I cannot speak for anyone else, but I have two monitors side by side.
One is an LCD and the other is a CRT.

The CRT is set to 100 while the LCD is dialed down to 90 cd/m2.
Setting them this way renders the brightness of the two monitors approximately equal.

LCDs as a general rule are set too bright and contrasty from the factory.
This makes them look fantastic displayed in the bright electronics store environment, but makes for crappy prints.

Remember that even though your images bought from micro are purchased while being viewed from a computer display, many times they are destined to be used in print.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_sensitivity.html

Drycreek is one but there are more. I have a list here (scroll down till the bottom: monitor calibration).

That's about what I'm seeing too. My printouts are very true, so I'm pretty happy.

LaCie electron 22 blue IV
calibrated with Spyder 2 Pro

I've read quite a few articles about the importance of calibrating the monitor, and particularly in reducing the brightness of LCD monitors down to 90 cd/m2 in order to avoid dark looking prints from the image. I have used ColorEyes Display Pro to get to that level, and it certainly is darker that you would normally expect a monitor to be.

My question - does the group use monitors calibrated down to this lower level of brightness (which I am sure is correct for printing), or a more "middle ground" brightness because most of the buyers will be using monitors calibrated for a higher brightness level, or do you think it doesn't matter as long as the colors are right!

Steve

Since I'm not printing and the people looking at them are viewing on a monitor, I use a CRT calibrated correctly. Are you looking for some Kentucky windage adjustment which means you'll see things wrong, and then when they get to someone else they will see something different? I don't understand.

Calibration means adjusting to a standard, so everyone else in the world can see the image the same. Does that make sense?

If you want to do printing and selling, you can set up your software to use different profiles. One for the world and one for your personal printer.  But that's not calibration of the monitor it's color profiling.

I have a Huey pro under $100. There are probably better devices, but since it works, I don't have a desire to spend $200 - $300 for a better puck or spider.


Seems to work because my photos pass at Alamy (judged only for image not content) and they are very critical.

My monitor was never calibrated, so I am pleasantly surprised with the results, also in some of those links Flemish has.

Mine neither !  I have a ViewSonic VX924 and a Samsung SyncMaster 913n,  and they just did VERY well in those tests !!
Nothing special !  But both look fine

Never seen the point in all this so-called calibrating (which is really adjusting), the person viewing the images has no idea what the original looked like !!  Obviously it has to be reasonably close, especially for skin tones. 

How many times do we adjust colours in photoshop !  So why correct for monitor ??

I think they would know pretty soon: all their pictures would get rejected for incorrect WB

I think they would know pretty soon: all their pictures would get rejected for incorrect WB

Not necessarily. I have the old monitor and when I got a newer one, I could see a slight greenish tint, but black was 0 and white was 255, something wrong in the green/yellow areas. Never had anything rejected for white balance, but now I'd never send in most of those. I also have a laptop that tends to look great, until I put the photos on a calibrated desktop monitor, and then the oranges are yellowish and the reds change to something else.

Stu, The idea is, our eyes will adjust to different colors and actually correct in our mind. The reviewers can't see what we see, unless we are all looking at the same standards for colors.

For those who don't need to calibrate their monitor, just keep believing that the rest of us are either disillusion or wasting money. Anything you can do to help us sell more photos is appreciated. 

Maybe that is why I am getting clipping in the darkest shadows?

I struggled with this problem for a long time. NEVER clip the blacks: iStock won't forgive it. Avoid autocurves, autocontrast and autolevels in PS at any cost. I only found out by a high-contrast calibrated monitor what was wrong.. It's also good to detect banding in gradients, for instance blue sky. Previous posters were right: calibration is not that much about color but about luminance, especially in the blacks.

I have tried calibrating my monitor so that I can see all those blacks but then when I look at the best selling images on the sites, I can see that setup doesn't work, they don't look right at all.  So all I do now is look at images that sell well and make them look good on my screen.  It works for me

yeah... i am doing that, remember the other thread about monitors... i ordered the 245T, but it is backordered everywhere and i still haven't received it 

yeah... i am doing that, remember the other thread about monitors... i ordered the 245T, but it is backordered everywhere and i still haven't received it 

Oh yes, I do remember.  You definitely made the right choice.  Too bad so many others did the same thing.  Hope you get it soon. Maybe in time for Christmas?

nosaya

>> Yes, anyone who ever prints from Lightroom or Photoshop can tell.
But that could be your printer !?  and if u calibrate them BOTH (as I'm sure u do), that doesn't mean they are correct with everyone else !

>> Anyone who puts their images on a keydrive and then takes them to a friends house to view on an uncalibrated monitor can tell.
But of course, if it's that bad.  But that's down to his monitor, not the calibration of yours !

>> And the inspectors that are required to calibrate their monitors every single day can tell.
How ??  if they don't have the original scene in front of them, then how can they tell it's wrong !?

I'm sure they can detect WB problems or GROSS colour imbalance, but they don't know what u intended it to look like, do they !?

The first time that you a get a rejection from IS for "file has been altered too far from it's original appearance" you will appricate that they can tell.

Another example; I shot a test with a young African-American model.
I shoot raw and place a WhiBal card in the first frame.
The shots I sent her were dead on accurate, but she was unhappy with her skin tones.
She thought I made her look like an 'orange moon'.

Why? Because she does not have a calibrated monitor.
So on her screen she looked too orange.

This is the reason that color science exits and why calibrating to a known standard is essisential for consistency.

No one cares if the grass in your shots is a little too blue or too yellow... Unless the person buying the shot is in the grass seed business.
The same applies to many fields in science and industry. Accurate color matters.

And as in my example above, certain ethnic groups are very aware of how their skin tones are represented. 

Skin tones is the one place I see as needing some control, because we all have an idea what skin should look like   no matter where it was shot, or under what light.

Can I calibrate (adjust) a common monitor, or is it only possible with high end breads ?
My monitors have some control over brightness, contrast, gamma and colour, but is it enough for an exact setup ?? 

For those of you that don't think that calibration is important, please look at this link. In order to calibrate your monitor properly, you need to take the subjective human element out of the equation.

You need hardware to "view" the colors that your monitor displays compared to what it should be displaying and adjust your graphics card accordingly.

I had always thought that my monitors looked great until I bought a Spyder (a Huey or other tool will work, too) and saw what it should look like. Before buying the Spyder, I had tried all of those online "calibration screens" and it was still wrong. Only hardware, not humans, can calibrate your monitor.

My Spyder 2 Express just tells me reset the monitor to factory specs (I think...) before I start. The Huey seems like a good solution.

Quote from: simsi on December 02, 2009, 14:03

yeah... i am doing that, remember the other thread about monitors... i ordered the 245T, but it is backordered everywhere and i still haven't received it 

Oh yes, I do remember.  You definitely made the right choice.  Too bad so many others did the same thing.  Hope you get it soon. Maybe in time for Christmas?

hehe finally i ordered it on ebay today  .
all other companies have it backordered not earlier than january!! how can it be 
the guy on ebay is an Austrian photographer living in NYC, me Austrian living in Montreal, that's the best about it hehehe.

Guys calibrate your monitors, it is essential, there is no doubt about it. it doesnt have to be expensive. you can even borrow a calibrator from someone else from time to time or share expenses with someone or join a photo club and use theirs or whatever. but do it.

For those of you that don't think that calibration is important, please look at this link. In order to calibrate your monitor properly, you need to take the subjective human element out of the equation.

Followed the LINK, it took me to an ad for a Spyder3  !?  what was your point ??


They will tell me to calibrate I'm sure, but then they are trying to sell a calibrator, aren't they !?

Personally I think some people try to get too technical about monitor calibration, if you intend to print your shots then it is essential to calibrate your monitor in association with your printer, but as this thread is titled 'Monitor calibration for Stock photos' the easiest and cheapest (free to be exact) way to do it is this:

Take a shot of a popular subject and upload it to any agency, then go to that agency and do a search so that your image shows up amongst many similar others, if your colours look OK you're done, if not adjust your monitor.

Nice one !!  ;-)  A man after my own heart :-)

I'm new to this game and one of those Spyder thingies costs more than I am likely to earn in the next 10 yrs !!    Think I might try your idea.

Tell the truth, Richard.
I'll bet you have the entire X-Rite color management suite  

Haha, not quite but yes I do have an expensive piece of plastic that I can hang over the screen that I've had a while.

When I switched over to a Mac I rang a company who specialises in nothing but colour profiling, because I'm a technical idiot and didn't know whether there was a difference between Mac and Windows monitor calibration. Now bear in mind that this guy could have sold me the top of the range thingy because I'd have believed anything they told me (poetic license I'm not actually that thick technically) but he ended up selling me absolutely nothing despite me willing to hand over wads of cash. The reason is he asked me what I did, when I told him he explained that I'd be wasting my money because unless every other single person that will be viewing my photos via the agencies has the exact same set up as me, the same room layout and lighting as me (which incidentally should be a room with no windows and black or grey walls) then calibrating my monitor to the extreme would be utterly pointless because every one else will see a different profile on their monitors, he then explained to calibrate it to my set up using my old spyder and mentioned the tip I gave above.

In short he explained monitor calibration is important for printing from your monitor onto your printer, anything after this is pointless unless the other person has the exact same set up.

On a side note - I can't remember the last time I printed a photo, if I want a print I send the file to a lab (who's monitors are in a windowless room!) and they check, adjust if needed and send the print back within 24hrs for a fraction of how much I used to pay for ink and paper let alone the time involved, I know some people enjoy the whole printing process but not me.

Only problem with this is has everyone else done the same !?  in which case I'm no better off ! ;-)  Maybe I should compare with yours ??  But then maybe not, if u don't bother any more

My monitor is calibrated but just not to the extreme that some people would make you believe you need to, I calibrated mine to my settings so that my images appear the way I want them to appear when I view them on an agency site, I shoot a fair amount of people and if I were to check a similar shot I can guarantee you that some would look the same as mine and others slightly different, the important part is that yours don't appear 'odd'. Some people like their skin tones to have a slightly yellow caste, others opt for a cooler tone.

I had a look at your portfolio and will send you a PM

Quote from: lisafx on December 03, 2009, 19:21

FWIW I have owned three generations of Spyders and all of them managed to give me weird color casts.  

That's not a very good argument for buying a calibrator !!  

If u can't even trust them, what's the point !?   May as well eye it surely !?

Well, fortunately it is only the Spyder line that I had problems with.  Although others seem to like them.  

The Huey is cheap ($69), accurate, and so easy a monkey (or me) can use it with great results

FWIW it has made a difference in my results.  Not just printing, but I had some rejections for color casts and I don't get those anymore.

Whatever we say about calibration, it does not seem that IS thinks it is important.
Example:

Left is IS, right - DT (and this way it looks on all other sites)

I'm with Lisa. It works, it's good, reasonable price, it isn't complicated.

Bought one Huey pro two years ago and it works. Same as the look see or the compare or fly it by eye, but for the $69 or whatever it was, it adjusts to room light as it changes and makes things reasonable close, which beats the look and guess method. After three monitors and looking at old pictures from before, it does make a difference. Maybe a small difference, but it's worth the investment. (still a CRT guy keep that in mind)

Other reason that people keep touching on. Even though the buyer and people looking may see what they see because their system is not calibrated, for reviews it will help, for someone using it, it will be better and if someone wants to print, it will come out correct, not all strange. Meeting standards makes things more "standard"  and easier for the end user. Do you buy cheap lenses and the cheapest cards and used flashes from a bin? Why take all that effort, expensive equipment and time to make great photos and in the end, just have sloppy color correction?

Do you cook all day, making a special dinner and then serve it on paper plates with plastic forks too?

Quote from: lisafx on December 04, 2009, 19:16

Quote from: Stu on December 04, 2009, 05:22

Quote from: lisafx on December 03, 2009, 19:21

FWIW I have owned three generations of Spyders and all of them managed to give me weird color casts.  

That's not a very good argument for buying a calibrator !!  

If u can't even trust them, what's the point !?   May as well eye it surely !?

Well, fortunately it is only the Spyder line that I had problems with.  Although others seem to like them.  

The Huey is cheap ($69), accurate, and so easy a monkey (or me) can use it with great results

FWIW it has made a difference in my results.  Not just printing, but I had some rejections for color casts and I don't get those anymore.

I think that's a fair summing up

If u can afford it (and it's about �90 over here, NOT $70 !! ) then it's worthwhile, but NOT essential !!
It may help with reviews and if it adjusts to ambient light (a new one on me!) then very handy

If the other guys monitor is way out, then you're no better off of course.

If I find one going cheap, I'll give it a try ;-)

B&H in the states do it for �45 ($76)  which is great !  BUT, they charge $107 to send to UK !!!  Ouch !!  Anyone, on the other side of the pond, want to send me one for Xmas !?  ;-) 

Do you cook all day, making a special dinner and then serve it on paper plates with plastic forks too?

Love this (+ use plastic cups for wine)

PS:
People do not wary about buyers, if they are professionals they already have calibrated monitor.

Kone

Is this one any good ??

PANTONE COLORVISION Spyder Pro

Anyone use it ?  Is it an old model and no longer much use ?

Any help appreciated :-)

The company is Pantone/Colorvision, they obviously combined ar some point.  
I think it's version 1 of the spyder and says it's for up to Win 2000, so must be old ;-)

I've noticed this difference in appearance of images on each site...all my images are done with a calibrated monitor and using Adobe RGB profile...I think each site has it's own file processing standards...which are inconsistent with each other.

I've heard that the best approach is to assign each image the sRGB profile then they will look more consistent across the micro sites...does anyone do this?

Quote from: etienjones on December 04, 2009, 16:26

RT wrote:

Take a shot of a popular subject and upload it to any agency, then go to that agency and do a search so that your image shows up amongst many similar others, if your colours look OK you're done, if not adjust your monitor.

You are right . . .  after getting the calibration reasonable corrected.  What drives me crazy is that each site presents the images a little different.  It seems to me that images on SS have slightly more contrast then IS,  and DT kicks up the sharpening which brightens the image . . . .  or am I seeing things?

E

Always !!

I thought it was general practice to ONLY upload jpegs with sRGB !?

I read it was the thing to do as images are always viewed on monitors, not printed. In fact, I thought the agencies insisted upon it, or at the least requested it !?  If the client wants he can always shift it to another colour space.  ??

Wow - as the originator of this thread, this has covered a lot of ground. I carried on doing my own research and finally decided to buy the ColorEyes Display Pro software to go with my EyeOne calibrator and spent last night calibrating both my monitors. Before I started, one monitor was quite dark (I had set it at 90 cd/m2 in the past and I noticed some deep red blocking in fall foliage pictures) and the other was bright. The software is a bit complex but gives lots of information on the screen about what they are looking for and it supports multiple monitors with a different profile for each. I decided to up the luminance a bit to 110 cd/m2 and I'm happier with that for on-screen editing.

At the end, I have two monitors where the photos look great. If I have an image in Lightroom on one and Photoshop on the other, the images are visually identical, and my "blocking" problem has gone.

I've been getting a few rejections from IS for "artifacts at full size", and hopefully I will be able to see those now...

Thanks for all your comments - I'm sure someone will say that stock photography will never pay for a $175 piece of software, but I think it will be a good investment!

Steve

Quote from: KB on December 06, 2009, 17:09

I used to upload adobeRGB ("aRGB" for brevity) to IS and sRGB to everyone else.

Then someone here (I think) a few months ago mentioned they upload aRGB to all sites.

It's not a good idea to upload AdobeRGB files. You can't assume that a customer or a viewer will treat your AdobeRGB files properly. Use sRGB instead to avoid problems with over or undersaturated colors in the image. Some stocks even specify it explicitly. This rule also applies to all images shown on the web.

And some stocks sites explicitly specify to upload AdobeRGB files, so what's a photog to do? 

I'm not positive, but I think most (if not all) of the major sites now process ULs to convert them to one colorspace (be it adobeRGB or sRGB). They also create sRGB thumbnails. So, in theory, it shouldn't matter which colorspace we use. Though I agree sRGB is definitely the safer choice.

5c. Finally, if you are a proud owner of a multi-monitor setup on a Windows system, be sure you color management works fine on both monitors. Because if you don't have a separate video card per monitor, most probably it does not. Long story short, make sure you edit and proof images on you main (in windows terms) screen.

actually that's a question I have....without 2 video cards, I can get only one monitor right, isn't it? I am working on two monitors but with one card and have not found a solution for this under Windows (haven't tried any other OS).

simone

Quote from: 7fttallrussian on December 11, 2009, 23:03

5c. Finally, if you are a proud owner of a multi-monitor setup on a Windows system, be sure you color management works fine on both monitors. Because if you don't have a separate video card per monitor, most probably it does not. Long story short, make sure you edit and proof images on you main (in windows terms) screen.

actually that's a question I have....without 2 video cards, I can get only one monitor right, isn't it? I am working on two monitors but with one card and have not found a solution for this under Windows (haven't tried any other OS).

simone

Download 'WinColor.exe' from MS.  It's free and will let u assign different profiles to each monitor. Read the info that comes with it. 

I recently purchased the Huey-Pro calibration tool and must admit it gives much better results then the Colorvision spyder 2 pro.  I'm working with a HP LP2475w (S-IPS panel) monitor.

Like Lisa mentioned before on for the Huey, smooth color gradients and more accurate colors where the Colorvision would saturate the colors more.

For comparison and review on both devices :

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/pantone_huey.htm
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/spyder2express.htm

And for the monitor :

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hp_lp2475w.htm

Regards,

Patrick H.

Is that when you use it with the Spyder software? I am using it with ColorEyes Display Pro, is it the same problem?

Calibration means adjusting to a standard, so everyone else in the world can see the image the same. Does that make sense?

If you want to do printing and selling, you can set up your software to use different profiles. One for the world and one for your personal printer.  But that's not calibration of the monitor it's color profiling.

I disagree - you should first calibrate your monitor to 'the standard' using a calibration tool (like you mentioned) and then create a profile for your printer to match what you see on the screen.  You adjust the printer to the screen, not the screen to the printer.

I know I was singing the praises of the Huey earlier, but it seems to have gone bad or something. 

Tried calibrating my monitor with my new computer and the picture came out greenish.  Did it several times always with the same result. 

I also tried calibrating a new monitor with my old computer - the one the Huey had worked on.  That also came out looking green.

After some research, turns out that there is a hardware issues with the Hueys.  They have a tendency to give a magenta or greenish cast. 

Don't know why it worked for me in the beginning and now stopped...?

After reading a boatload of reviews I ended up getting the Eye-One Display 2.  Hopefully will have better luck with that. 

My monitor is quite good even without calibration, but I will feel a lot more comfortable editing images when I know it's properly calibrated.

I didn't know that about the Huey's , Thats what I use. I always notice the colors being on the warm side but never gave it much thought. SO maybe my eyes were working right.