Display calibration question

[kkamin]

I am going to buy a Pantone Huey to calibrate my Macbook display. I do photography and work with a printer so I need accuracy.

I work in sRGB. I am confused though.

When I calibrate my display what am I actually doing? ...I want to show sRGB accurately, so when I calibrate my monitor, am I calibrating it to sRGB specifically or am I calibrating the monitor to just be accurate piece of hardware in general? Its confusing because for one of my displays, I have a choice between many existing, calibration profiles--why so many? I don't get it.

 

[Kwill]

RGB = red, blue, green. They form the basis for all the colors displayed on a monitor.
Calibration establishes the hue and intensity for these primary color components which, in turn, affects all other colors.

Roses are red, violets are blue but neither is the RGB required hue.

 

[sarge]

Calibration takes place when you put the optical sensor in front of your monitor. The Pantone software generates tiles from the RGB spectrum and Grayscale values while the sensor reads how your monitor displays those levels. It then creates a file that replaces the factory default settings so that your monitor displays the RGB and Grayscale as accurately as it can.

When you chose to assign an sRGB profile to an image, it will display that image in an sRGB color space based on your newly calibrated display file
If you were to switch between the factory default calibration file and display file that Pantore creates, you would be able to see just how far off your monitor was.

 

[sarge]

sRGB

I hope you're only using the sRGB for web and not for your prints!!

 

[kkamin]

I've been repeatedly urged to use sRGB until I get a firm handle on color management. I've been told adobe RGB can be tough to work with. My monitor can't display the full gamut of aRGB anyways.

I hope you're only using the sRGB for web and not for your prints!!

 

[sarge]

My monitor can't display the full gamut of aRGB anyways.

What on earth are you using? One of those green monitors from the '80s?

If you cannot display the full gamut of RBG, then you'd be better off saving the $ you'd spend on calibration kit and buying a new monitor instead. Once you get the calibration software there is absolutely no reason whatsoever not to use the full 1998 Adobe color space.
Of course if you're still using a dot-matrix printer...

 

[kkamin]

What on earth are you using? One of those green monitors from the '80s?

If you cannot display the full gamut of RBG, then you'd be better off saving the $ you'd spend on calibration kit and buying a new monitor instead. Once you get the calibration software there is absolutely no reason whatsoever not to use the full 1998 Adobe color space.
Of course if you're still using a dot-matrix printer...

I wrote aRGB, meaning adobe RGB 1998. Macbook displays can't even show the full gamut of sRGB.

But it seems most people who can work with an adobe RGB 1998 managed workflow don't think it's that big of deal. Printers can't print the full of gamut of either sRGB or aRGB, and most people can't view aRGB on their monitors correctly.

 

[sarge]

Granted LCD's cannot produce the color range of CRTs. That may or may not be the case w/LED and OLED dispalys - I don't own one so am not to up on that trend. But the according to Apple 'any color printable on an offset press is viewable on an Apple Cinema Display'.

I really like this photo site, which delves into Bruce Fraser's Real World Color Management (which I have not read myself..)

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml

Still, I don't think restricting your color space from aRGB and clipping it to sRGB is going to serve you well.