# Useful to install color profile (*.icm)? Does Windows XP use it?



## sfogel2 (Jun 17, 2011)

Hi, all...

I've got a new Samsung LED monitor (consumer quality, model SMS23A550H), and I detect a very slight purple tint to the blues, compared to the LCD monitor next to it and previous LCD monitors I've owned. I wanna fix it.

A color profile (*.icm) file came with it and I successfully installed it. Windows XP doesn't appear to use it when drawing its schemes (color of window title bars, etc.). Can I get Windows to pay attention to it? 

Or is this file mainly for apps that go looking for it, like PhotoShop?

What would be the best way to adjust the color? If I use the color controls on the monitor or the color correction capabilities of the computer-bundled Intel software to adjust gamma, I can fix the blues but the grays get colorized. I think it's going to be in the calibration, but don't know where to start.

Also, one Samsung tech said that this LED display has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, which is working against me when editing photos. He said a contrast ratio in the range of 20,000:1 to 50,000:1 is better. Agree?

Thx

Steve


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## clanthar (Jun 18, 2011)

Been awhile since I fooled with XP, but if memory serves there's a tab for the monitor in the display properties dialog. Once there you can select and advanced option and manually set an ICM profile for your display. Windows should then use it.

Display contrast is a growing problem for photo editing. First of all 1,000,000:1 is a lie. Moving on, yes that's too much and if the display has a physical gamma control you probably want to select a lower contrast option. It all gets to what you want the photos for. If your final target is a photographic print on paper then you want your display to help you soft-proof to print and the lower contrast ratio on the display will help. Unfortunately that lower contrast ratio will make Unholy Vampires versus Bloodsucking Aliens look kinda weak. On the other hand your target may be a 36 inch LCD panel with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

Joe


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## Garbz (Jun 19, 2011)

Few things:

1. Colour profiles control the absolute limits of the colour gamut of the display. It is a profile of what the display is capable of producing and will not affect the colour cast (unless the profile is horrendously biased one way or the other which for even wide gamut monitors it is not).

2. To fix colour casts the output of the video card or the input of the display needs to be biased. This is done through a combination of hardware calibration using a calibrator and balancing your display to your ambient conditions. My display looks orange when I walk in from outside and start using it but after a few minutes it starts to look white again because my room also has very orange and dim lights.

3. You don't have a 1000000:1 contrast ratio. You have like a 1000:1 contrast ratio. The 1000000:1 is dynamic contrast ratio. It screws with your brightness setting and calibration in the most eye-straining and counter-intuitive way possible to inflate their numbers. The only technology which comes close to 1000000:1 contrast ratios is OLED. The dynamic range of typical photographic paper is about 280:1, but that doesn't matter. The contrast ultimately will be the same between a print and what's on display with only the range itself looking different. White is still white, black is still black, and if your calibration is right then middle grey is still middle grey.

4. Windows ICM does NOT provide colour management on an OS level. It only provides a framework which applications may use if they choose. So when you add a colour profile and set it as the monitor profile it changes nothing visually. Applications like Photoshop can then request the current monitor profile from the OS and the programmer has a choice of passing all colour management back to the OS to do the actual translation or (in the case of Adobe and many others) rolling their own colour engine to take care of it. 


For your problem it sounds like you want monitor calibration to fix your tint issues. Monitor calibration also provides you with a custom profile. To take advantage of this you also need an application that is colour aware.


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