Recommended Calibrator?

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llmercll

[H]ard|Gawd
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Snowdog said:
You could get the LT version which has the same hardware (best in price range) for less:
http://www.amazon.com/X-Rite-EODLT-...3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1288067652&sr=1-3
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If you go with the LT model, then you only get "easy" mode with the provided calibration software. If you want more advanced calabration, you would then need to resort to 3rd party software such as argyllcms.
Snowdog said:
You could use the money saved to pick up some 3rd party software like basiccolor:
http://www.basiccolor.de/english/Datenblaetter_E/squid_E/squid_E.htm

Or use FREE HCFR to generate some graphs:
http://www.homecinema-fr.com/colorimetre/index_en.php
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HCFR under OSX doesn't support the eye-one-display 2


We got a couple threads about this stuff already, probably the discussions should all go to:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1556299
 
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It's cool, I've got win7.

Thanks for the quick advice guys, I can't wait to get it!
 
Can anyone recommend a calibrator that's like idot proof? Plug it in and it does everything automatically for you? Calibrators seem overly complicated or are they not that complicated?
 
addictedto60fps said:
Can anyone recommend a calibrator that's like idot proof? Plug it in and it does everything automatically for you? Calibrators seem overly complicated or are they not that complicated?
Click to expand...

My Spyder 3 Express was idiot proof. Set monitor to 6500k, set brightness and contrast, run the Spyder and done. It may not be the best out there, but its the only one I have used. I imagine the Eyeone Display 2 which people say is much better, cant be much harder.
 
NCX said:
Get your original choice
http://www.amazon.com/X-Rite-EODIS2-Eye-One-Display-2/dp/B000JLO31M/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_ttl_ex

Easy mode is uselss, Advanced mode FTW.

I couldnt get HCFR to ever work with mine so I would try the 2 week free trial version of BasICColor like SnowDog recommended if you want to get contrast results and pinpoint color temperatures.
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Why is easy mode useless? Especially for someone looking for simple calibration.

Especially if you are going to consider picking up basicColor.

For the price of i1 D2, you can get i1 LT and have the same hardware with the base software + cover the cost of basicColor software.

I would get LT and add basicColor if you think you need more.

HCFR worked instantly for me. No fiddling required. You just need to drop your i1 DLL into it's directory so it can use your calibration device. I used it to calibrate my HDTV, but it is manual operation.
 
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I just started calibrating, and I'm not liking what im seeing, at all.

I went through advanced calibration using eye-one match 3 software, and the result is much, much worse than it what it looks like out of the box!!

Everything is horribly red. it says it's 6500k, but looks like shit. I'm probaly doing something wrong, but don't know what.

Also, it looks like the software applies settings to my video card to make the calibration work. Do I NEED to do this? I thought I would just change the settings on the monitor and that would be that.

I'm kind of upset right now. I was thinking I would just be able to calibrate my monitor, and it would look great. Instead the software is messing with my graphic card settings and giving me horribly inaccurate color!
 
I'd appreciate a fast reply, I'm sitting here in front of my moinitor trying to get this figured out but it seems like the settings are all wrong. Colors are horribly red, contrast is way too high, I don't get it. :mad:

And now I need to figure out how to delete the profile the software created...damn I'm frustrated
 
I don't know what could have went wrong, AFAIK the U2311 is normal gamut CCFL tube, which should be an easy calibration not having to deal with wide gamut or LED issues.

Did the software ask you what type of screen you have? Just wonder if you accidently told it the wrong type and it is using an incorrect correction factor.
 
llmercll said:
I'd appreciate a fast reply, I'm sitting here in front of my moinitor trying to get this figured out but it seems like the settings are all wrong. Colors are horribly red, contrast is way too high, I don't get it. :mad:

And now I need to figure out how to delete the profile the software created...damn I'm frustrated
Click to expand...

Hard to tell from here, but I assume you adjusted the monitor's settings a bit in custom preset mode in response to the prompting from eye-one match 3 in advanced mode. At that point did you already have horrible red? You shouldn't have. If you didn't, you could see how close things are by using the default monitor profile with just the monitor calibration tweaks.

Perhaps you let the software do the remaining calibration adjustments with the brightness set at factory levels instead of your normal viewling level?
 
Snowdog said:
Did the software ask you what type of screen you have? Just wonder if you accidently told it the wrong type and it is using an incorrect correction factor.
Click to expand...
eye-one match 3 does prompt the user to choose between lcd & crt.
 
One other thought.
Last I tried eye-one-match 3 it recommended cranking contrast up to 100 before most of the adjustments, and its contrast test left that value very high, like 90. But that was way too high - no way to get comfortable viewing levels of 120cd^m2 on my monitor with that setting. So I ignored its advice on that and started with contrast at 50.
 
I've tried 3 programs, and all give me the same result when using default monitor settings. That green is at about 110% and red/blue are both at about 94%. When I even out the colors so they are all at 100%, it looks too red.

The programs I've used are...

eye one match 3
colorimetre HCFR
basiCColor

They all give me the same results, so I'm thinking it's not software related...It could be a bad unit, but at the same I'm wondering if it's just me...could my eye be off that much??

When I lower the red setting on my monitor a a few clicks it looks SIGNIFICANTLY better, but the programs start reading red at 90%.

Update* My brother agrees with me that it looks way to red, and im on a dell u2311h
 
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llmercll said:
I've tried 3 programs, and all give me the same result when using default monitor settings. That green is at about 110% and red/blue are both at about 94%. When I even out the colors so they are all at 100%, it looks too red.
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Looks too red before you go on to complete the rest of the calibration, or only after? What looks too red - skin tone in a jpeg? Or just white backgrounds?
 
bad144 said:
Looks too red before you go on to complete the rest of the calibration, or only after? What looks too red - skin tone in a jpeg? Or just white backgrounds?
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white backgrounds look too red. Colors on other things look rather nice.
 
Yeah, you need to start a new geneator run:
File->New
Select Generator in List->View images
Next->select Calibrator -> Eye on
Finish

Hit F5 and it will ask you to calibrate the sensor, then run all the needed tests.
 
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It's a Dell U2311H, so wouldn't be most likely a tinting issue? SUPRISE! Who would have seen that coming.
 
NCX said:
It's a Dell U2311H, so wouldn't be most likely a tinting issue? SUPRISE! Who would have seen that coming.
Click to expand...

The tinting issues generally changes across the screen.

He was happy with the color until he calibrated and now finds calibrated settings too red.
 
llmercll said:
Ok, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I've uploaded the graphs, can you tell anything from that?

Also, the more I play with it the more I think my eyes were just used to the really green color prior to calibration....still not sure though, as it is significantly more red.

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/9578/gammaa.png
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/3429/cie.png
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6010/colortemp.png
Click to expand...

Sorry. I was hoping to see something drastically out of wack, but it looks fairly normal.

Do you have another monitor to try the calibrator on?

I remember when calibrating my TV, at first 6500 looked kind of red especially since it had a lot bluer settings you could cycle through.
 
Calibration may have revealed the red tint, just saying...
 
my screen does have a bit of a tinting issue, but it's very minor and you need to really look. unfortunately, when moving around my calibrator the colors do change a fair amount, showing a definite case of tinting or poor uniformity. Still, with the tinting and ips glow i still prefer it over tn =p

Thanks for everyones help so far, especially you snowdog. I probably should have taken your advice on getting the LT, as I find HCFR a much better program.

Either way I'm going to keep calibrating...I'll probably be at it for awhile to get my charts as close to perfect as possible =p

As for HCFR I do have a few questions. It looks like an extremely powerful program and I feel like I'm just on the tip of the iceburg. I'd like to see deltae charts for my screen like the ones you'll find on any review site, and cant quite find them. I see a lot of text graphs that have deltae on them, under measures, primaries and secondaries. But the numbers I see, to be frank, are terrible lol. My goal is <2 and im getting a lot of 11's and such. I'm also not sure im reading it right, since the deltae changes a lot with the luminance.
 
I haven't used HCFR that much either. My NEC has very slick Spectraview in-monitor calibration so I use that for it.

I just used HCFR to generate graphs for my HDTV, then I manually adjusted the TV to get the best I could do with it's settings.

I don't know if I would pay attention to the DeltaE from HCFR. I think I see big numbers too, but Spectraview reports very low numbers...
 
But the numbers I see, to be frank, are terrible lol. My goal is <2 and im getting a lot of 11's and such. I'm also not sure im reading it right, since the deltae changes a lot with the luminance.
Click to expand...
HCFR uses the original DeltaE definition which doesn't account for the fact that the underlying color space (Lab) isn't perceptual unifom. The newer definitions (94,2000) try to compensate for this and will report much lower numbers for more saturated colors. The next thing is a quite problematic whitepoint handling in HCFR. And last: We can't compare the output of a profile validation to readings of HCFR or similar calibration programs. That's a different kettle of fish.

Best regards

Denis
 
Any tips for calibrating a laptop without any manual color control buttons? (ie some software program?)
 
well I've tried calibrating my laptop monitor by adjusting the "intel software" options, and the results aren't too pretty, lol. The white point measures up to be 6500k, but the actual colors are just horrible.

I guess theres just no way to do it on a laptop.
 
Last minute calibrator advice anyone? Same price: Eye-one Display LT or Spyder 3 Pro. Either one I'll be using with ColorEyes Display Pro to calibrate a new 27inch LED apple cinema display.

Adam

P.S. I also may end up using quato iColor. Provided I can track down a licence of course - living in europe should help here!
 
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