# Screen Calibration Question



## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

I know the point is to calibrate to a printer's standard. But is that or is it not close to roughly the *average *coloration of cheap computer monitors out there?

My concern is that:
1) I would like to have more confidence in printing and getting what I expect, BUT
2) I've never had any complaints about people online having color issues with my work that I can't see on my own monitor.

So is it possible that by having the screen calibrated, I'd get more accurate previews of printing but LESS accurate previews of what people out there online with crappy monitors would see my work as? If so, it's not worth it to me. Because my work is seen more online than in print. But if calibration would probably improve *both*, then it is.


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## JacaRanda (Feb 28, 2014)

I would be concerned with the prints and not all the gazillion crappy monitors; or monitors that simply have not been calibrated.  Even if they were calibrated they wont all match your calibration.  Pretty much impossible.


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Difficult to know. For web image sharing, there could be an arbitrary 'crappo standard' out there, that can only be gleaned by viewing things on lots of monitors, (old office monitors, library PCs, other devices). Not colour so much, it seems to me, but excessive contrast/lack of brightness could be an issue. How do the commercial .com websites like the New York Times, BMW, Swatch etc look on your monitor, as it is? I think there's also some Fuji test images out there, via Google; I had them as my desktop at one time.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

(@Jaca): Right but like.. okay here's a graphic:



There's a wide range of monitors, but they will ahve some central tendency. An average at point A.
Who knows where MY monitor is! But most likely, somewhere kinda close to A, statistically speaking. Let's say it's at B.

The question is: is the calibrated printer's coloration ALSO close to A? Or is it known to be pretty far off of the average of crappy uncalibrated monitors, like off at point C? There ISN'T a statistical reason to suspect this would be near A, unlike my monitor, because it's based on standard that diverged probably long ago from the monitor industry (or did it? hence my question)
If it's at or near A, then I want to get my monitor calibrated.
If it's off near C, then I don't, because 90% of views of my stuff will end up looking LESS accurate (online) since i'll be further away from the mean, and only 10% that I print will be on the money now at C.



> How do the commercial .com websites like the New York Times, BMW, Swatch etc look on your monitor, as it is?


This is an excellent suggestion. They look great, HOWEVER my concern is that these companies are sophisticated enough that they might be reading my operating system and blah blah and adjusting things like this dynamically to match me (windows users are more likely to have dell monitors than apple monitors, for example)?



I talk about coloration in the OP and the graphic, but of course substitute in "contrast" or whatever else is calibrated too.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> So is it possible that by having the screen calibrated, I'd get more accurate previews of printing but LESS accurate previews of what people out there online with crappy monitors would see my work as?


Hardware is cheap and software is free.  Try it and see the difference for yourself.

Do you really want to tailor your work to what "people with crappy monitors" expect to see?  Seriously?!


Buy yourself a cheap calibration unit, such as a Huey.  You should be able to find one for less than $20.  No need to go all out just yet.

Download ArgyllCMS.
Argyll Color Management System Home Page

Next download DispcalGUI (ArgyllCMS is a dependency, so you will have to have that first)
dispcalGUI?Open Source Display Calibration and Characterization powered by Argyll CMS

Run the calibration and see the results.


And, it's not just for printing.  Very good for web display too if you care at all about color or contrast.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> Do you really want to tailor your work to what "people with crappy monitors" expect to see? Seriously?!


Um yes absolutely, since that's what most people see my work on -- on their own uncalibrated monitors at home via the internet.



> Buy yourself a cheap calibration unit, such as a Huey. You should be able to find one for less than $20. No need to go all out just yet.


Thanks. If it's only $20 that's no big deal. I can just run around to a couple of friends' houses and different places on campus and sample 10 or so monitors cna get a pretty good idea of where I am in relation, etc. That's probably the best solution for me. Unless there are definitely tests measuring exactly this based on the market typical stuff available that people have already done that somebody has a solid link to (still need the $20 unit but not the running around town)

Or is that sort of thing built into the software you linked?


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## table1349 (Feb 28, 2014)

Making fine prints in your digital darkroom: Getting started


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> Or is that sort of thing built into the software you linked?


The software will show you your monitor's profile, before and after.  I doubt you'll find a database that shows those values for everyone else though.  I know what mine are, but I have no way of know what yours, or anyone else's are.

edit
Also, with that $20 unit, and the software I linked - while you're running around comparing your monitor to that of your friends', you can calibrate their monitors too, lol.  Calibration can 'drift', so it should be done periodically, but, IMO - calibrating once and then never again is still probably better than not calibrating at all.


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> They look great, HOWEVER my concern is that these companies are sophisticated enough that they might be reading my operating system and blah blah and adjusting things like this dynamically to match me


I don't think so, I'd be amazed if there was scripting doing that; I've never seen any applets or scripting, client-side, on webpages that can. 
I'm out of touch though, so maybe ?


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> > Do you really want to tailor your work to what "people with crappy monitors" expect to see? Seriously?!
> 
> 
> Um yes absolutely, since that's what most people see my work on -- on their own uncalibrated monitors at home via the internet.


I guess there's no reason to put any effort in then...  I mean, if the end user has a crappy monitor, who cares if your work is crappy too, right?

That's basically what you're saying.  "The quality of my work does not matter because my audience does not care about quality."


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Josh66 said:


> [
> 
> That's basically what you're saying.  "The quality of my work does not matter because my audience does not care about quality."



Optimized for potentially crappier outcomes than the ideal; that's good design!


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## Derrel (Feb 28, 2014)

Nice bell curve, Gavjenks!



No matter how carefully he calibrated his old office monitor,
SOMEBODY always popped up and said, "Your pictures look
wayyyy too bright on my 2001 Trinitron 17-inch, and on my
Mom's old 15-inch NEC running Windows 98, they look even worse!"


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> I guess there's no reason to put any effort in then... I mean, if the end user has a crappy monitor, who cares if your work is crappy too, right?
> 
> That's basically what you're saying. "The quality of my work does not matter because my audience does not care about quality."



This assumes that calibrated monitors are somehow absolutely or intrinsically "better" than whatever the monitors happened to be before, which I see no logical basis for.

Calibration is good because it is standardized for certain things, so you don't get surprised by your results later. NOT because those settings are just "the best settings" but simply because you know they happen to be the same settings as the printer.

So the unwashed masses out there with their macbooks and dells and whatever aren't "lower quality" they are simply *differently *calibrated, neither better nor worse. Having my monitor close to theirs is ideal according to precisely the same logic that being close to a printer's settings are when making prints: minimum surprises at the viewer's end. Which is optimal. They see as close as possible to my artistic vision, not my vision + some error.




The problem is that if printers and monitor manufacturers aren't in cahoots, then it is impossible to simultaneously have my monitor calibrated for internet AND for printing. 

If so, what I will do is probably get a second monitor and have one calibrated to each. But that's annoying and costs more and takes up space on my desk, so if it is unnecessary, I'd prefer to avoid it.

edit: unless that software the dude linked allows me to just click one button and flip back and forth between two preset profiles? that would be nice.



> SOMEBODY always popped up and said, "Your pictures look
> wayyyy too bright on my 2001 Trinitron 17-inch, and on my
> Mom's old 15-inch NEC running Windows 98, they look even worse!"


Yes, sure. This has always been the case though. Nobody in the 1970s expected their images to be ideally optimized for some old man with cataracts who is color blind.

You optimize for the average, to *minimize *this, never eliminating it.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

Also thanks derrel, I am kind of tipsy and was super impressed with my first-try freehand normal curve!   =P

(Also, I'm fairly light mousey brown hair colored  Don't let the B&W picture fool you)


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> > then it is impossible to simultaneously have my monitor calibrated for internet AND for printing.
> 
> 
> 
> Well I'm not an expert and I'd say yes, that's the reality, but is there like a print 'emulation' mode on software, (such as Photoshop, I haven't used it for years), that allows you to print preview, in the colourspace/profile that you use for editing or 'pre-pressing' print work?


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

I don't think photoshop knows what monitor I have plugged in, or it's current settings, so I'm not sure how that would be possible.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

I think you're missing the point.

It may seem arbitrary, but really, it's not.  Well, maybe it is.  It depends on what your goals are, I guess.  If you truly do not care if "black" is actually "black", then **** it, it doesn't matter.

I just don't get why this discussion is even taking place.  Just do it!  Give me one good reason not to calibrate.  And, "Joe Blow with his 6-pack doesn't calibrate" does not qualify as a good reason.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> If you truly do not care if "black" is actually "black"


Black isn't a real thing anyway. Unless you define it as absolutely no photons coming at your eye from a surface whatsoever, which lots of people probably go their whole lives without really experiencing more than a handful of times ever.
It's all relative. I want my monitor to as close as possible match their monitor relatively. Neither is right or wrong or true or false in any absolute sense. it's just "same" or "not the same." 128.713 units of gamma blah blah is not good. *Same *is good. At any numbers.



> Give me one good reason not to calibrate.


Is the graphic not clear? The reason I'm concerned about doing it is that there is a chance that calibrating for print might push me further OUT of calibration with internet viewing. Or it might not. It is just an empirical question.
And I now have a couple of leads for ways to answer it, though it will take some leg work, it seems.

I will certainly report back later on TPF if/when I complete that legwork.


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## runnah (Feb 28, 2014)

Calibrated monitors are really only useful for sending images to print. Even then you can assign solid colors to spot and process. Images are trickier because of the process nature of images. But getting printed proofs is the best way to go about things.

Calibrating to try to match other digital displays is a fools errand. You can only uses srgb and hope for the best.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> Calibrating to try to match other digital displays is a fools errand.


Why?

I see no reason why it's any more of a fool's errand than it is to try and knit a "one size fits [most]" stocking cap.
Simply requires sample data.


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> I don't think photoshop knows what monitor I have plugged in, or it's current settings, so I'm not sure how that would be possible.



I'm thinking of the tool that converts an RGB image, open in the editor, to CMYK. If your on ABCwebsite.com, and everything looks fine, then open Photoshop, click on CMYK preview ..printjob image looks drab...tweak the image..close image..open web image..work on web image..isn't that one size fits all?

If: 1. CMYK plays no part in your print workflow; 2. There is no such functionality in Photoshop, (now or previously), then I have no idea what to suggest


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> Calibrating to try to match other digital displays is a fools errand.


Why?

I see no reason why it's any more of a fool's errand than it is to try and knit a "one size fits [most]" stocking cap.
Simply requires sample data.

I wish there were some way to collect it without a $20 gizmo, cause then I could just get randomish respondents on facebook, TPF (uncalibrated people), etc.  But gizmo means I'd actually have to physically run around.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> I want my monitor to as close as possible match their monitor relatively.


That will NEVER happen.  Monitors are so "all over the place" that there is no "as close as possible".  What is close to one will be wildly off another.  The best you can do is calibrate and hope that most people have either calibrated or aren't that far off.

I've had monitors that were nearly perfectly calibrated from the factory.  I've had others that were VERY far off.

I think your graphic is far too "normal" - I think that the actual distribution is much more random than that.


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## Derrel (Feb 28, 2014)

runnah said:


> Calibrated monitors are really only useful for sending images to print. Even then you can assign solid colors to spot and process. Images are trickier because of the process nature of images. But getting printed proofs is the best way to go about things.
> 
> *Calibrating to try to match other digital displays is a fools errand*. You can only uses srgb and hope for the best.



Are you up for a fool's errand, Gav???? THAT was exactly the point of my little Cartoon Gavjenks throwing his hands up in frustration. Other threads, both here and on dPreview, have brought up the fact that there is a positively HUGE range of monitors and operating systems in use, as well as different types and or kinds of displays...there are super monitors, excellent monitors, average monitors, and then there are those like the "Mom's basement computer monitor", as well as dinosaurs like the ancient icons-burned-in NEC 15-incher like my buddy Scott STILL HAS on an ancient Win-Doze 98-equipped Dell system that he keeps his lawn and landscape business books on...OMFG, that thing is an utter joke...his kids tease him about it...I razz him about it... "Just one more season, that's all it needs to make it through," he told me last month.

Even remotely hoping to come close to what "the Internet peeps see" is pushing it. There are people with their brightness levels set to MAX, as well as people whose monitors are so dark that everything looks like film noir.


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## Derrel (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> Also thanks derrel, I am kind of tipsy and was super impressed with my first-try freehand normal curve!   =P
> 
> (Also, I'm fairly light mousey brown hair colored  Don't let the B&W picture fool you)



I will immediately make a hair-color correction to the Cartoon Gavjenks!!!

OMG--maybe it's my MONITOR that lead me astray when I designed the cartoon profile shot of you! Oh, crap....now I'm gonna worry and wonder! Either way, "light mousy brown hair color..." I shall do my best!!!


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## runnah (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> Why?  I see no reason why it's any more of a fool's errand than it is to try and knit a "one size fits [most]" stocking cap. Simply requires sample data.  I wish there were some way to collect it without a $20 gizmo, cause then I could just get randomish respondents on facebook, TPF (uncalibrated people), etc.  But gizmo means I'd actually have to physically run around.



Because there is nothing to gain. Printing is more of an issue because you will have products on shelves from different batches sitting next to each other and it would look bad if one box of Cheerios was a different yellow than another. Digital on the other hand rarely do you have two or more similar displays next to each other.

I have seen digital sign displays with 6 or more monitors displaying the same or one giant image. The color here is important but the video comes from a single source and displayed on the same make and model of display.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> I wish there were some way to collect it without a $20 gizmo, cause then I could just get randomish respondents on facebook, TPF (uncalibrated people), etc.  But gizmo means I'd actually have to physically run around.


There is no way to measure the light output of a monitor (and that is what we're really talking about) without putting a sensor in front of it.

Now, if those sensors uploaded their data to some server, then maybe we could know what "average" really is.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

71M said:


> Gavjenks said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think photoshop knows what monitor I have plugged in, or it's current settings, so I'm not sure how that would be possible.
> ...



The final color you see is not purely determined by color space.

It's 

Color in world --> [Filtered through sensor characteristics] --> [Camera or photographer tweaks white balance, this is the "art" part, and chooses a color space at the same time] -->[Possibly a color space conversion if you were sloppy and didn't plan what you were using your image for ahead of time] --> [Monitor hardware reads file and converts it to electricity in pixels, in variable ways] --> [Eyeball/brain interpretation] --> perceived color.

Camera sensor: Not a problem, because it comes before the "art" part, so I'm already adjusting that away by eye when I edit the image
Photographer bias: I want this.
Color Space: avoidable by editing with a known end goal in mind (edit in sRGB if for internet, etc.)
Monitor: The part I'm asking about now.
Eye/brain: Would ideally like to control for the average of this too if possible, but it's a lot harder sounding than monitors.


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## Derrel (Feb 28, 2014)

Hair Color Calibration Test Image


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

Josh66 said:


> Gavjenks said:
> 
> 
> > I want my monitor to as close as possible match their monitor relatively.
> ...



"All over the place" is irrelevant: it's still a distribution, it still has an average, and by being at the average, you still _minimize _error. I'm not claiming it's possible to be perfect on every monitor. I'm saying it's possible (and desirable) to be as close as possible to as many monitors as possible.


^
In either case--consistent OR wildly variable monitors--being at "X" is going to minimize error, compared to being at "Y."
It is somewhat more important in the consistent case than in the highly variable case, yes. But not impossible nor pointless in the variable case.





Derrel: Yes, good.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

And what I'm getting from people in this thread so far is that nobody has ever heard of such a thing as monitor makers attempting to make monitors to any particular standard, certainly not to the printer's photo standards. So almost certainly, then, the reality is something like this:


(The blue is probably even closer to a single line with almost no variation)

And there is no one solution. If I want the maximum number of people to see my work as I see it, I have to have one monitor at each calibration, or software that flips my monitor back and forth. And then edit the photo based on where I intend to publish it, in paper or online, using whichever calibration matches.

Assuming I give a crap enough to bother. Which I DO, because it sounds like a fun project in and of itself =D


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

I think pretty much all you can do is use sRGB throughout the whole process and know you equipment through constant use. Have two PCs: for web and for print, and optimize both for purpose. The web system is calibrated, and surfing the premier commercial websites confirms it's set-up right. The print system is calibrated for that job, and your prints look, in every possible way, "very close" to a monitor image. Or have two monitors? Both are calibrated for each task, both are subjectively compared to either a range of 'good' websites or your prints.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Your monitor can't be on both peaks at once, but it can be on both curves twice.

I don't make monitors.  I don't know what the hell they do at the monitor factory.

One would think that it would be in their best interest to standardize.  That they have chosen not to tells me that they know something we don't.


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## runnah (Feb 28, 2014)

You again are over thinking it. Yes there is a standard but what you are trying to do is impossible. Changing the brightness, hue, contrast, gamma, individual color settings all play a part in the perceived color.  

If you want an average find the most popular monitor and keep the default settings.

Fun fact, one of my sites gets millions of visitors a year and the most popular resolution by a mile is 1024x768 and most still use 24bit and shockingly quite a few 16bit and even 8bit.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> The web system is calibrated, and surfing the premier commercial websites confirms it's set-up right.


The premier websites thing is a good idea, but is only crudely useful. All it tells me is that my monitor is not WILDLY inappropriately different than everybody else's. As in, I'm not seeing orange where you see yellow or whatever.
It doesn't tell me anything about whether that particular shade of blue is as the artist of the graphic in the New York Times article intended, or not, etc.
I'm interested (even if just for fun) in trying to see if i can get down to the specific shade as closely as is possible on average by mapping a bell curve out around town.



> One would think that it would be in their best interest to standardize. That they have chosen not to tells me that they know something we don't.


There are lots of reasons why they might not, which wouldn't really matter to me for this project (since I can't control any of the reasons). For example, Mac OS uses a lot of shades of gray by default, so they might set lower contrast on their apple monitors than Dell does (who mostly makes PCs), so that you can see prettier, smoother gradients of gray in all their gunmetal menus and stuff.



> If you want an average find the most popular monitor and keep the default settings.


http://www.purplemath.com/modules/meanmode.htm
Mean =/= Mode.
Both are measurable. I want mean.

Although sales figures for the few most popular monitors would certainly be a useful step along the way (then I only have to measure one of each that I know the owner hasn't touched from factory settings, and do a weighted average)


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## Derrel (Feb 28, 2014)




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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> I'm interested (even if just for fun) in trying to see if i can get down to the specific shade as closely as is possible on average by mapping a bell curve out around town.


You still have to put a sensor in front of the monitor to do that.

So buy yourself a Huey (or whatever), download the software, the do your survey.

Of course, you will have to install the software on every computer you measure - and the measurements, depending on settings used, can take a while to complete.  Anywhere from 5 (minimal "quality" settings) to 60 (maximum) minutes.



There is no way to know without taking the measurements yourself, and you can't do that with software.


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## Light Guru (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> Is the graphic not clear? The reason I'm concerned about doing it is that there is a chance that calibrating for print might push me further OUT of calibration with internet viewing.



Your graphic is just guesswork because you don't actually know where on the graph your monitor is.  If you calibrate you know your monitor is set to a standard, and thus should be at the top of the hump of your graph. 

There is no such thing as calibration for internet viewing.  

By calibrating your display you will know that your image file looks like you want it to look. You cannot control how everyone else sees your image so give up on that. But you can control how you see your image and how others with calibrated screens see your image.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> Of course, you will have to install the software on every computer you measure


I was planning on just carrying a VGA adapter around with my laptop and plugging in monitors to it temporarily.
I would have to install for other people's laptops, but whatever.



> Your graphic is just guesswork because you don't actually know where on the graph your monitor is. If you calibrate you know your monitor is set to a standard, and thus should be at the top of the hump of your graph.


The BLUE hump yes. Not the red one, which is actually more important to me since I put more stuff online than in print.



> There is no such thing as calibration for internet viewing.


Sure there is. There is a mathematical calibration average out there in the universe. Whether anybody bothers to measure it is a different question, but it does EXIST to be measured. Which if I have to, I will do myself (roughly, but better than knowing nothing)




> You cannot control how everyone else sees your image so give up on that.


Sigh.
Why are so many people drawing an arbitrary distinction here between calibrating to print vs. internet? it is the exact same logic.
Guess what? I can't control what printers machines use either! Does that mean I should "give up on" calibrating to printers? No... of course not. What I do is control MY machine to match THEM.
Same thing for the internet. I don't change the world's monitors. I change MINE to match the average of THEIRS.


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## Light Guru (Feb 28, 2014)

Derrel said:


> Are you up for a fool's errand, Gav???? THAT was exactly the point of my little Cartoon Gavjenks throwing his hands up in frustration. Other threads, both here and on dPreview, have brought up the fact that there is a positively HUGE range of monitors and operating systems in use, as well as different types and or kinds of displays...there are super monitors, excellent monitors, average monitors, and then there are those like the "Mom's basement computer monitor", as well as dinosaurs like the ancient icons-burned-in NEC 15-incher like my buddy Scott STILL HAS on an ancient Win-Doze 98-equipped Dell system that he keeps his lawn and landscape business books on...OMFG, that thing is an utter joke...his kids tease him about it...I razz him about it... "Just one more season, that's all it needs to make it through," he told me last month.
> 
> Even remotely hoping to come close to what "the Internet peeps see" is pushing it. There are people with their brightness levels set to MAX, as well as people whose monitors are so dark that everything looks like film noir.



In addition to that you also would need to take the lighting conditions of the room each different monitor is in. The ambient lighting has an effect on how we see things.  I use a spy per to calibrate and it is constantly tanking ambient light readings as long as it is left plugged into the computer.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

I don't NEED to account for lighting, or people's psychology or eyeballs.
Yes, these things matter and they affect perception, but I can still get closer to accurate by addressing monitors only.
it's not an "all or nothing" situation.

Keep in mind that lighting conditions *also matter for prints*, yet you don't see anybody saying "Oh well, we can't measure room lighting for my client hanging this print, so I may as well give up and not even try to calibrate for printing at all."


Yeah, if you are Frank Lloyd Wright and you are micromanaging every little bit of furniture and decoration in a house, then go ahead and calibrate the photos on the wall with the room's lighting. otherwise, just calibrate for the print itself, and you won't be perfect, but you'll be closer to perfect than if you did nothing. Same goes for monitors.


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## Light Guru (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> Sure there is. There is a mathematical calibration average out there in the universe. Whether anybody bothers to measure it is a different question, but it does EXIST to be measured. Which if I have to, I will do myself (roughly, but better than knowing nothing)



And because it has not been measured means you don't know what it is and there for practically speaking there is no such thing. 



Gavjenks said:


> Why are so many people drawing an arbitrary distinction here between calibrating to print vs. internet? it is the exact same logic.
> Guess what? I can't control what printers machines use either! Does that mean I should "give up on" calibrating to printers? No...



I know I'm not referring to calibrating to print and I don't think most others are. I'm simply referring to calibrating you're display so that what you see is an accurate representation of the file.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> I was planning on just carrying a VGA adapter around with my laptop and plugging in monitors to it temporarily.


That should work.  Surprised I didn't think of it, lol.




Gavjenks said:


> > There is no such thing as calibration for internet viewing.
> 
> 
> Sure there is. There is a mathematical calibration average out there in the universe. Whether anybody bothers to measure it is a different question, but it does EXIST to be measured. Which if I have to, I will do myself (roughly, but better than knowing nothing)


When you calibrate, you're not calibrating to "the internet" or "the printer" - you're calibrating to the sRGB standard (or whatever other color space you choose).  Average does not equal calibration.


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Derrel said:


> people whose monitors are so dark that everything looks like film noir.



..hehehe good one.  I searched for a fair-use Blofeld (Charles Gray) picture to post, but nothing doing. That's my monitor at 05:00 AM btw.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> I'm simply referring to calibrating you're display so that what you see is an accurate representation of the file.


sRGB is pretty useless to me, because regardless of how they are labeled, monitors aren't usually accurate to sRGB. I care about showing files as they are actually most commonly seen, not how it is "supposed to be" but not actually IS. In other words, if 90% of people view so-called "sRGB" files under incorrect conditions for what sRGB is supposed to be, in the direction of being too red, then I want my monitor to also be too red compared compared to what sRGB files should be.

So calibrating to sRGB is not going to accomplish my goals. It only calibrates me to a world where everybody actually correctly uses sRGB. Which on Earth, happens to be otherwise known as "the printing industry" (and associates like some photographers and maybe other industries I dunno)



> When you calibrate, you're not calibrating to "the internet" or "the printer" - you're calibrating to the sRGB standard (or whatever other color space you choose). Average does not equal calibration.


If your defined absolute colorspace happens to overlap with the average, then yes it is the same thing. And since I am defining my desired colorspace AS the average of internet users' actual monitors and viewing conditions (the tool should take into account room lightings), then when i calibrate to my new colorspace, I will be also bringing myself to the average. They will be the same thing.

*Call the new colorspace "aRGB" if you like.* (averageRGB). It is identical to sRGB, but shifted linearly some amount based on the difference between sRGB and the average of what actual internet users have.

aRGB is not a distribution. It is one specific absolute colorspace and viewing condition, just like sRGB. It just happens to lie precisely at the average of actual internet users' conditions.


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> > I'm simply referring to calibrating you're display so that what you see is an accurate representation of the file.
> 
> 
> sRGB is pretty useless to me, because regardless of how they are labeled, monitors aren't usually accurate to sRGB. I care about showing files as they are actually most commonly seen, not how it is "supposed to be" but not actually IS. In other words, if 90% of people view so-called "sRGB" files under incorrect conditions for what sRGB is supposed to be, in the direction of being too red, then I want my monitor to also be too red compared compared to what sRGB files should be.
> ...




I just went away from the PC, and whilst eating thought about this. I had an idea, I don't know if it's valid: All the monitors in the world, display a range of brightness, (and contrast combined), from quite dark to 'really really bright'. So set monitor brightness and contrast to 50% and that's the closest you can get to the majority of users. We know that using the RGB colour model, this is also going to have affected colour saturation. So once it's set 50%, _then_ calibrate your colour. That's the closest you can get to the top of the _internet_ bell-curve, no?


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

Note that every time a person in the world throws out an old monitor and/or buys a new one, or changes a lightbulb from incandescent to CFC in their office, true aRGB drifts slightly in some new direction.

But this drift will be extremely minor and slow over time. If fresh data were collected, say, every year or so, then that would probably be precise enough for those calibrated to the "best known up to date approximation of aRGB at this time" to be within 1% or so of actual aRGB.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

> That's the closest you can get to the top of the _internet bell-curve, no?_


I'm not sure what you're talking about. "Really really bright" is not a number and neither is half of "really really bright." Regardless, no amount of armchair philosophy gets you to the true average of internet users. The way you get closest to them is to put your boots on and go out and measure them (or rather, a statistical sample of them).


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> > That's the closest you can get to the top of the _internet bell-curve, no?_
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what you're talking about. "Really really bright" is not a number and neither is half of "really really bright." Regardless, no amount of armchair philosophy gets you to the true average of internet users. The way you get closest to them is to put your boots on and go out and measure them (or rather, a statistical sample of them).



Well you can give them numbers if you want: very dark =1, really really bright = 9, The median is 5. Use five as the best setting for most viewers, in most cases.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

For your new project, you will need to chart the characteristics of as many monitors as you can lay your hands on.  (You still need hardware, lol)

With enough samples, I'd be interested in seeing how the "real average" compares to the standard.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

Okay, so really really bright = 9 of... what unit? Let's say watts per square meter.
Okay great, now "5 = average internet users." But this is just wrong! There is an actual average number of watts per square meter out there in the world of internet users' devices, and there's no reason to believe it is 5 watts per square meter at all. You just chose a number out of a hat.

The actual number might be 3.7 watts per meter or whatever, in the real world. If you just SAY "It's 5" you are simply incorrect, and that doesn't get us anywhere.

You need a device to physically hold in the room and measure people's displays.




Speaking of which, *I can't seem to find any hueys for less than like $100*, not $20. Am I doing something wrong? Not sure if I'm $100 excited about this project. Maybe I will be in a couple days.

I do work in a cognitive psychology lab... One of my colleagues in the building probably already owns some ridiculous $5,000 version of the same thing I could borrow.


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## 71M (Feb 28, 2014)

No, I choose 5 (50%) because it's the middle. Most monitor settings will be closer to 50% than 1% or 99%. Fewer people listen to a radio at max volume or minimum volume than at around halfway volume. Do you drive at 1 mph or 99mph? Usually cars cruise at 55MPH. So, I assume if you want pictures to look good on screen to most people, then opt for middle of the road values.


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## Josh66 (Feb 28, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> Speaking of which, *I can't seem to find any hueys for less than like $100*, not $20. Am I doing something wrong?


That can't be right.  Don't bother with the "Pro" models - the hardware is identical, the only differences are in the software, which you don't need anyway.  Look for the most basic Huey you can find.  Used.

Cheapest I can find after a quick search is $80 on Amazon for a Huey (non-Pro), new.  There have to be used ones out there...  They used to be all over the internet for $10-20 used.  If you buy a new one, you mostly paying for the software, which isn't all that great (it will not even give you a profile chart).  The "Pro" and "basic" huey are the exact same hardware - the only difference is the CD that comes in the box.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 28, 2014)

71M, okay I see what you mean now. But "people probably maybe sort of set their stuff to 50% 'cause... 'cause." is an extraordinarily hand-wavey and un-validated assumption, and I am pretty doubtful that would get me any closer to the true average than simply sRGB would.

Josh: I will ask vision researcher friends of mine for more tips on hardware or to borrow some soone. First, I decided to just spam all the vision professors in my department to see if they have advice / already know of a database like this / will tell me this is dumb / etc.


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## KmH (Mar 1, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> I know the point is to calibrate to a printer's standard.


Uh. That's not the point, because not all digital images wind up as prints. For printing photos accurately, you need some information about the printers device, known as it's ICC Profile.

The point is that calibration establishes a foundation for a a color managed workflow and allows for the standardization of color among a variety of devices.

In 1993, 8 companies - Adobe, Agfa, Apple, Kodak, Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Taligent - formed the International Color Consortium, ICC.
Today ICC-based color management is used the most because it is open, vendor-neutral, and cross-platform.
ICC-based color management uses a series of standardized device profiles and a method to convert from one device to another while maintaining the same or similar color appearance.
There are 3 basic types of ICC color profiles; Input profiles, Display and Working space profiles, and Output profiles.

There are a variety of Color Matching Methods (CMM). ICC standards determine how a CMM behaves.
Photoshop and Lightroom use the Adobe Color Engine (ACE)
There is Apple CMM, and the CMM Microsoft uses is called Image Color Management (ICM).
There is no 1 'best' CMM but many of us defer to the color science and management expertise of Thomas Knoll the principle engineer of Adobe Color Engine.
Thomas Knoll wrote Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw.

Another part of of ICC profiles is the rendering intent - Perceptual, Relative Colormetric, Saturation, Absolute Colormetric.
Rendering intent influences the saturation of colors and the relationship of various colors to each other.
The rendering intent setting is used with device ICC profiles as an aid to soft-proofing photos in an image editing application prior to printing.

There are different types of computer display. The most common displays can only render 6-bits of color. The 2 additional bits the RGB color model require have to be made up. As mentioned the vast majority of those displays are not calibrated and there is no telling what a photo displayed on them actually looks like. You also have to consider that while color management on Windows and Apple computers is pretty much the same Apple has a habit of breaking it's color management with OS updates.


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## Gavjenks (Mar 1, 2014)

Ok KMH, there's more to it than what I thought for standardizing to printers. Like I said in the OP I've never done it before. Thank you for the extra info.

But still, what I need is, I guess, the ICC profiles of a sample of random internet users, then. 

The bit rate doesn't seem like much of an issue. Rounding errors between 6 and 8 bits are probably sufficiently small as to almost all be under the threshold of minimal detectable human differences (not always/fully, but close)


And I have worked with CIE Lab color space and all its fun little perceptual foibles for my work before.


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## kathyt (Mar 1, 2014)

Just calibrate your damn monitor!


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## Derrel (Mar 1, 2014)

[Gavjenks_finding The Holy Average Grail.jpg]


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## 71M (Mar 1, 2014)

I've consulted The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy and the answer is 42.


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## table1349 (Mar 1, 2014)

71M said:


> I've consulted The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy and the answer is 42.




You just now figuring that out???? 


  Word of warning, if a couple of white mice want to feed you a nice meal, don't sit on the chair.:mrgreen:


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## Light Guru (Mar 1, 2014)

Derrel said:


> View attachment 67806
> 
> [Gavjenks_finding The Holy Average Grail.jpg]



That screen definitely needs to be properly calibrated it looks a bit yellow.


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## 71M (Mar 1, 2014)

Light Guru said:


> Derrel said:
> 
> 
> > View attachment 67806
> ...



Light yellow, or dark yellow? I'd go with medium yellow.


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