Aloha all you Imagers out there!

Well, now I've had my Gateway 22" LCD TFT HD display for a couple weeks now, and I got my GreytagMcBeth EyeOne calibrator the other day.

The monitor is bright and beautiful with 700:1 contrast. The color was gorgeous right out of the box, but of course, too bright & contrasty to match to my prints. I've run the EyeOne twice now. First in "Easy" mode, then yesterday in Advanced mode. The color looks perfect, but the brightness and contrast still are too much to match a print.

Any ideas?

Mahalo,
SPC II

Hi Stan,

You need to manually bring the contrast and brightness down on the monitor. After you do so you will need to re callibrate. Some monitors don't allow you to bring it down far enough and in that case you'll have to live with it.

Also, are you soft proofing in Photoshop so that you are looking at the image through the printer profile? If not, you need to do so to make sure that the remaining difference you see is not the cause of the paper.

John

Aloha & Mahalo John,

I do view the images in Photoshop in the same profile as they are sent to print. Adobe RGB 1998. I guess I'm not sure if I understand "soft proofing". I've seen the term used in articles etc, but if it means something other than viewing in Photoshop...??

OK, I took the brightness all the way down to 0 during the advanced calibration process. I checked it again, and it is still down at 0 according to the monitor's menu. The contrast was manually dropped to about 74% during the same process, and then afterwards I brought it down bit more to 70%, and that actually made it appear closer to the print. Slightly. I'm afraid to bring the contrast down too much, I guess...I did all that manually when I first got it, and didn't like the way it looked.

So, you say, to go ahead and lower the contrast more, then re-callibrate? What, on the "easy" mode? Let it do all the adjustments it can from there? How far down do you suggest % wise?

I can't believe how bright the screen is with the brightness basically turned off!

And mahalo for taking the time to help out with this.
Aloha,
SPC II

When you make an adjustment to brightness or contrast it changes the way the monitor makes color. I allways like to do the calibration process after those manual changes.

Photoshop has a "Soft Proofing" feature which allows you to chose the print/paper profile. Photoshop then will display the image sending image data from the source profile through the printer/paper profile before passing it through the monitor profile for display.

The important thing to understand is that when your image resides in it's working space, the white point and the black point are infinitely white and black. Ink on paper however has a max density and the paper white is not exactly white. So the only way to see the effects that ink on paper will have on your image is to view the image through the printer/paper profile.

This topic deserves an article on its own as it is a common problem many strugle with and it needs to become a part of your workflow. Doing it properly will save in lots of money in waisted prints.


John

Mahalo John!

I knocked the contrast down to 28%, and the brightness is 0...(I still can't believe that!) I re-calibrated on the 'easy' mode, and the color looks real good and pretty accurate as to what my Epson 4000 prints. Of course the contrast is still a bit stronger on the display, but I think I can get used to that.

Now, as for the "soft proofing"... I just went to find anything about soft proofing in Photoshop CS2, and when I opened an image, then clicked "view" in the top menu bar, then clicked Proof > Custom, then I found a bunch of options, of which I checked RGB1998, and Premium Luster 250, which is what I print on mostly, and sure enough, the color and even the contrast changed slightly! Is that what you mean as soft proofing?

Aloha & Mahalo,
SPC II

Hi Stan,

Yes, you did it. You can now toggle back and forth between viewing the image in all its glory and viewing it through the printer profile. This will allow you to make those last minute changes for printing.

I'll put in a little plug for our product ImagePrint. It really simplifies this whole process and at the same time makes the printer print better!

Cheers,

John