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ihateprepress · #1 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 02:32 AM

At the risk of sounding like a newbie; who actually gives a shit about calibrating their monitors?

I like having a well calibrated monitor, but in all honesty, it isn't entirely necessary in my scenario.

Who can honestly say that they NEED a well calibrated monitor? If so, why?

clod · #2 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 04:27 AM

I'm a color manager/scanner operator and absolutely need a color accurate monitor, as do all of our production staff as we all deal with color correction at one point or another. Our clientele has content that is very often extremely color critical and color correction on an inaccurate monitor can lead to proofs that fall short, and re-work (read $$$). Our company has been around a while, so we of course used to do color critical work without the aid of an accurate monitor, even though the manufacturer might have claimed it was. Rescanning/color correction andb re-proofing before the first proof showing was the norm then, and we'd likely be out of business if it was the norm now. In my opinion, with the low price of monitor calibration/profile creation devices, if you do any kind of color critical work without a calibrated monitor, you're either working to hard, or falling short of what you could be achieving. Not all clients are color critical though, but if you have the ability to give it to them, that's value added. Further, many clients out there now have their own color accurate monitors, and I can't imagine not being at least on the same level as them. We often take this further and install remote softproofing stations at our clients location to save on proofing/shipping costs

madmac · #3 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ihateprepress

At the risk of sounding like a newbie; who actually gives a shit about calibrating their monitors?

I like having a well calibrated monitor, but in all honesty, it isn't entirely necessary in my scenario.

Who can honestly say that they NEED a well calibrated monitor? If so, why?

You sound like a designer. Puts together your job print it on an inkjet which isn't postscript and then wonder why the finished job doesn't look the same when printed on a four color press.

If you are doing any color work you should use a calibrated monitor otherwise how can you know everything thing works together. That is why you get correction when a proper color proof is made and it doesn't quite look right. Things which could have been sorted before th proof if you had seen them on screen.

Plus with basic calibrators not costing much they is no reason not to calibrate.

seratne · #4 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 12:03 PM

Exactly what madmac said. Monitor calibration is quite cheap, less than $400.And heck if you wanted to get something real cheap there is the pantone huey, while it doesn't do a great job, it should get you 90-95% of the way there. And that costs less than $90. When the holidays roll around send a couple off to your clients that you know are pains in the asses that don't have their monitors calibrated.

ihateprepress · #5 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seratne

Exactly what madmac said. Monitor calibration is quite cheap, less than $400.And heck if you wanted to get something real cheap there is the pantone huey, while it doesn't do a great job, it should get you 90-95% of the way there. And that costs less than $90. When the holidays roll around send a couple off to your clients that you know are pains in the asses that don't have their monitors calibrated.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the need/reasons for calibration, though the nature of our work means we don't particularly need it. Lots of business forms, and random spot jobs. We have one client that requires perfect colour, but they always supply print-ready PDFS which have already been proofed - we output a proof - they sign it and we print. Beautiful files that have never failed. Any casual colour work is for clients who supply shit and have low expectations.

I truly think the Aussie market has lower expectations in regards to end product. If it looks good, it's generally OK.

I was more interested in hearing your particular setups and some examples of when a calibrated monitor has saved you. For instance, madmac, tell me when you picked up something on-screen that wouldn't have been noticable on a poorly-calibrated monitor.

digitaldog · #6 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 04:31 PM

[quote="ihateprepress"]

Quote:

Originally Posted by seratne

EI truly think the Aussie market has lower expectations in regards to end product. If it looks good, it's generally OK.

Looks good where? If the display isn't calibrated and profiled, what you see is science fiction. The display is a non stable device. The same set of numbers you view (and output) today should produce the same color appearance a year from now. Digital files don't age like cheese.

Look good on output? Well at that point, if it doesn't look as good as you'd like, you've spent a great deal of time and money and you're basically screwed.

Digital files are just big piles of numbers. There really is "no color" just color values. If you don't care how those values look day in and day out on your display, you just want to throw the dice and output the numbers, you don't need color management or a calibrated display.

Most people do.

ihateprepress · #7 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 04:39 PM

[quote="digitaldog"]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ihateprepress

Quote:

Originally Posted by seratne

EI truly think the Aussie market has lower expectations in regards to end product. If it looks good, it's generally OK.

Looks good where? If the display isn't calibrated and profiled, what you see is science fiction. The display is a non stable device. The same set of numbers you view (and output) today should produce the same color appearance a year from now. Digital files don't age like cheese.

Look good on output? Well at that point, if it doesn't look as good as you'd like, you've spent a great deal of time and money and you're basically screwed.

Digital files are just big piles of numbers. There really is "no color" just color values. If you don't care how those values look day in and day out on your display, you just want to throw the dice and output the numbers, you don't need color management or a calibrated display.

Most people do.

I was more interested in hearing your particular setups and some examples of when a calibrated monitor has saved you. For instance, digitaldog, tell me when you picked up something on-screen that wouldn't have been noticable on a uncalibrated monitor.

digitaldog · #8 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 04:45 PM

Well for one I see the numbers as they should appear and based on any output device I have an ICC profile for (soft proof). That makes editing an image based on where it's going pretty useful.

If you had an image that appeared two stops too dark and you cranked up the brightness on the display, the image would appear better to you. But did you really fix the issue? Was the file too dark or did it appear that way? So now apply tone and color to the mix (is the skin tones too magenta or do they only appear that way?).

The only method we have to view color numbers is using our displays or printing out the numbers. The later is a pretty expensive way to determine of the numbers are correct for the output needs.

ihateprepress · #9 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitaldog

Well for one I see the numbers as they should appear and based on any output device I have an ICC profile for (soft proof). That makes editing an image based on where it's going pretty useful.

If you had an image that appeared two stops too dark and you cranked up the brightness on the display, the image would appear better to you. But did you really fix the issue? Was the file too dark or did it appear that way? So now apply tone and color to the mix (is the skin tones too magenta or do they only appear that way?).

The only method we have to view color numbers is using our displays or printing out the numbers. The later is a pretty expensive way to determine of the numbers are correct for the output needs.

Good example. Do you charge for rectifying issues such as these, or is this factored as a part of the service?

Mungo · #10 (**permalink**) 06-01-2006, 06:46 PM

I agree that a calibrated monitor is worth the trouble of setting up right but for the most part I am a "numbers" man which means I will take a measurement of the actual colour and determine what it will output like - mainly for skin tones, neutral greys etc. I used to do all colour correction visually when the old crt monitors where the rage but have found the lcds and the like very "bright" which makes it hard to balance tone. I used to have a boss that - I would do strip proofs of the images and he would look at them and go through one after the other and say this one needs 5mag out of mid tones, this one needs 10 cyan out of greens etc and he was spot on every time so a good knowledge of colour is important. However the industry here in Australia has preference over "how quick can we get it" rather than quality and colour. If the images look "pretty good" that is all they want.