rMBP Colour Calibration

[Commy1]

Hey guys,
Kind of new to the whole idea of calibrating the screen to have a proper colour gamut. Can anyone lend me their insight?

I see that OSX (10.9.1) has a ColorSync Utility which shows a whole series of different colour profiles but am wondering what is what, which is closest to true colour, what I'm even looking for in a Profile that is best for Photography.

I understand their are programs/companies that specialize in this stuff like SpyderElite and i1 but I'm not really willing to dish out 250$+ for something like this yet. Is it really necessary?

Lost

 

[ionjohn]

Hey guys,
Kind of new to the whole idea of calibrating the screen to have a proper colour gamut. Can anyone lend me their insight?

I see that OSX (10.9.1) has a ColorSync Utility which shows a whole series of different colour profiles but am wondering what is what, which is closest to true colour, what I'm even looking for in a Profile that is best for Photography.

I understand their are programs/companies that specialize in this stuff like SpyderElite and i1 but I'm not really willing to dish out 250$+ for something like this yet. Is it really necessary?

Lost

Isn't it calibrated from the start?

 

[Commy1]

It's calibrated with Color LCD profile at the moment. Which I don't think would be an absolute true colour system, or at least not a recommended one.

 

[priitv8]

Kind of new to the whole idea of calibrating the screen to have a proper colour gamut. Can anyone lend me their insight?

Actually, color gamut is a physical property of a screen. You can't calibrate that!
If you want to read yourself into the topic, I suggest you check this site:
http://www.color-management-guide.com/monitor-or-screen-color-calibration.html
PS It also has a good review of available colorimeters and guides on printer calibration and using color profiles in Photoshop.
PPS I just recently discovered, that my Sony Bravia TV has a wider gamut than my rMBP!
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1697615/

 

[brdeveloper]

Hey guys,
Kind of new to the whole idea of calibrating the screen to have a proper colour gamut. Can anyone lend me their insight?

I see that OSX (10.9.1) has a ColorSync Utility which shows a whole series of different colour profiles but am wondering what is what, which is closest to true colour, what I'm even looking for in a Profile that is best for Photography.

I understand their are programs/companies that specialize in this stuff like SpyderElite and i1 but I'm not really willing to dish out 250$+ for something like this yet. Is it really necessary?

Lost

It's necessary even as an argument to send your rMBP to repair IF the colorimeter is unable to find the white point -- this is the case if your display suffers from uneven yellowing. If color accuracy is important to you, I think it's worth paying for an automated calibration. A lot of rMBPs are suffering from non-uniform color casts. I have been relatively successful arguing about yellowing with authorized service provider. I'm going to my 3rd replacement. If they provide me a defective screen for the 3rd time, I'll be eligible for a machine replacement, although it doesn't solve the problem anyway if Apple is still equiping newer rMBPs with defective screens.

 

[thekev]

It's calibrated with Color LCD profile at the moment. Which I don't think would be an absolute true colour system, or at least not a recommended one.

Color LCD is just a default profile. Any calibration in terms of setting hardware levels at the factory is something different. I don't suggest messing around with the other profiles. They are representations of either real or theoretical devices. They are there to tell the OS how to interpret specific color numbers relative to other color numbers.

Actually, color gamut is a physical property of a screen. You can't calibrate that!
If you want to read yourself into the topic, I suggest you check this site:
http://www.color-management-guide.com/monitor-or-screen-color-calibration.html
PS It also has a good review of available colorimeters and guides on printer calibration and using color profiles in Photoshop.
PPS I just recently discovered, that my Sony Bravia TV has a wider gamut than my rMBP!
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1697615/

Actually that's true. There are some displays that have slightly more direct hardware access, which can make good use of that emulation. When you calibrate the rMBP, you're doing two things. One is that you're writing a description of its gamut for the OS. The other is that you're writing a matrix to be multiplied against the outgoing values fed to the gpu's framebuffer to achieve the desired target. It's not really ideal, because you do have the tendency to drop some values in there, and it has other problems. Anyone who still wants to do so should use a darkened room and a display that has been warmed up a minimum of 30 minutes, preferably an hour with no power savings enabled. I'm also not surprised about the Bravia, but gamut isn't always a thing of bigger is better.

 

[Commy1]

Actually, color gamut is a physical property of a screen. You can't calibrate that!

I guess that was a poor choice of words, I know that the gamut isn't something that can change, only what is actually displayed.

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It's necessary even as an argument to send your rMBP to repair IF the colorimeter is unable to find the white point -- this is the case if your display suffers from uneven yellowing. If color accuracy is important to you, I think it's worth paying for an automated calibration. A lot of rMBPs are suffering from non-uniform color casts. I have been relatively successful arguing about yellowing with authorized service provider. I'm going to my 3rd replacement. If they provide me a defective screen for the 3rd time, I'll be eligible for a machine replacement, although it doesn't solve the problem anyway if Apple is still equiping newer rMBPs with defective screens.

I haven't noticed even a bit of yellowing on my screen, it feels very white and very even. I will continue to consider a calibrator, I've heard that one of the Digital Arts instructors might have one.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I guess that was a poor choice of words, I know that the gamut isn't something that can change, only what is actually displayed.

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I haven't noticed even a bit of yellowing on my screen, it feels very white and very even. I will continue to consider a calibrator, I've heard that one of the Digital Arts instructors might have one.

Yellowing is probably what you want. Very white shows it needs calibrating.

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Isn't it calibrated from the start?

A common misconception. However it is factory calibrated is irrelevant. You have to consider that all panels will drift. Also is the ambient lighting the same in your office as it was in the factory? Obviously not.

 

[thekev]

A common misconception. However it is factory calibrated is irrelevant. You have to consider that all panels will drift. Also is the ambient lighting the same in your office as it was in the factory? Obviously not.

Be careful on that last one. While ambient light can affect the comfortable brightness level, you would ideally measure it in as close to complete darkness as possible to minimize any light leak on the sensor. Just to include this if you had to prepare something for publication and wished to run reference prints, you would set it match a print viewed under specific controlled lighting. I mention that for others viewing the thread, because people viewing these threads sometimes get confused due to seemingly conflicting information when the concept of how to set the brightness shifts from one metric to another.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Be careful on that last one. While ambient light can affect the comfortable brightness level, you would ideally measure it in as close to complete darkness as possible to minimize any light leak on the sensor. Just to include this if you had to prepare something for publication and wished to run reference prints, you would set it match a print viewed under specific controlled lighting. I mention that for others viewing the thread, because people viewing these threads sometimes get confused due to seemingly conflicting information when the concept of how to set the brightness shifts from one metric to another.

Yes you are correct. I turn the ambient lighting correction off on my i1 and always calibrate in the dark. Because photography is just a hobby for me I do all of my editing at night anyhow. It was just to get my point across that a factory calibrated screen is not going to be correctly calibrated in the owners setting.