6 Tips for Creating Better Monitor Profiles
Ok, you have your monitor and your profiling kit and you want to keep your display nice and neutral. Well here's Will's 6 Tips for making better monitor profiles:
ONE - Warm Up: Be sure you let your monitor warm up for at least 20 minutes, on both CRT and LCD displays before profiling. If you are in a cold climate, like we are in Chicago, warm up the monitor for 30 minutes or more just to be sure they are in their most stable state.
TWO - Use Gray: Selecting a desktop color of gray is smart because it fires the red, green and blue guns of the CRT monitors in equal amounts so your warm up time is most effective, and the neutral gray color in the background reduced eye strain when viewing the color of your on-screen files.
THREE - Use Gamma 2.2: Alright, I know the Mac faithful (of which I am one) want to use a gamma (contrast) of 1.8 for use as the "Mac Standard". Well, only Macs think that IS a standard, the rest of the imaging world is on the PC standard of 2.2 and if you take a look at the hardware that drives your labs printers - it's pretty much all PC. So if you are wanting to have your images match your labs prints or if you want to integrate into the rest of the printing and a good portion of the offset printing world, switch all your gamma decisions to 2.2. But if you are PC phobic, and your prepress tech / separation house is cool with 1.8 stay with it and be pulled kicking and screaming into 2.2 at a later date. My suggestion is to switch now, you will get used to it. We have 2 big Macs in our studio and they are profiled into 2.2 gamma and look terrific, and look just like the monitors on our PC's too. : )
FOUR - Use D65: Before you calibrate and profile your monitor with one of our recommended kits, get your monitor ready by making some selections through the on-screen menu options by pressing the buttons of the front of the monitor on CRT screens and some LCD / TFT screens. Set those menu settings to receive a custom profile by choosing a "custom" RGB setting, the gamma 2.2 contrast setting, and try selecting the white point to D65 or the color temp setting to 6500K. If you are working in a more "graphics" oriented workflow with your files going out to offset printing, you may want to stick with the D50 or 5000K white point, but for most photographers the D65 white point will work better, much better in fact. If you work in an area that is illuminated by a lot of incandescent light (screw in light bulbs) you may want to try the D55 or 5500K white point, but don't get trapped in the daylight / 5500K thing. Unfortunately it doesn't work out that way in this process. About 85% of all photographers will get great print-to-screen match using D65.
FIVE - Degauss: CRT monitors build up small amounts of image destructing magnetism as they present various images on-screen. This magnetism can make calibration and profiling difficult so we like to get rid of it before we profile. Use the on-screen menu on your monitor, or the software that came with your monitor to activate the Degauss function it has. It's a violent process and make noise and funny way lines on the screen but do not panic, it's a good thing but don't overdo it. One press of the degauss button does the trick every or every other time you profile.
SIX - You bought it so use it!: We suggest profiling your monitor every 2 weeks and it only takes a few minutes so use it. No need to do it everyday, and no, you won't wear it out.
Monitor Profiling Kit Comparison and Ratings
by Will Crockett, 11/04
The ability to see a photo file on-screen with accurate color and tone is essential for professional workflow regardless if your image was created on film or using digital capture. When your monitor was new, it's color was pretty darned close to "accurate" without much tweaking or calibration, but the monitor is the weakest link in the color management chain because it will shift color values as it ages. CRT, or "tube" type monitors shift their color values greatly over time and LCD / TFT (flat screen) type monitors shift very little. But, the LCD monitor just doesn't have the ability to present accurate color and tone (yet) when compared to a CRT; that's why when you are ready to get in-control of color in your studio, you need to be viewing images on a big ole CRT monitor, not an LCD monitor. No kidding, we have both in our studio and I can tell you with all confidence that our 19-inch, $370 CRT monitor is miles more accurate than our $1600, 20-inch TFT monitor ever will be - even after profiling. LCD's are getitng better but they have a long way to go. So for your studio's "reference" monitor, stick to the tube.
In order to keep your CRT or LCD monitors "honest" in their ability to present a neutral and unbiased image on-screen we need to correct for their color shifting. No problem.. monitor profiling kits to the rescue! We need to use a "kit" consisting of a color measuring device referred to as a "puck" that connects to your computer, usually via USB. The puck links up with its accompanying software application to measure how far "off" your monitor's color shift is, then builds a digital filter to correct for this shift; so no matter how far off it is (within reason)... the profiling kit has corrected it back to neutral. Monitor profiling kits don't do a thing to your actual photo file, they only neutralize your monitor and correct how it presents the image on-screen.
Your lab uses a monitor profiling system on all their monitors so they can see your file accurately and so should you. If you are not already profiling your monitor, now's the time to jump in because the current crop of kits are good, not very difficult to use, and well worth the investment. If you are already profiling, you may need to move up to one of our recommended kits to keep your system in tune over time with predictable and reliable results. Unfortunately, the biggest selling kit (not for long!) is the ColorVision / ColorSpyder line and it is not on our recommended list because we do not feel it hold up to pro level standards- here's the facts on this product.
To help you decide which kit is right for you, we bought or received comp "media" copies (fully operational) of 9 different monitor profiling kits to test on 4 different monitors:
Test monitor ONE is only 4 months old and has excellent image reproduction ability.
Test monitor TWO is 18 months old and has excellent image reproduction ability.
Test monitor THREE is 4 years old and has good image reproduction ability.
Test monitor FOUR is over five years old and has poor image reproduction ability.
In order for a kit to make it onto our recommended list, we feel that it must be capable of
* working in Mac OSX, Windows XP and 2000,
* profile both CRT and LCD / TFT screens,
* save the newly created profile in the proper folder to be used as the default profile immediately,
* and be able to "neutralize" a monitor to within a color tolerance range of 7 CC's of equivalent Color Compensation unit filtration values which is certainly a "noticeable" color shift.
This is easier to judge than you may think. We tested these kits using 2 monitors connected to one computer, with our properly profiled "reference" monitor right alongside the monitor in question, to make side-by-side comparisons between profiles.
Here's a comparison chart of the products we recommend followed by info on each one and some tips for creating good profiles for your monitor.
BTW, the photos below are placed correctly, this is how the puck will hang on your CRT monitor while profiling. : )
轉自
http://www.shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc026a.htm
接讀卡機也成的........