Calibrate Your Monitor!

If you really care about your photographs, and you want accurate colored prints, web galleries or slideshows,  you need to care about what your monitor displays.

Here's what you need to do to "Calibrate" your monitor.

Step 1: (Test your monitor and set the monitor controls)

At the least, do this step!

First. Make sure your monitor has been on for at least 10 minutes and darken the room where you have the monitor located. Make sure there is no window light, or room lighting reflecting on the monitor screen. Also make sure your monitor is running at it's intended native resolution. (Check the manual or search the internet using the monitor name/model number… to find out)

A: Simple Test

Can you see each individual step?

Are the colors continuous without any breaks?

Recommendation: Set the monitors Contrast to 100%, Brightness to 25% (If those numbers don't work. Lower the contrast and brightness even more… )

B: A more Accurate Test with Solutions.

Go to the web site listed below, and go through each page.  Read the information on each page carefully!

The Web Site is  "The Lagom LCD monitor test pages"

Another set of tests is available at FlatpanelsHD

Step 2: "Calibrating Monitor" Software.

A: For the PC:
If you have Windows 7, You'll find calibration software in the Control Panel

To start Display Color Calibration

1. Open Display Color Calibration by clicking the Start button , and then clickingControl Panel. In the search box, type calibrate display, and then clickCalibrate display color.‌  If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2. In Display Color Calibration, click Next to continue.

 

or try this software PC only,  (it's free and easy to use) called Calibrize (2.0)

B: For the Mac
In System Preferences  Choose Hardware > Displays

In the requester Choose The Color Tab.

Then select the Calibrate…  tab and follow the steps carefully.

C: Got a Graphics Card? Generate a color profile.

Most modern monitors (2007) are supposed to be calibrated to use the sRGB profile.
If you have an NVidia Graphics card check out "gamma-calibration" at Logom's website...

On this page Logom has instructions for setting and fine tuning the Nvidia video card driver.

 

Step 3: Get a Better Monitor and Buy Calibration Hardware.

Calibrating by hand/eye and software can be frustrating and time consuming.

There are different kinds of monitors. The chances are the monitor you have is a cheaper "All Purpose" type monitors, that uses a display technology called "TN" (Twisted Nematics).  Better, more expensive monitors that display more and accurate colors use a technology called "In Plane Switching" (IPS). This web site, PChardwarehelp.com lists available IPS monitors.

ALL Mac monitors use LED / IPS  technology.

To get better and more consistent results you should use an IPS monitor and a calibration device that will generate a color profile that your graphics card will use to generate the correct colors for display the screen. A good calibration device will sample your computer room's ambient light and correct what you see displayed on the monitor every 10 minutes or so...

Calibration Hardware?

Here's a chart listing what's available, Monitor Calibration Solutions

Remember, this is just one part of your total color management scheme.

 

Got a question? Send that e-mail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photoshop for Photographers -Week1 Review

Howdy

The links below will take you to the class web site and material covering most of what was covered in class!  Yes, I know we didn't get as far as I'd hoped… but, we will catch up!

• Home
• Week 1
• Settings
• Acquiring the Photographs
• What's New --Content Aware Fill

Objectives

• The Monitor
  • It's really important that you make an "effort" to set up your monitor, if your monitor is too bright or isn't displaying the colors as best as it can… you'll never be happy with your photographs...
    • Calibrate your Monitor
• Install the latest update for Photoshop's Camera Raw. It is now at Version 6.6
• Learn The Bridge
• Make a Meta Data file
• If you need to Batch convert your jpg files here's how
• Set Camera Raw Prefs
• Camera Raw Settings
• Space, size, depth and resolution
• • Photoshop Settings (we'll do this in week 3 )
  • Preferences, Scratch Disk, Undo's, etc.
  • Color Management
  • Sampling

Materials

The PS4P I CD

Homework

Apply the "settings" for Bridge/Photoshop and Camera Raw on your personal computer
If you have a question, post it here on the blog, or send me an e-mail, or bring the question to class
REMEMBER
Bring a flash usb drive to class, bring some photos that you like to work on too!

Adobe CS6 Upgrade Policy Changes Postponed! CS3 & CS4 on Track | ProDesignTools

Adobe has relented. and changed their recently announced upgrade policy… you can read the details here

Adobe CS6 Upgrade Policy Changes Postponed! CS3 & CS4 on Track | ProDesignTools:

Thanks for listening, Adobe!

 

 

Lightroom 4 Beta --- Free Download

Howdy

 

 

 

 

 

Adobe has just announced the release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Public Beta.

Today is it's 10th! Anniversary!

You can download it for free, here. it will work until the final release (Somewhere between April and October of this year)

Then you get to upgrade or buy the program.

If you have Lightroom 3, please use that for your regular work flow ---This is a Beta Release!

There are already lots of expositions elsewhere on the web as to what's new in version 4!

Have Fun!

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/whats_new_in_lightroom_4_overview.shtml

http://computer-darkroom.com/lr4_beta_preview/lr4-preview-1.htm

Lightroom doesn't like Nvidia's Desktop Manager!

Running Lightroom 3.6 on a Window's XP Laptop with an Nvidia Graphics Card.

I do 99% of my work in Lightroom an a Mac, and occasionally I use the above mentioned PC. I had recently re-installed Win XP on the laptop and had never turned on the Nvidia Desktop Manager. A few weeks ago I was doing some maintenance on the laptop and turned on the Nvidia's Desktop Manager which controls dual monitor displays among other things.

A friend brought over some photos he shot with his Nikon 7000… so I Downloaded and updated Lightroom to version 3.6 and when I tried switching from the Library module to the Develop Module, Lightroom would "hang" slow down, basically quit working.

No error messages, nothing.

At one point, when I force quit Lightroom the Microsoft error reporting requester popped up… so I wrote down the location of the error message and attempted to decipher it… found a reference to Nview, part of Nvidia's Desktop management software...

Web searches with the wording Lightroom hangs on WinXP laptop didn't yield any useful information…. but Did a Google search using Nvidia and Lightroom and there it was!

Unconfirmed at present - NVidia's NView Desktop Manager may cause problems with Lightroom. (Dated 2007)

Workaround - If you have this manager (and are having problems) please disable the NVidia's NView Desktop Manager on your computer. The option to change NView should be found by going to control panel and opening the NVidia NView icon.

Problem solved

So, now we know...

And, now I can enjoy using Lightroom on my laptop!