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Hi everyone,
the last half year I had the chance to print my own photos, I don’t print them myself, instead, I go to the local lab. What I noticed is, except for the difference in colors between screen and prints, that the results come out too dark on paper. This seems a usual problem with printing when working on an uncalibrated screen.
The lab told me I should get a calibration tool to be sure that what I edit on my computer turns out the same, or at least similar, on paper. So I got myself a SpyderX and started calibrating. What a disappointment.. at this point I guess it’s probably me doing something wrong since I’ve never done this before and have no knowledge about it… but the results are really ugly, I can’t work with them.
People on youtube are praising the Spyder and their tutorials look really easy and seems to me like you dont need to have a PHD in screen calibration to get good results.
The big issue here is not color temperature or whatever color related, but instead, it’s that contrast, black and shadows look awful, oh yes, and it all looks too bright.
I assumed that if prints come out too dark, once my screen gets calibrated it should look darker on the computer too… or am I missing something?
I’ve downloaded DisplayCAL, the results in that sense) are better than what I get with the Spyder software but still too bright.
Can someone help me out with this? It’s getting really frustrating… I’ve searched a lot on the web but cant get to figure out what the problem may be…
I’m uploading three pictures of the screen (taken with mobile, only way to show what I’m talking about) first one is normal screen, second one is Calibrated with Spyder software, third one is calibrated with DisplayCAL
I’m using a MacBook Pro from 2012 by the way.
Thanks in advance for any tip
SpyderX Pro on Amazon
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.-macos apps using apple color management engine require extremely simpler profiles, not accurate ones. Blame Apple. Default profile type in DisplayCAL chooses the proper one. You cannot use accurate profiles and Apple apps. In Adobe suite you can.
-Spyders are not accurate
-GPU calibration may cause banding and mild grey coloration.
-you’ll need to softproof using your print service ICC profiles
-printed copy match to display requires additional HW: proper “normalized” light (or at least thermal” / black body). Once you had proper light for this task matching display whitepoint and light color and matching LUX at paper level divided by PI as cd/m2 for screen should give you a reasonable close match.
Thank you for your reply.
what can I do in order to get the desired result (or at least closer to it )? I can return the Spyder to the store, but I’m not inclined to switch to another computer. How does anybody else do this?
I can try and go for the soft proofing and request the ICC profiles and such, but maybe I should keep in mind that prints are getting darker than what I see on my computer and boost a stop or two for the files that I’m sending to the lab…not ideal but reading your answer I kind of got discouraged about the whole thing..
I’ve totally lost you here…:-printed copy match to display requires additional HW: proper “normalized” light (or at least thermal” / black body). Once you had proper light for this task matching display whitepoint and light color and matching LUX at paper level divided by PI as cd/m2 for screen should give you a reasonable close match.
Thank you
Thank you for your reply.
what can I do in order to get the desired result (or at least closer to it )? I can return the Spyder to the store, but I’m not inclined to switch to another computer. How does anybody else do this?
Do as instructed and use simpler not so accurate profiles in you r mac. Nobody said to change your computer just accept its limitaions by design.
I’ve totally lost you here…:-printed copy match to display requires additional HW: proper “normalized” light (or at least thermal” / black body). Once you had proper light for this task matching display whitepoint and light color and matching LUX at paper level divided by PI as cd/m2 for screen should give you a reasonable close match.
Thank you
It’s literally what I wrote.
-You need some kind of spectral power distribution (“relative amount of photons from each visible wavelength”, try to google it and D50) that resembles daylight or an incandescent light source to see print copies next to a display and expect a match.
-Once you have it, make whites equal (no color cast between them) and precieved brightness equal (use that formula as an starting point).
