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> On Apr 1, 2013, at 11:33 AM, "bec_h_photography" <rebeccahellyerphotography@...> wrote:
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> > First, let me preface this by requesting "dumbed down" answers to my questions, if possible. I'm not a technical person, at all. :)
> >
> > I recently calibrated our Sony Vaio L Series desktop with the Spyder 4 Express. The monitor does not give Kelvin temperatures, so I initially set the white point to Warm 1 (Neutral seemed too cool to be correct). The calibration results were very green. When I looked at a photo that had been edited by someone else who is also using a calibrated monitor, the colors were distinctly yellow/orange (on African American skin), so I assumed that my monitor was not calibrated correctly.
> >
> > I re-calibrated with the white point set to Neutral and the results were much less yellow/green, however I'm still getting feedback from other's who are calibrated that my edited photos are on the green side. I also just received test prints from Simply Color that are much greener than what I am seeing on my monitor.
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> > Should I re-calibrate again using Warm 1 and assume that it's correct?
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> This can be tricky stuff. A whitepoint preset is just a starting point. Even the simplest Spyder software (Express) will define a corrected white point (and with it, the warmness or coolness of all colors) as part of the calibration and profiling process. Express uses a white balance of 6500k, which is the default in all other Spyder products, and the recommended white point for most uses. By the way, Kelvin temperature is a scale from yellow to blue, and does not represent the red or greenness of a screen, that requires a two dimensional set of descriptors, such as x, y, instead of K� Both of these dimensions are set of Spyder4Express, even though the value they are set to is called, for simplicity's sake, "6500K".
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> > Also, I was just told that the color profile is not stored when my computer goes to sleep or is turned off - is this correct?
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> There are two things created with calibration and profiling. A calibration. And a profile. The calibration, for convenience sake, is then stored in a tag inside the profile. But they are separate items and its important understand how each works. The calibration is flashed to the video card at startup. This is done by the Spyder Utility, which will continue to check that the calibration is in place over time. Turning off the Spyder Utility under Windows will invalidate your color calibration. In rare cases calibration is not correctly restored after sleep or restart; this generally invokes some other utility from a third party (such as a video card manufacturer) that chooses to flash its own data to the video card Look Up Table where the color correction data is stored. Finding and disabling such Utilities is the answer to most such issues, and may require starting a support ticket at datacolor.com to get some assistance.
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> The second part of display calibration and profiling is building an ICC profile for your display (Windows likes to use the term ICM for these, but they are the same thing, with either name). This profile is built by the Spyder software, assigned to the display by a call the Operating System (meaning Windows has an opportunity to mess things up here), then any app that is color managed will ask the OS for the correct profile for the display (each display, actually, allowing extra opportunities for problems with multiple displays) and use the profile(s) when sending images to the display(s). This step can also be tripped up, but it is far less common for this to happen. All things working correctly, both components (calibration and profile) will be used indefinitely, after sleep, and after restart.
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> To see what your display looks like with the video card calibration data in place, and without it, stop on the "SpyderProof" screen, and toggle the With/Without button. If your display is identical both ways, you can be suspicious that the Video LUT data is not being flashed to your card at all. If it looks different, then be careful in deciding which one is "right" and which is "wrong" as the eye adapts to different white balances, and any change looks "wrong" at first. If your screen is turning a clearly wrong color when the VLUT data is flashed to your card, then there may be something wrong with how your Spyder software or hardware is working. If it looks right with the VLUT data applied, then you are all set. The pre corrected series of images in SpyderProof have a number of memory colors (neutrals skin tones, etc) and can be used to determine if your screen is well calibrated, as long as you are under dim light, without color walls, windows, etc� influencing your eyes.
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> C. David Tobie
> Global Product Technology Manager
>
> Datacolor
> 5 Princess Road
> Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, USA
> 609.924.2189
> www.datacolor.com
>
> Phone: 207.685.9248
> Mobile: 207.312.0448
> Fax: 207.685.4455
> Email: cdtobie@...
> Skype: cdtobie
>