First timer to Calibration- using Spyder5 and DisplayCal

[meshcarver]

Hi all.

I’m a concept artist who for the the first time decided to buy equipment to Calibrate my monitor- an NEC MultiSynch 24WMGX3. The equipment I used is the Spyder5 Express.

My monitor’s about 14 years old but still in good shape. All my work is for viewing on monitors- there’s nothing I ever print out.

I followed this tutorial to the letter, except when asked for the Mode I selected Generic LED:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMJnVmfChX4

The Calibration definitely worked, as when given the option to toggle on and off the Profile the difference was huge. Everything’s more yellow, less blues, saturation is less- in fact the difference is so much that I’m not sure I can trust it? I selected “Load calibration on login and preserve calibration state” anyway, so now, every time I boot up Win 10 after 5-6 seconds I see the colours all change on my desktop so I know it’s using it.

My absolute priority is in Photoshop as that’s where I do nearly all of my work, so how do I know if what I’m now seeing in Photoshop is 100% (Or near as possible!) correct please?

Is there anything I need to actually load/set in Photoshop?

As things stand- right now everything might be set up and displaying proper calibration, I just don’t know, so I”m asking here to see if there’s anyone who can explain to me exactly what steps I need to take so I can test it myself and check it’s ok? I’m not very technically minded so need baby steps through this process really- the terms and phrases etc.

In a nutshell- how can I be sure the calibration worked correctly and also how to tell if what I’m now seeing in Photoshop is as correct as it can be?

Also- ideally I’d like my whole monitor display and various software to display correctly, but I’ve read some software isn’t colour manged whatever that means?

Ok, thanks for your time and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for some help..!!! 🙂

Marc

[Florian Höch]

I followed this tutorial to the letter, except when asked for the Mode I selected Generic LED

Your monitor probably has a CCFL backlight.

Is there anything I need to actually load/set in Photoshop?

The default settings should be fine with regards to color in your case (working space sRGB, do not ask if profile mismatch on opening).

what steps I need to take so I can test it myself and check it’s ok?

In DisplayCAL, go to the verification tab and run a measurement report.

I’ve read some software isn’t colour manged whatever that means?

It means that while white point and gray balance is corrected globally through the calibration, only specific (color managed) software, like Photoshop, make use of the display profile to show accurate color. Most applications and Windows itself are not color managed.

[meshcarver]

Hi Florian,

Thanks for your replay.

After researching some more I found this:

“The NEC MultiSync 24WMGX3 utilises an 8-bit AMVApanel, capable of producing a true 16.77 million colours. The screen uses standard CCFL backlighting and so it’s colour gamut covers 72% of the NTSC colour space, a moderate figure compared with many modern W-CCFL and LED backlit screens with extended gamuts.”

So does that mean I select “LCD (CCFL)”, “Wide Gamut LCD (CCFL)” or “LCD (CCFL Type 2)”?

With the Photoshop side- do I just completely leave everything alone yes? No need to change anything at all? I see in Colour Settings>RGB it’s set to “sRBG IEC61966-2.1”. But in the drop down there’s also an option to use my DisplayCal Profile? If I don’t select that then how does Photoshop make use of it? It’s so confusing.

I’ll probably have to reru the process once I know which Mode to select- then if I run the Measuremtn Report would you be able to asses it from here please?

Thanks again for your time Florian.

[Florian Höch]

So does that mean I select “LCD (CCFL)”,

Correct.

With the Photoshop side- do I just completely leave everything alone yes?

In your case, yes.

But in the drop down there’s also an option to use my DisplayCal Profile?

Never do that – by doing so you would basically tell Photoshop that images without a profile are in your display colorspace, which is never the case really. That would effectively disable color management for those images.

If I don’t select that then how does Photoshop make use of it? It’s so confusing.

All operating systems that support installing and assigning ICC profiles to devices have an API for applications to query said profiles. Color managed applications usually do that automatically with no user intervention required (some exceptions do exist, I believe in Gimp for example, you explicitly have to turn color management on and tell it to query the system for the display profile before it’ll work).

I’ll probably have to reru the process once I know which Mode to select- then if I run the Measuremtn Report would you be able to asses it from here please?

Correct.

[meshcarver]

Hi Florian,

I redone the Calibration using the LCD (CCFL) Mode option.

Here’s the result of the Measurement Report- could you please let me know how things have gone, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks Florian

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[meshcarver]

Also- here’s some shots I took, I don’t know if they’ll help you Florian:

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[Florian Höch]

Looks reasonable.

[meshcarver]

Hi,

does that mean that my monitor should now be fairly well calibrated?

[Florian Höch]

Yes.

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