Can someone explain to me how xrite calibration works?

Bluesun311 said:
It would appear that in a way x-rite has made their software "better" for use with the id3 "pro" probe by including factory calibration code for it (as opposed to the colormunki display which is also slower in taking measurements). It seems to me calibrations made with dispcal are higher quality and more configurable but the white level I described above as being pinkish comes out cooler and more neutral using the x-rite software.
Click to expand...

Three possibilities:

1) Instrument is ill calibrated relative to the spectral properties of your display.

2) Software is generating a bad LUT

3) Everything is fine, but you're so used to the previous display state that you need time to get used to the new look.

Download the latest HCFR here and check your primaries and grayscale, and report the results.


Bluesun311 said:
Is this because I am doing something wrong, is it because you can't change a displays primary RGB levels with software, or is it because the best results need to include the native RGB levels of the display?
Click to expand...

Not sure exactly what you're asking, but you can't change your primaries with a 1D LUT, and even with a 3D LUT you can't expand your color gamut.
 
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Bluesun311 said:
And also, can anyone with an educated opinion please comment on the pre-calibrated measurements posted above for the Yamakasi catleap: would you recommend forcing icc profiles on a display like this while gaming? It doesnt seem to make a difference on games I try on steam. Yasamoka's color sustainer program has an option for 10bit output that was supposed to reduce banding on 8bit displays as thoug it were an FRC matrix but it doesn't work for me. Is this not a possible legitimate way to deal with the issue of post-calibration greyscale banding and optionally wide gamut displays with no srgb mode? Can we really not display 8bit material correctly on the ccfl displays with no srgb mode period? I'm puzzled that people don't notice it. The greens are supposed to be really unnatural looking when displayed this way right?
Click to expand...

You're already using dispcal, so why are you worrying about ICC profiles??

As for the banding issue, as I understand it, it comes down to the bit depth of your display LUT and your video card. Windows can specify LUTs with 16 bit precision, but those values will be rounded to integers if your monitor only has an 8 bit LUT and/or your video card LUT has 10 bit.
 
spacediver said:
You're already using dispcal, so why are you worrying about ICC profiles??

As for the banding issue, as I understand it, it comes down to the bit depth of your display LUT and your video card. Windows can specify LUTs with 16 bit precision, but those values will be rounded to integers if your monitor only has an 8 bit LUT and/or your video card LUT has 10 bit.
Click to expand...

Mostly because I don't know what I'm doing :D but your question confueses me because dispcal loads .icms and creates them and Color Sustainer can force them. I know icc and icm is not the exact same structure, is that what you mean?

I guess I don't fully grasp what all dispcal is actually doing.
I have been using HCFR to verify the measurements and the primary colors are way off. Delta E on Red and Blue near like 4 and 6 and Green is like -2
Dispcal agrees with this and both HCFR and dispcal say the calibration is achieving ~100% sRGB coverage, which is the best I've been able to get from this display. However, my confusion shall be illustrated below, sorry for the large sceenshots. These are all from HCFR
First, the CIE diagram, which looks fine.
hcfr1_zpsfabcd716.png~original

Then the Primary color measurement, which seems to have really high delta E's:
hcfr2_zps6586a121.png~original

But then, the color checker measurements... which look much better, but confuse me as the RGB delta Es (at the far right of the following graph) do not match the primary color level Delta Es:
hcfr3_zps12d16f5d.png~original
 
You're fine (assuming your instrument is accurate). More important to have a good white balance than it is to have primaries that are right on target. And there's nothing you can really do about primaries in most situations. Are your delta E's that low for the entire grayscale? (all I see is 50-100).

Also, remember that delta E is an attempt at a perceptually uniform metric. Just because things look close in CIE xy space doesn't mean they're close in perceptual space. Depending on where you are in CIE xy space, things can be perceptually magnified or compressed.

Dispcal is basically creating a 1D lookup table for your system. That's all you need. Thing is, when you profiled your system with dispcal (when it did all those measurements), you may have been doing that with the ICC/ICM already loaded. Hard to say. Ideally you want to linearize your LUT before doing any profiling and calibration, but your delta E's look fine so perhaps just keep everything as is.

Also see my post here that may clear up some confusion about ICCs and LUTs
 
Bluesun311 said:
Ok I think I can wrap my head around what the current debate is.

I have some questions specific to the x-rite iprofiler software and specific to monitors that have no OSD and no way to control primary RGB levels. And this includes 10bit wide gamut displays with no srgb mode.

It would appear that in a way x-rite has made their software "better" for use with the id3 "pro" probe by including factory calibration code for it (as opposed to the colormunki display which is also slower in taking measurements). It seems to me calibrations made with dispcal are higher quality and more configurable but the white level I described above as being pinkish comes out cooler and more neutral using the x-rite software. What am I doing wrong? There's 2 programs right now that both are set up to load profiles, though x-rite doesn't have a profile to use configured it seems to mess with the gamma on windows loading. Likewise dispcalGUI wants to load a profile and does at start, and set up this way dispcal tells me my profiles are getting better srgb coverage than if I disable the x-rite gamma loader. Very confusing. Any suggestions?

Add to that the factor of owning displays with no color brightness or contrast controls (these are everywhere guys) calibration becomes pretty gnarly and mysterious. I have asked why it is that my RGB levels don't change in delta e from being profiled. The gamma curve improves the contrast ratio is reduced along with black crush, but the primary colors remain way off. Is this because I am doing something wrong, is it because you can't change a displays primary RGB levels with software, or is it because the best results need to include the native RGB levels of the display?
Click to expand...

Using X-Rite software and dispcalGUI can create a big mess. X-Rite i1Profiler loads a special program/driver (XRD?) in startup that enforces a saved profile and that may compete with dispcalGUI. This is why dealing with ICC profiles is such a mess. I would not do that either. You do not need i1Profiler as it is VERY inferior to dispcalGUI & ArgyllCMS. DispcalGUI & Windows OS Color Management profiles can also compete with each other.

I would:
1. Uninstall i1Profiler entirely, delete all folders and profiles related to it, and also get rid of the secondary X-Rite driver in startup (XRD is the name, no?) or whatever else loads in startup related to X-Rite.
2. Uninstall dispcalGUI and all profiles entirely for now & delete all related drivers & profiles, including 0Install/Zero Install folders.
3. Delete ALL ICC profiles completely in Windows Color Management and make sure none are selected, which would enforce the default profile. Make sure to delete ALL delete-able profiles from the "All Profiles" tab and remove them from "Devices tab".
4. Restart and run CCleaner file cleaning & registry cleaning if you have that.

Then I would:
1. Install dispcalGUI ONLY and update it.
2. Calibrate using D65 standard with BT.1886 gamma. Your resulting profile files should include a .LUT file.
3. Do NOT apply or install the result profile in an .icm / ICC profile form and select to NOT manage/load/install it by OS and NOT by dispcalGUI! Make it all blank/unticked!
4. Find the .LUT file from your result folder/files and place it somewhere separate for keeping after renaming it into something else. Then, delete ALL other calibration-related result files for that calibration/profile, except for that .LUT file of course.
4. Simply load and apply that LUT file in dispcalGUI manually! Its the same exact thing as having ICC profiles, but it doesn't create an ICC profile mess for your OS or dispcalGUI. To have the profile loaded automatically upon OS startup, read the steps further.
5. Download Monitor Calibration Wizard, install it as administrator and load it as such also (right click and select "Run as Admin" for installation and for launch) - this is very important, especially for Windows 8/8.1, but also 7.
6. Load the .LUT file into dispcalGUI if you haven't done so yet.
7. While your .LUT profile file is loaded into dispcalGUI, open Monitor Calibration Wizard as an administrator type in whatever under "Profile name" and press SAVE. That will simply save your already-loaded LUT profile in Monitor Calibration Wizard's own format, which in turn, will apply it and force upon every reboot in addition to forcing the profile in many games.

I just don't find neither dispcalGUI nor Windows color management profile systems to be nearly as organized and hassle-free as Monitor Calibration Wizard's simplicity and function. Windows OS Color Management & dispcalGUI tend to make a mess and compete with each other, but Monitor Calibration Wizard keeps them in a nice organized manner and forces them too.

Also, I hope you know how to compensate for the black level rise that occurs with ArgyllCMS calibration and lowers your contrast ratio. If not, then I'll let you know how once you figure out what I just typed up (if you want).


And if you want to PROPERLY get rid of the pink tint created by i1Display Pro calibration without just randomly increasing this or that to make it seem white, then you need to rent ColorMunki Photo spectrometer and profile your colorimeter. OR just leave the PC for a few minutes, come back, and let your eyes adjust - there will no longer be any pink tint!
 
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spacediver said:
Thing is, when you profiled your system with dispcal (when it did all those measurements), you may have been doing that with the ICC/ICM already loaded. Hard to say. Ideally you want to linearize your LUT before doing any profiling and calibration, but your delta E's look fine so perhaps just keep everything as is.
Click to expand...

I went so far as to repeatedly reinstall windows to make sure I was installing things in the correct order and disabling them to leave a completely clean non-profiled setup for dispcal to work with.

The only question mark concerning this is the option that Dispcal gives to "reset video card gamma table." I would assume, however, that it is immediately set again once the calibration process begins unless you check the option for "Do not use video card gamma table to apply calibration". I think that sounds logical. I'll go with that. :p Thanks for all your input, spacediver.

Edit: It does not seem like dispcal will work properly using an id3 pro if iProfiler is not installed. It needs something to initialize the probe, I'm guessing, but the gamma loader and iprofiler tray program just need to be disabled and all is OK. But damn, yah icc profile experimentation is definitely messy, especially when you throw a lot of different overclocked refresh rates into the mix...

I do think the icc profile program that Yasamoka made is good, Color Sustainer. It works properly and auto loads at windows startup if dispcal's autoloader is disabled once the icm has been created with it. I haven't been able to do much testing as far as when it fails or not, but it does work a lot. The question I would have to ask Sailor Moon is, is this really a bad thing to force an icc profile in games? I can't even tell when it's working or not half the time... I guess it would be easier to know if my calibration were wildly different from the displays native state but it just isn't. Slightly darker.
 
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MonarchX said:
I would:
1. Uninstall i1Profiler entirely, delete all folders and profiles related to it, and also get rid of the secondary X-Rite driver in startup (XRD is the name, no?) or whatever else loads in startup related to X-Rite.
2. Uninstall dispcalGUI and all profiles entirely for now & delete all related drivers & profiles, including 0Install/Zero Install folders.
3. Delete ALL ICC profiles completely in Windows Color Management and make sure none are selected, which would enforce the default profile. Make sure to delete ALL delete-able profiles from the "All Profiles" tab and remove them from "Devices tab".
4. Restart and run CCleaner file cleaning & registry cleaning if you have that.

Then I would:
1. Install dispcalGUI ONLY and update it.
2. Calibrate using D65 standard with BT.1886 gamma. Your resulting profile files should include a .LUT file.
3. Do NOT apply or install the result profile in an .icm / ICC profile form and select to NOT manage/load/install it by OS and NOT by dispcalGUI! Make it all blank/unticked!
4. Find the .LUT file from your result folder/files and place it somewhere separate for keeping after renaming it into something else. Then, delete ALL other calibration-related result files for that calibration/profile, except for that .LUT file of course.
4. Simply load and apply that LUT file in dispcalGUI manually! Its the same exact thing as having ICC profiles, but it doesn't create an ICC profile mess for your OS or dispcalGUI. To have the profile loaded automatically upon OS startup, read the steps further.
5. Download Monitor Calibration Wizard, install it as administrator and load it as such also (right click and select "Run as Admin" for installation and for launch) - this is very important, especially for Windows 8/8.1, but also 7.
6. Load the .LUT file into dispcalGUI if you haven't done so yet.
7. While your .LUT profile file is loaded into dispcalGUI, open Monitor Calibration Wizard as an administrator type in whatever under "Profile name" and press SAVE. That will simply save your already-loaded LUT profile in Monitor Calibration Wizard's own format, which in turn, will apply it and force upon every reboot in addition to forcing the profile in many games.

I just don't find neither dispcalGUI nor Windows color management profile systems to be nearly as organized and hassle-free as Monitor Calibration Wizard's simplicity and function. Windows OS Color Management & dispcalGUI tend to make a mess and compete with each other, but Monitor Calibration Wizard keeps them in a nice organized manner and forces them too.

Also, I hope you know how to compensate for the black level rise that occurs with ArgyllCMS calibration and lowers your contrast ratio. If not, then I'll let you know how once you figure out what I just typed up (if you want).


And if you want to PROPERLY get rid of the pink tint created by i1Display Pro calibration without just randomly increasing this or that to make it seem white, then you need to rent ColorMunki Photo spectrometer and profile your colorimeter. OR just leave the PC for a few minutes, come back, and let your eyes adjust - there will no longer be any pink tint!
Click to expand...

Well I'm going to study this set of suggestions and see if I can get that working because it seems like the way to go. Dispcal tells you that matrix profiles are "more compatible" than LUTs... but this all seems like the wild west side of computers to me, a lot of conjecture and supposition, and Monarch knows a lot about this stuff so it's just as likely he's got a better process developed than Dispcal does.
There's always the fact that complicated instructions are more likely to fail due to operator error, so these programs aim to simplify as much as they aim to accommodate lots of options for certain situations.
 
Bluesun311 said:
The question I would have to ask Sailor Moon is, is this really a bad thing to force an icc profile in games? I can't even tell when it's working or not half the time... I guess it would be easier to know if my calibration were wildly different from the displays native state but it just isn't. Slightly darker.
Click to expand...

Forget about ICCs! You'd only be forcing the 1D LUT stuff in the ICC profile anyway.
 
spacediver said:
Forget about ICCs! You'd only be forcing the 1D LUT stuff in the ICC profile anyway.
Click to expand...

Well, I meant .icm file, specifically--but again, this is the same exact profile that dispcal is loading, it just also made it. Isn't it?

I mean, I've tested, using HCFR, the same profile being loaded by dispcal and being loaded by Color Sustainer and they get the same results
 
icm icc same thing.

I actually have never used dispcalgui i use the command line dispcal that argyll provides, and it creates a .cal file for me which contains my LUTs. I then use dispwin on startup to load the LUT.
 
spacediver said:
icm icc same thing.

I actually have never used dispcalgui i use the command line dispcal that argyll provides, and it creates a .cal file for me which contains my LUTs. I then use dispwin on startup to load the LUT.
Click to expand...

Aha! Lightbulb moment. Muchos gracias.
 
MonarchX said:
Also, I hope you know how to compensate for the black level rise that occurs with ArgyllCMS calibration and lowers your contrast ratio. If not, then I'll let you know how once you figure out what I just typed up (if you want).


And if you want to PROPERLY get rid of the pink tint created by i1Display Pro calibration without just randomly increasing this or that to make it seem white, then you need to rent ColorMunki Photo spectrometer and profile your colorimeter. OR just leave the PC for a few minutes, come back, and let your eyes adjust - there will no longer be any pink tint!
Click to expand...

Well, Dispcal GUI has an option for "compensate black point" I'm hoping I've been correctly using that. It says it affects accuracy slightly but I like the results for grayscale ink.

I'm definitely going to be renting a spectrometer in the near future, I need to rent a couple of camera lenses too to decide which one I want so I'll knock it all out together. At the time we first broached this subject Monarch I was just not there yet, didn't understand what the difference between all the colormunki products (both spectros and colorimeters) and ID products was, didn't understand the first thing about the software and I actually don't regret getting the ID3 pro now that I think about it, because it is quicker than the colormunki display (waiting for calibrations to finish is kinda boring), and the introduction to the software was useful to me in beginning to understand what I was getting into.

Your advice, at that time, was simply over my head and I couldn't make any use of it because I could not even comprehend it. I'm still pretty clueless but I know enough about display tech. now to say for sure that your advice was spot on.

Edit: cannot be overstated enough how much of a nightmare testing all this stuff out is when you have an overclocked monitor to work with. It looks like I just toasted yet another windows install by locking myself out of the display somehow with too many programs trying to get access to the color settings. The video card is just showing a blank screen once windows starts loading. Irritating. NVM. It was just a BIOS setting I was testing out. Dont turn C-states off and then tell windows to go to sleep. Anyway looks like Color Sustainer is working pretty well... but now I need to test out the LUT process instead...

Why are you guys pushing LUT based profiling so heavy? It's really that much better than icc/icm profiles? The documentation that comes with DispcalGUI states that icc/icm profiles have better compatibility with software. But forcing an LUT seems like it would come with less possible drawbacks than forcing icc profiles does. I'm gonna go for it. What a giant headache. This is my new way to play games, I guess. I obsess about color and sound and all the details surrounding the games and then forget to actually play.
 
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But the whole point of that fairchild quote is that we don't chromatically adapt to white points in an emissive display.
Click to expand...
The visual system also adapts in this situation ("sensory" means my mentioned "RGB gain control") - the quote contains an other quintessence which I tried to explain when bringing the proofsimulation under D50 normlight into play. There won't be a visual match regarding media whitepoint in this case. Partly because of the effects Fairchild mentioned (I tried to keep color constancy simple, the thread should not turn into a lecture), partly because of other influences (like difference in light density regarding the proof illumination) partly because of strong impacts of observer metamersim which have been untended for quite a long time. Within the framework of research whitepoints of 5600K-6000K (on or near daylight locus) have been identified to present a good visual match regarding papers of paper class 1 under D50 normlight. And yes it is true that calibrating a screen to D50 is not ideal even without an external reference. But nothing speaks against calibrating your screen to the whitepoint suitable for the actual color matching conditions. My advise to Bluesun311 (choose an other whitepoint target) would most likely not result in this whitepoint.

Why are you guys pushing LUT based profiling so heavy? It's really that much better than icc/icm profiles?
Click to expand...
The LUT you mean contains the linearisation data identified during calibration. This data is stored in the vcgt (software calibration) section of the ICC/ICM profile and loadad into the videocard LUT. A LUT based profile is a different kettle of fish and refers to the characterization (the actual content of the profile) data stored as CLUT from and to the PCS instead of having a matrix/ shaper kind of "description" (transformation from and to the PCS via linear transformation based on the colorimetric values of the primary colors).

However, my confusion shall be illustrated below, sorry for the large sceenshots. These are all from HCFR
First, the CIE diagram, which looks fine.

Then the Primary color measurement, which seems to have really high delta E's:
Click to expand...
The primary color measurement will most likely measure without color space transformations - therefore even over coverages regarding the reference will result in deviations. This is important when you want to optimise the reproduction for non color aware software (e.g. most video players, grading solutions, games - not referring to persistence of the LUT linearisation data here). The color checker values should rely on actual device independent reference data (CIELAB D50) of the accordant surface colors. A standard workflow would involve transforming this data colorimetrically to device RGB (with help of the display profile) which leads to low deviations if the profile describes the display characteristic sufficiently precise and the color gamut of the display is large enough (compare with the ugra/ fogra medie wedge measurements of the UDACT or the X-Rite implementation in i1 Profiler). But I don't know the actual HCFR behaviour. As it isn't geared towards the ICC workflow there could also be a generic sRGB transformation of the absolute color checker values (and comparison with the gamut mapped data) or something else.
 
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Sailor_Moon said:
My advise to Bluesun311 (choose an other whitepoint target) would never result in this whitepoint.
Click to expand...
Thanks yes, I took that original advice some couple months ago now correctly then and that is actually what started this d50 debate. I think you're being very clear that D50 would be uncomfortable in almost every situation but the point was that improving upon a slightly too warm or cold whitepoint is not really so much guesswork as simply the recognition that one can choose to calibrate to a colder or whiter target value to compensate. Ultimately I feel the display's native whitepoint is excellent so I choose to calibrate leaving this value unchanged although it is not specified until after the matrix has been calculated. DispcalGUI makes this option easy as does x-rite software.

A LUT based profile is a different kettle of fish and refers to the characterization (the actual content of the profile) data stored as CLUT from and to the PCS instead of having a matrix/ shaper kind of "description" (transformation from and to the PCS via linear transformation based on the colorimetric values of the primary colors).
Click to expand...
Unless I'm even more confused than I'm willing to admit (and that's a lot already) DispcalGUI gives this option for LUT based profiling but seems to guide first time users towards single curve+matrix based profiles as they are "more compatible" with software. It gives options for XYZ LUT + matrix or swapped matrix (to make it obvious if your profile has been defeated) and even an L*a*b* LUT profile, whatever that is. Am I confusing this type of LUT based profiling process with an actual physical (1s and 0s) Look Up Table?

I don't know the actual HCFR behaviour. As it isn't geared towards the ICC workflow there could also be a generic sRGB transformation of the absolute color checker values or something else.
Click to expand...
This sounds correct to me. It's a little hidden the option to measure the color checker values, so when you see your primaries are so far off after an hour long calibration it is heartbreaking at first, but actually it's not the end of your work :) Thanks as always for insight and time.
 
Unless I'm even more confused than I'm willing to admit (and that's a lot already) DispcalGUI gives this option for LUT based profiling but seems to guide first time users towards single curve+matrix based profiles as they are "more compatible" with software.
Click to expand...
For a display that's OK - they behave quite linear in most cases. "Thick" LUT profiles are primarily intended for output profiles (print). But even when choosing the curve+matrix based profile the linearisation data ist stored as 1D-LUT in the vcgt portion of the profile. Think of calibration and profilation (= characterisation) as two connected processes. One to ensure linearity regarding the calibration parameters (whitepoint, gradation) and one to describe the actual display behaviour after this step. Color aware software transforms into display RGB on basis of the characterisation data (matrix or CLUT) "collected" in the second step.

It gives options for XYZ LUT + matrix or swapped matrix (to make it obvious if your profile has been defeated) and even an L*a*b* LUT profile, whatever that is.
Click to expand...
Both are device independent representations of color. The swapped matrix is used to evaluate if color aware software really uses the CLUT data.

4. Simply load and apply that LUT file in dispcalGUI manually! Its the same exact thing as having ICC profiles, but it doesn't create an ICC profile mess for your OS or dispcalGUI. To have the profile loaded automatically upon OS startup, read the steps further.
Click to expand...
A display profile consists of more than a proprietary - not part of the ICC standard - vcgt for linearistion purposes. Color aware software has to know the actual display characteristic to perform the gamut mapping from source (also characterised) to destination.
 
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Why are you getting yourself in so much trouble to calibrate your screens?

It doesn't have to be that difficult and necessary to use an alternative open source software, where you have to know exactly what you're doing on each step.
Is the x-rite software really that bad?

I mean, I have a Spyder and the software that comes with it calibrated perfectly from scratch. I get perfect contrasts with the ambient light compensation. Why shouldn't the x-rite software be that good? Have you read the manual or asked their support?

Cheers
 
I haven't read a software manual... ever. Not starting with iProfiler. :)

It's not bad software, it's just not very robust. There aren't very many options if you want to be very specific with what you are doing. It doesn't have very many patches to test with so you get pretty limited profiles in terms of accuracy. Considering there is free software that is more sophisticated, it's a bit annoying.

At any rate x-rite software is perfectly adequate for a basic calibration. But if you start to look closely at gamma curve and color correction, it's far from perfect and no wonder, it profiles in 2-7 minutes. It doesn't do white level drift because it doesn't even take long enough for the calibration where it would be an issue :p It's pretty much just a quick and dirty suite. DispcalGUI is easy enough to work with and is much more accurate. It creates 3d LUTs, all kinds of stuff that iProfiler doesn't bother with.
 
MonarchX said:
Using X-Rite software and dispcalGUI can create a big mess. X-Rite i1Profiler loads a special program/driver (XRD?) in startup that enforces a saved profile and that may compete with dispcalGUI. This is why dealing with ICC profiles is such a mess. I would not do that either. You do not need i1Profiler as it is VERY inferior to dispcalGUI & ArgyllCMS. DispcalGUI & Windows OS Color Management profiles can also compete with each other.

I would:
1. Uninstall i1Profiler entirely, delete all folders and profiles related to it, and also get rid of the secondary X-Rite driver in startup (XRD is the name, no?) or whatever else loads in startup related to X-Rite.
2. Uninstall dispcalGUI and all profiles entirely for now & delete all related drivers & profiles, including 0Install/Zero Install folders.
3. Delete ALL ICC profiles completely in Windows Color Management and make sure none are selected, which would enforce the default profile. Make sure to delete ALL delete-able profiles from the "All Profiles" tab and remove them from "Devices tab".
4. Restart and run CCleaner file cleaning & registry cleaning if you have that.

Then I would:
1. Install dispcalGUI ONLY and update it.
2. Calibrate using D65 standard with BT.1886 gamma. Your resulting profile files should include a .LUT file.
3. Do NOT apply or install the result profile in an .icm / ICC profile form and select to NOT manage/load/install it by OS and NOT by dispcalGUI! Make it all blank/unticked!
4. Find the .LUT file from your result folder/files and place it somewhere separate for keeping after renaming it into something else. Then, delete ALL other calibration-related result files for that calibration/profile, except for that .LUT file of course.
4. Simply load and apply that LUT file in dispcalGUI manually! Its the same exact thing as having ICC profiles, but it doesn't create an ICC profile mess for your OS or dispcalGUI. To have the profile loaded automatically upon OS startup, read the steps further.
5. Download Monitor Calibration Wizard, install it as administrator and load it as such also (right click and select "Run as Admin" for installation and for launch) - this is very important, especially for Windows 8/8.1, but also 7.
6. Load the .LUT file into dispcalGUI if you haven't done so yet.
7. While your .LUT profile file is loaded into dispcalGUI, open Monitor Calibration Wizard as an administrator type in whatever under "Profile name" and press SAVE. That will simply save your already-loaded LUT profile in Monitor Calibration Wizard's own format, which in turn, will apply it and force upon every reboot in addition to forcing the profile in many games.

I just don't find neither dispcalGUI nor Windows color management profile systems to be nearly as organized and hassle-free as Monitor Calibration Wizard's simplicity and function. Windows OS Color Management & dispcalGUI tend to make a mess and compete with each other, but Monitor Calibration Wizard keeps them in a nice organized manner and forces them too.

Also, I hope you know how to compensate for the black level rise that occurs with ArgyllCMS calibration and lowers your contrast ratio. If not, then I'll let you know how once you figure out what I just typed up (if you want).


And if you want to PROPERLY get rid of the pink tint created by i1Display Pro calibration without just randomly increasing this or that to make it seem white, then you need to rent ColorMunki Photo spectrometer and profile your colorimeter. OR just leave the PC for a few minutes, come back, and let your eyes adjust - there will no longer be any pink tint!
Click to expand...

Hi Monarch, anyone, I studied this set of instructions and tried to make it happen. I can't figure out how to get DispcalGUI to spit out a .LUT file...
It makes a lot of files in a hidden directory within my USERS folder... inside a folder it makes with the date and the attributes of the profile you created as the title are about 15 files including an icm profile and a bunch of other stuff but no .LUT. What am I missing? lol
 
There aren't very many options if you want to be very specific with what you are doing. It doesn't have very many patches to test with so you get pretty limited profiles in terms of accuracy. Considering there is free software that is more sophisticated, it's a bit annoying.
Click to expand...
CLUT profiles have their place in the ICC workflow. Especially for output and device link profiles which have to characterize and determine (i.a. black composition of CMYK) complex and often quite nonlinear processes. Nothing speaks against using them also as display profile but keep in mind that a monitor that - after calibration - can't be described with help of a simple matrix profile isn't a good device for CEPS.

When providing this kind of profiles (matrix) with LUT TRC fields that reflect the actual black level of the display, a CMM can - just as it is the case with CLUT profiles - perform a black point compensation to avoid clipping in the shadows if transforming from working color spaces with absolute black. In addition, CLUT profiles allow for a perceptual source-destination transformation - but this is baked into the profile with fixed source characteristic.

Short: Using a CLUT display profile isn't a bad idea at all and can bring benefits - but the display "must" behave linear enough to be sufficiently described through a simple matrix/ shaper profile.

What am I missing?
Click to expand...
Apart from your "vcgt extraction problems": Please bear in mind that you will still need the ICC profile for characterizing the display. There is no color management "from above" through the 1D linerization LUT.
 
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Sailor, keep in mind that most of the people here aren't going to be using CMMs, and aren't concerned with gamut remapping. They just want to meet sRGB standards.
 
I'm so confused lol. I think that the matrix ICM profile I'm using through color sustainer is quite good. I just wanted to see if I could figure out what monarch is doing but I can't even find the .LUT file. Sailor Moon do you just let games run the color if they want to? What do you use to control profiling?
 
Man, there's a big mess in this thread, which is comprehensible. Had the same mess myself experimenting with a lot of tools. At the end, a friend showed me how to do with a Spyder with its own software which was a lot clearer to me.

Calibrated in 5 minutes and am doing that each 2 months. Was a deliverance not spending all that time trying to find out the correct settings and implementation into the operating system. Now if can just work.
 
Found the dang ID3 pro correction files finally... not sure how it eluded me for so long. Getting proper results now, slightly improved.

Capture_zps623fbbae.png~original


Edit: and for anyone that remembers the "pink tint" discussion about these X-rite i1 display pros with MonarchX, this fixed it.
 
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