Monitor Calibration

[Kayaker72]

did you use a calibrator before and after Brant ? I am curious to know if the color output did change after upgrading the graphics card. I bought a monitor that was advertised at 1 billion colors but when I calibrate , I am only getting 74% abode rgb but 100% srgb. I have an older graphics card though.

Yes. Similar to James, I gave up on the software that came from Benq (Palette). It actually stopped working for me, but I just checked and it is working again. So I may try it again.

But I calibrated my monitor through x-rite display pro's software that also lets you look at delta E. I am not sure if I would know if the color output changed with the new graphics card. But in terms of color accuracy, there does seem to have been an improvement. Granted, very modest, but testing through the x-rite software my old card and D-DVI connection was doing very well (avg delta E = 0.43 and max delta E = 1.78 in one run, another run avg delta E = 0.39 with max delta E = 0.93 in the second). I only have run one calibration and validation test with the new card, but it came back avg delta E = 0.32 and max delta E = 0.7.

But all of those numbers are very good. So I am now happy with the color accuracy of the new monitor as I trust x-rite much more than Benq's software.


As for the 1 billion colors, that is likely a reference to 10 bit color depth, which is different than color space. So, both of those can be true. You can have 10 bit color depth (or your monitor can, as I am finding, you need the right GPU, cable, monitor and software to actually have 10 bit color depth) in a sRGB color space or 10 bit color depth in an Adobe RGB color space. Think of color depth as subdivisions, 10 bit color depth gives you 1.07 billion subdivisions of whatever colorspace you are working. 8 bit color depth gives you 16.7 million subdivisions of whatever colorspace you are working in. For your monitor that seems to be 100%sRGB.

My prints came back today.

The exposure was pretty much spot on; some of the shadows in one portion of the print was slightly darker but not a big deal at all. The colors looked good with the exception of the skin tones; they were slightly warmer in the print. I believe that is due to the fact that Mpix prints at D50 and I'm on D65. I'm going to order the same prints and have them color correct the prints to see what the actual difference is.

I've read that an update to JPG is coming out to support 10bit color depth but it didn't indicate when. :| How did you test your color depth? I tried installed the BenQ software and it kept crashing.

I'm using DisplayPort. DVI-D works but doesn't perform as well at higher resolutions. I'm also running mine on sRGB as that is what most of the world is using.

And that is what matters, right? The intent of this is to process our photos in a way that when they are output it is as close as possible to what we thought. I am about ready to do the print test myself, and really, that is the ultimate test.

Besides mpix, any other prolabs you recommend? I had an interaction with a snarky agent from mpix 2-3 years ago. This was before I calibrated my monitor and he was pretty condescending about it all.