Monitor calibration

[Photog82]

I've never calibrated. I just purchased the BenQ SQ2700pt monitor. Windows 10 installed the BenQ profile, I have it running in sRGB. My photos looked flat. On the iPad and Galaxy S6 they looked great. They looked good on prints. I did a lot of testing and found that it was the monitor profile, I switched it to sRGB and it looks normal again.

Any need to? I've always been happy with the prints. I do need to order some prints of photos that I've edited on the new monitor to make sure they line up.

I'm not sure if I want to spend a couple hundred dollars on a calibration kit if it won't help me.

[Busted Knuckles]

First you must switch to RGB, if you have DPP 4 the easy way is under the "Adjustment" menu item and then "Color work space" and go to wide or RGB gamut. you can jump back and forth - the jump to RGB is "hmm that neat" the jump back to sRGB is "ooof that is flat"

As to the value of calibration I will leave that to others. This was fun enough for me.

[peety3]

You have to do it. Best case, the calibration confirms that your monitor was pretty darn spot-on to begin with, but now you know. Worst case, you discover that your monitor is sorely lacking in some way color-wise and you shouldn't be using it. Likely case, the calibration brings your monitor to life.

My old work laptop (Win 7) was usually tied to an external monitor, and would mirror the same desktop picture onto its screen and the monitor. It wouldn't apply the calibration until a certain point in the boot sequence. As such, it was amazing to see the uncalibrated monitors snap into calibration and go from wildly different to just slightly different (weaknesses in each, but at least brought towards "right" through calibrations) at a certain point in the process.

[ashleykaryl]

You have a very capable monitor that is the one to go for at the moment without spending a fortune. This is a wide gamut display but from memory includes an option that can limit the display to sRGB viewing.

You haven't mentioned anything about the way you are printing, but whatever the case, using hardware calibration for your display is the single most important aspect of accurate colour editing. Everything is basically guesswork without it because you never really know what you are looking at.

If you only print at photo labs or have printer profiles obtained from other sources you can get by with something like ColorMunki Smile that will do the job adequately. I am in the UK but I just checked on B&H in the US and it cost less than $90 there, which is peanuts for the benefits it provides.

[Sheiky]

Note that I'm not a professional and even am moderately color blind for some colors, so take my word for experience only

I am using a NEC EA231WMI "pre-calibrated" monitor, I guess yours functions the same or even better. I had bought the Datacolor Spider as well and my opinion is that it's only really useful if you print your own photos and you need to be sure your printer does what you want.
Now I print my photos at a professional lab, so the results are at least 99% reliable. With the Spider the colors where very good, but not noticeably better than the method I use now. I have sold the Spider a few years back already.
I have printed a select amount of images that I have saved on my pc. I compare them to my display and adjust contrast and brightness while doing so using the pre-calibrated RGB settings from the display. This and looking good at the histogram have given me a very reliable color result when printing photos.

My two cents is that the color calibration tools are definitely working, but personally I think you don't "need" them, but again I'm not making a living out of it. Also comparing to your smartphone isn't the best comparison, colors and contrast always look much more intense on smaller screens. The colors on the back of your camera also look more saturated and contrasty than the photo on your display. I think the most important thing is that the customers see the same or pretty much the same as you do. So check your images on your tv or other media to see if you like how they look there.

Bottom line, I took some photos of my cousins and sent them to my sister. My sister printed them at a cheap lab, but when I looked at the results they were pretty much how I intended them to be, so I'm happy.

[ashleykaryl]

Colour blindness is rare for women, but surprisingly common in men, however there are steps that can reduce the effects while editing images. Those images your sister had printed were probably corrected by the lab if you didn't supply them with specific instructions, but that simply means you gave up control and left it to somebody else.

Displays change over time and their performance steadily deteriorates until they are effectively useless for accurately judging colours. The act of hardware calibration and profiling keeps them within a close tolerance during the useful lifetime of the display and also tells you when the display really needs to be replaced. If you stick with industry standard settings and edit your images in a suitable work area your images will appear remarkably consistent year after year, even if you change display, computers and operating systems.

That part I mentioned about the suitable work area is often underestimated. If you are sitting in a room with yellow walls, green curtains and mixed lighting you are making life very complicated. You really want to keep the work area nice and neutral.