Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

prizm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 29, 2007
146
143
Just received a 2012 Macbook Air "13 with Samsung screen. I'm wondering if anyone has any professionally calibrated screen profiles they'd like to share?

The screen looks good, but I feel like it could be tweaked just a bit to make the blacks darker. Every attempt I make to calibrate the screen turns out poorly. A complete travesty. Ha.

Any profiles to share? Much appreciated!
 

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
The only "professional" calibration is one you do yourself. I would consider either getting your own hardware calibrator or leaving it as is. Using someone else's profile even if it looks better could mean your screen's color accuracy could end up worse than it currently is.
 

lannisters4life

macrumors 6502
May 14, 2012
298
2
Sydney
The only "professional" calibration is one you do yourself. I would consider either getting your own hardware calibrator or leaving it as is. Using someone else's profile even if it looks better could mean your screen's color accuracy could end up worse than it currently is.
Expand on that
 

lannisters4life

macrumors 6502
May 14, 2012
298
2
Sydney
Well, each display is different, so nobody can give you his calibration profile that suits your display best.

The only real calibration is the one you do yourself, on your own screen.
Ok, so are Macbook screens shipped without calibration or with a stock default calibration?
 

stevelam

macrumors 65816
Nov 4, 2010
1,215
3
Just received a 2012 Macbook Air "13 with Samsung screen. I'm wondering if anyone has any professionally calibrated screen profiles they'd like to share?

The screen looks good, but I feel like it could be tweaked just a bit to make the blacks darker. Every attempt I make to calibrate the screen turns out poorly. A complete travesty. Ha.

Any profiles to share? Much appreciated!

Why would you want to use someone else's calibrated file? That completely defeats the purpose.
 

kattskrall

macrumors regular
Apr 8, 2012
182
235
I feel like i could be humping an old thread here but i've been trying to find a good profile just like OP. As explained every screen is different and the built in calibration is just donkey balls. I found a calibration software that is good.

http://www.bergdesign.com/supercal/

Supercal is a screen calibrator shareware that is actually understandable and does the job. Read the FAQ about how to do a calibration and then check reference pictures, you can find lcd test images at:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/


My screen went from some sort of piss-yellow-ish to properly displaying colors.

Hope this helps! :D
 

Dick Whitman

macrumors 6502
Oct 16, 2012
467
145
I feel like i could be humping an old thread here but i've been trying to find a good profile just like OP. As explained every screen is different and the built in calibration is just donkey balls. I found a calibration software that is good.

http://www.bergdesign.com/supercal/

Supercal is a screen calibrator shareware that is actually understandable and does the job. Read the FAQ about how to do a calibration and then check reference pictures, you can find lcd test images at:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/


My screen went from some sort of piss-yellow-ish to properly displaying colors.

Hope this helps! :D

Good stuff but immensely involved. Is there anything a little simpler?
 

thekev

macrumors 604
Aug 5, 2010
7,005
3,343
Good stuff but immensely involved. Is there anything a little simpler?

The article is not that involved. It actually leaves out critical information. You have certain available methods of communicating instructions to the display. At some point this application must feed data via one one of the conventional profile methods. Profiles are typically matrix based. The instrument measures the display output values to a given tolerance. From that it builds a description of the display gamut and a transposition to modify the instructions from their default values. Doing this by eye isn't necessarily better. While eyes can theoretically spot smaller differences, they are very malleable to confusion based on what is around them, and color differentiation in general deteriorates to a depressing degree with age. I read their article, and it's basically nonsense. Paying attention does not make it repeatable or solve any of the existing problems with other profiling software.

Typically I'd say to profile it as close to hardware native settings as possible and compare using reference charts to any additional output device you need to match prior to making tweaks. These things really cannot remake the hardware behavior from scratch. No matter what system you choose, they are pretty limited in how far they can adjust output without running into problems. In the OP's case, he has no clue what he is talking about. If the blacks aren't black enough, your options are turn down the backlight or clip shadow values. You can't profile something into having a deeper maximum black. You can only modify the backlight or assign a greater range to maximum black and eat the detail loss as some cheap consumer displays do with excessive sharpening. The other possibility is that the blacks have a significant shift in color temperature making them not feel black due to feeling saturated relative to the other colors. That may be helped by profiling, but shadow values are difficult, especially when combined with the viewing angles of a macbook air.

Okay.... tldr it's difficult topic and none of the available solutions are an absolute panacea to every perceived problem.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.