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Hi, I have to admit, originally I wrote quite a long post, but I wanted to not make it so complicated, so I chose just a main reason I decided for a calibration and discuss it with you, guys.
Some time ago I was creating a GemFX (D3D injector, similar to ReShade) for Dead Space and I came out with this
How did it look on my side? Astonishingly good, I was very very satisfied, I made it much darker (as it should be as it is a horror game), but I could still pick up any detail in the shadows, but a surprise came when I posted it to our local discussion forum, I was quite suppressed by the reactions – for literally everyone those after ones (there are before/after couple shots) were extremely dark…well, in almost each all detail in (what looked to me as a shadow) shadows were completely gone. I was counting those guys will see…less, as they use IPS displays (and I always thought higher contrast gives an ability to distinguish more brightness steps from black to white), but this is definitely not right.
One guy let me know (he was doing some calibration stuff, got us a few years back a nice ICC profile for Dell P2414H) I have some severe problems with gamma and recommended a calibration. My screen is Samsung TV – 2017 40″ VA 6-series (UE40MU6172, but the specific number varies depending on the market, but it is this series). So didn’t take long and I had ColorMunki Display on my table (and still have, frankly, I love this stuff, but I am still too new).
Well, long story short – I wanted to try stock SW, results were mediocre at best (I was following all instructions), so I quickly switched to DisplayCal and I was very satisfied (I got the tiniest bit better black level, average gamma 2,19 and whites 6450-6550k (calibration to 6500k), but…nothing has changed, now it is even worse, because as mentioned in the documentation, some applications use their own LUTs, so now I cannot even rely on what I see – this creates an another problem, just recently I edited (intentionally dark) a photo of headphones I shot and ended up with
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zIsZ1Jdr2yXO0sxgchitrtIflVURYWFT
guys who let me know barely saw 1770 from the name, not yet “DT” and “PRO”. Honestly, I think I never had such problems with a previous screen (Philips BDM4065UC, TP Vision VA 40″ panel).
Can be the problem with “gamma” or the problem with dark tones even “fixed” or at least mostly mitigated with a calibration?
Can be problems regarding apps and colors be fixed with a DisplayCal’s loader (I wanted to avoid it – I wanted to have a solution which does not require yet another dedicated SW to apply calibration)?
Some steps I did not make:
- did not load correction profile when launching DisplayCal from ColorMunki SW (back then I didn’t know what does it do)
- did not apply any correction profile in the DisplayCal window
- did not apply white/black level compensation.
Do you have any recommendation how to proceed now?
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Apologies for the title, I didn’t know what to type in, then I jumped over the post and forgot to change it before posting.
Hi,
for literally everyone those after ones (there are before/after couple shots) were extremely dark
It really depends how these images are viewed. In a completely dark room with the image being the only thing on screen, it’s easier to make out remaining detail (although a lot of it is effectively made really hard to see due to the excessive contrast).
Can be the problem with “gamma” or the problem with dark tones even “fixed” or at least mostly mitigated with a calibration?
I’m not sure there even is a problem to begin with – how one edits imagery also comes down to artistic choice and taste. If these images are intended to look that way, then that’s as valid a choice as any other. Personally I find the detail loss too excessive, though.
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So do I, thus what I was interested in, if that can be fixed, because right now I cannot rely on anything I can see on my screen.
Can I fix/mitigate this with a calibration? Or can I help myself to adjust settings on TV with measurement reports from DisplayCal and if so, which value should I look for?
My very last (after-calibration report) looked like
Black level = 0.0103 cd/m^2
50% level = 11.25 cd/m^2
White level = 51.24 cd/m^2
Aprox. gamma = 2.19
Contrast ratio = 4986:1
White chromaticity coordinates 0.3120, 0.3274
White Correlated Color Temperature = 6553K, DE 2K to locus = 3.9
White Correlated Daylight Temperature = 6556K, DE 2K to locus = 0.9
White Visual Color Temperature = 6410K, DE 2K to locus = 3.8
White Visual Daylight Temperature = 6587K, DE 2K to locus = 0.9May I suggest calibrating to sRGB gamma curve since that is what baked into DirectX and OpenGL unless you do some trickery with the render targets? I would think most game engines don’t do color management and just use what’s already built into the graphics API, so it’s safe to assume that games expect sRGB gamma response.
The sRGB gamma is linear near black, which would give the desired distinguishability of shadow details.
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May I suggest calibrating to sRGB gamma curve since that is what baked into DirectX and OpenGL unless you do some trickery with the render targets? I would think most game engines don’t do color management and just use what’s already built into the graphics API, so it’s safe to assume that games expect sRGB gamma response.
The sRGB gamma is linear near black, which would give the desired distinguishability of shadow details.
Would such option change the “correctness” of the colors? Or is this just for a gamma calibration having nothing to do with colors?
And what do you reckon, shall I calibrate to higher brightness point? As mentioned my casual brightness is far below even 120cd/m2. Or is this calibration to measured brightness level a concern for displays, where different brightness levels may yield in the different contrast ratio?
May I suggest calibrating to sRGB gamma curve since that is what baked into DirectX and OpenGL unless you do some trickery with the render targets? I would think most game engines don’t do color management and just use what’s already built into the graphics API, so it’s safe to assume that games expect sRGB gamma response.
The sRGB gamma is linear near black, which would give the desired distinguishability of shadow details.
Would such option change the “correctness” of the colors? Or is this just for a gamma calibration having nothing to do with colors?
And what do you reckon, shall I calibrate to higher brightness point? As mentioned my casual brightness is far below even 120cd/m2. Or is this calibration to measured brightness level a concern for displays, where different brightness levels may yield in the different contrast ratio?
As far as my understanding goes, calibration doesn’t affect color-correctness in color-managed applications. In non-color-managed apps (including Windows and, I assume, most games) you wouldn’t get the “right” colors anyway, although the calibration will affect color temperature and gamma (i.e. lightness of different shades) which, of course, will affect the overall image (the colors won’t be “right” because the color gamut of your display is not accounted for by calibration, you need profiling for that). So, in conclusion, if you calibrate to different gamma, then you should not see any difference in properly color-managed apps, but you will, of course, see the difference in non-color managed apps. Since, from what I gather, most if not all of them expect sRGB, that is at least as close as you can get, and if your monitor’s gamut does not differ significantly from sRGB, then the colors will be… “almost right”?
I think, you should calibrate to the brightness that is most comfortable for you in your usual working environment. The brightness should not affect color accuracy.
Also, a couple more things. The “contrast ratio” (also sometimes called “dynamic range”) is just Lightness(white)/Lightness(black) and doesn’t really tell anything about shadow detail. It really is just a measure of “how black” the screen’s black is at any given brightness of white. Interestingly enough, VA-type panels while typically boasting much higher contrast ratios than other types of LCD panels, allegedly suffer from what’s called “black crush” or loss of detail in the shadows. Although I don’t notice such problem on my VA screen after calibration to sRGB, it is certainly the case when calibrated to gamma 2.2.
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I really like this idea, I even feel, after reading
https://displaycal.net/#concept (basically the last paragraph talks about it)
and recalling that as of default, my screen had a gamma close to 2.4 I have to say I feel now why I am noticing much more banding in darker tones than ever before, so it looks, like calibrate to sRGB target may be the best idea anyway.
So definitely, just as you said, I agree and I will definitely try choosing sRGB as the tone curve option with my next calibration.
One other thing – sRGB we were talking about and sRGB “color space” are two different things?
When talking about “calibrating to sRGB” I meant sRGB tone response curve. sRGB is a standard that defines both a gamut and a gamma curve(s). Together, they are sRGB colour space. At least, that is my understanding, I’m very new to this colour science, mostly talking of my own experience with calibration and what I googled on the subject, so don’t take my word over anyone else’s 🙂
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Some time past and I still did not get back to it and it will take time I will again be willing to try it again, but…today I noticed that some problems of mine with photos looking dark is because some I edited in LR and only now I noticed how much darker they appear after an export. A simple question, why is this happening and what is causing it and how can I revert whatever is happening (I still use the DisplayCal calibration+profiling – however I don’t use DC profile loader, just a Windows color management system)?
Probably need to configure LR to use the display profile while working and to convert to sRGB when exporting. Also, better to use displaycal’s loader as Windows’s is unreliable.
How are viewing images after export? if you are using a color managed app you should see no difference.
It’s always important to determine if the color management in the applications you are using is working correctly (or at all). I’ve created a set of test images that can be useful for this purpose.
