Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Hello,

I did search the forum, and found some helpful threads, but I am still a little confused.

I want to calibrate my monitor to set the colours and contrast and brightness nicely so that I can print some of my photos....the walls in my apartment are all bare. I'm not trying to brag about my stellar photos, I'm just too poor to buy anything to go on my walls haha.

Okay, so here's my set up:

Monitor - LG 32LH30 (that's a 32 inch LCD tv)
Printer: HP Photosmart 2700

If someone could just give me a brief overview of what it's like to calibrate a monitor, I think I would understand the threads I found a little bit better.

Thanks!

Basically, you plug in the calibrator, run the software, follow the prompts, then when it tells you place the puck on the screen, click ok, and the software shows a whole bunch of colours on the screen with the puck measuring them. After you can save the calibration, it shows you a test image (so you can see if the calibration went well or if there was a glitch), then gives you the option of calibrating again (for different ambient lighting conditions), or quit the program.

Then (at least for Windows) you go into your Windows Display Properties, Settings tab, click Advanced, click the Color Management tab, click Add to add the calibration file you just saved, find it in the list, after selecting the file and the list window closes then highlight it and click Set As Default.

Spyder, one of the calibration devices out there, has a page with documents to help you with learning calibration:
http://spyder.datacolor.com/learning.php

^^what he said^^^

thanks a lot. That is exactly what I was looking for haha.

I think when I bought my tv, the kids at best buy offered to do this for me for several hundred dollars.

Be aware you are using a TV, not a Monitor. monitors specifications yield a much higher resolution and are build somehow different than a TV; you may need to use specialized hardware calibration devices, designed for TV's not monitors. in that case use this http://spyder.datacolor.com/product-ht-s3tv.php

That's a toughie since it does have VGA input, but whether it has the same control as a standard monitor...you'd still probably use the standard Spyder than one used for TV/home theatre calibration (which is meant for calibrating with DVD players rather than computers).

There are people out there who will come to your place and calibrate your monitor, but even a pro wouldn't charge more than $100 to do it. The problem is if you are serious about calibration it's something you should be doing regularly.

I say it's not worth it if you're just printing for yourself. Would you rather pay $5 to print again or $100 to calibrate? Then even if you calibrate, the printing place may not be as accurate; then you end up printing again..

Well, i'm using an hdmi cable to connect the computer and the tv.

I did read that you should calibrate regularly, so that's why I want to invest in the equipment myself so I do it on a scheduled basis.

I plan on printing things at home. So, once the tv's calibrated, I'll be able to fiddle with everything to match my printer.

I'd recommend looking for some used calibrating devices, such as ones without printer calibration, some pro's get rid of them once they go into printing on their own printers, which also require calibration. This is how I spent my $70 and got a Spyder2 Pro

This is only the case if your printer is an all-in-one or simple printer that prints using sRGB profile, if it's a specific photographic printer, then you'll probably need a calibrator that can also calibrate printer. Not sure

Thanks for your help guys.

I went to vistek today and bought the spyder3 tv. i just finished the calibration. the adjustments weren't drastic, but I do notice a difference in the blacks.

Again, thanks for your help

(anyone want their tv's calibrated? I'll do it cheap hahah).

That's different and they can't provide a profile for you to work with. They calibrate it according to your room condition and bring everything back to specs.

I believe its $299.

yes $299 would be an isf calibration for a TV. Wonderful if you want to watch movies as they were ment to be watched but not so great for printing as you won't get a ICC profile out of it.

However if you have your computer hooked up to the TV and use something like a spyder2/3 to setup a profile and all and then decide to pop a dvd in the computer to watch it will also look good