Advice for Eliminating Garish Pinks?

Home Forums Help and Support Advice for Eliminating Garish Pinks?

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #5731

    mcavalletto
    Participant
    • Offline

    Hello,

    I’m attempting to calibrate a 27″ LG Ultrafine 5K display attached to a Mac Pro, using a Spyder4Express with the latest versions of DisplayCAL and Argyll.

    I’ve run two full calibration passes, comparing the results to prints from an Epson Stylus Pro 3880, and both produced improved results compared to the Mac’s built-in display profile for that monitor, with one exception: pale skin tones became a garish pink.

    Through most of the spectrum we get proper color and smooth gradations, except for a narrow band of light skin tones which exhibit significant banding and appear super saturated.

    (Previous calibration attempts using Spyder’s standard software did not exhibit this problem, but didn’t produce good results — the images after calibration tended to be too washed out, and compared to the prints seemed to be “overcorrected.”)

    I have decades of computer experience, but am new the world of display calibration. I’ve tried searching for other people who have had a similar issues with DisplayCAL, but am coming up empty — maybe I’m just using the wrong search terms?

    Do folks have any advice about diagnosing this problem? Are the sample images I could post, or portions of the calibration files I could share, which might reveal what’s going on under the hood?

    Would love to solve this, because except for this narrow range of colors the DisplayCAL-calibrated screen images are a definite improvement over the baseline — but we’ve had to turn it off for now since the pink banding makes it impossible to accomplish the Photoshop editing of portrait photographs that this machine is mostly used for.

    Thanks for any advice you may have.

    #5736

    Florian Höch
    Administrator
    • Offline

    Hi,

    I’ve run two full calibration passes, comparing the results to prints from an Epson Stylus Pro 3880, and both produced improved results compared to the Mac’s built-in display profile for that monitor, with one exception: pale skin tones became a garish pink.

    Skin tones are pink on the monitor compared to the print or the other way around? How is the printer profiled?

    Do folks have any advice about diagnosing this problem? Are the sample images I could post, or portions of the calibration files I could share, which might reveal what’s going on under the hood?

    “Create compressed archive” (next to settings, with the profile selected)

    #5749

    mcavalletto
    Participant
    • Offline

    The images are set in the ProPhoto color space, typically edited in Photoshop and printed from Lightroom.

    We’ve had a number of these images printed on other printers, and those prints look very similar to the ones that come out of our Epson 3880, so we think the printer is calibrated properly.

    When we load the images up and have the display set to Apple’s default “LG Ultrafine” color profile, the pictures are a little oversaturated and a bit too “contrasty,” both compared to the Epson prints and compared to the previous display we were using (a 2015 iMac’s built-in 27″ screen).

    When we used Spyder’s standard calibration software, we got a color profile that seemed to overcompensate — all of the on-screen images were washed out, not enough color and not enough contrast.

    When we used DisplayCal, we got a color profile that was a closer match to the prints than either of the above, except for a range of pale pink skin tones — shadowed and medium skin tones look fine, but as the skin shifts to a brighter or paler area, there is a sudden banding beyond which the lightest skin tones are suddenly replaced by a much brighter and garish pink color that’s not continuous with the rest of the skin.

    I’m attaching the calibration archive — I hope that’s enough to reveal what’s going on here.

    Thanks again for your assistance, it’s much appreciated!

    Attachments:
    You must be logged in to view attached files.
    #5753

    Florian Höch
    Administrator
    • Offline

    There seems to be something wrong with the display, there’s severe crush near white and black, normally I would guess contrast has been adjusted wrongly, but I think this display does not have any built-in controls. Is automatic brightness engaged in Mac OS X System Preferences by any chance?

    #5754

    mcavalletto
    Participant
    • Offline

    The display doesn’t have any physical control buttons at all, and the Mac Pro doesn’t have a light sensor or “automatic brightness” option.

    We’re using the display in a room that is not brightly lit, and turned all of the lights out to run the most recent calibration pass in the dark.

    #5756

    Florian Höch
    Administrator
    • Offline

    Looking at the measurements, the first 8 patches above black measured the same as black, and a few patches below white measured the same as white. This is exactly what would happen if a display that was expecting limited range RGB (16..235) was (wrongly) driven in full range RGB mode (0..255), or erroneously switched to limited range mode while being driven full range.

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

Log in or Register

Display Calibration and Characterization powered by ArgyllCMS