so you could at least 'soft proof' in Photoshop for a rough idea of what you were going to get. Fortunately I very rarely used them for small-format printing so I was able to use profiles for paper the Polielectronica Laserlab.

Click on the URLs below to download the profiles you'll need.

Glossy
Matt

And follow these instructions on how to use them.
 
glitch said:
Click on the URLs below to download the profiles you'll need.

Glossy
Matt

And follow these instructions on how to use them.
Click to expand...

hi giltch - i've still not had the opportunity to fully explore your suggested method but I have downloaded the files and started reading the link. Will let you know how i go.

Thanks for the time and effort posting this. :)
 
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