Display calibration advice needed...

[phildexter]

First off, I love my mac and 20" cinema display. However, i've recently become very confused. I do allot of photography for the web and mac displays clearly display better contrast and colour representation (images look stunning) However i had the misfortune of using a Dell 24" display connected to the mac, working with the same images, and they looked terrible, washed out and just odd looking. i tried every setting on the monitor and non matched the mac display. My question is, the majority of people out there don't have mac displays to see the accurate colours and excellent contrast, nor do they calibrate their displays. You get an image looking great, only for them to look awful for the most part by others. Will calibrating my mac display better insure others see my images at their best for colour and contrast? I can understand calibrating for video and film (which i also do) and for photo printing, but for web publishing, i'm confused as to calibrating your own display when others aren't going to be seeing what you see. Please help

 

[Mr.Noisy]

well i always use a spyder calibration kit on my monitors, i find the images look ok on my 2 x 24" dells and whenever i view my images elsewhere they look the same, i view them on a friends 30" ACD & his 24" imac and they are the same as on my monitors, i'm planning on changing my set up and using 1 x 30" monitor but i very much doubt it will be the ACD and when i change i will still be calibrating the monitor, i usually calibrate once a month.

 

[Beardy man]

Just pulled the trigger and ordered a 30"ACD. I need good colour (graphic design on high end art catalogues etc).

Any recommendations as to what calibration hardware will give the best results for litho print work? I'm about to go fully free-lance (new screen/new MacPro 8800 ordered tuesday). At work we use Huey Pro's but I'm not totally convinced they work that well, some print work comes back looking darker than I would've expected it to be.

 

[phildexter]

re

Thanks for your advice there Mr. Noisy Much appreciated, I'll do just that, I too am looking at the ACD 30" Very nice indeed.

Thanks again.

 

[chinarider]

Spyder?

well i always use a spyder calibration kit on my monitors, i find the images look ok on my 2 x 24" dells and whenever i view my images elsewhere they look the same, i view them on a friends 30" ACD & his 24" imac and they are the same as on my monitors, i'm planning on changing my set up and using 1 x 30" monitor but i very much doubt it will be the ACD and when i change i will still be calibrating the monitor, i usually calibrate once a month.

I've seen the spyder calibration kit referenced a few times - Where can you find one?

 

[Cliff3]

I've seen the spyder calibration kit referenced a few times - Where can you find one?

Amazon or other places - a shopping agent can help you find online sources (once you're armed with enough info to perform the search). The supplier for this product is called Colorvision. A major competing product, which I use, comes from X-Rite and is named eye-one.

 

[Mr.Noisy]

Thanks for your advice there Mr. Noisy Much appreciated, I'll do just that, I too am looking at the ACD 30" Very nice indeed.

Thanks again.

best calibration kits are either Pantones huey Pro or Colorvisions spyder kit, both do a sweet job and you should notice a great improvement when displaying your images

Don't get disheartened if your images look washed out or odd now, once calibrated you'll be smiling again, do some research on color management, there are a lot of article on the net, you'll soon be talking about 'adobe 1998' and 'sRGB' & how happy you are with your images, good luck.