setting for macbookair5,2

[Nick Rebol]

Hi,

I have a few questions about calibrating and profiling my macbook air display.

First, I know it doesn’t make sense to ask about the ‘best’ settings without specifying ‘best for what’. What I use my macbook air for is viewing my photos in the Photos app, usually in a well lit interior that often has quite warm lighting. I also do some editing in lightroom/photoshop unless I can save it for when I get back to my desktop and better monitor. I usually edit with my desktop and monitor because it has a wider native gamut. But I also check how the photo looks on my phone and macbook air. I assume a phone and/or laptop screen is how most people might view the photos, so I want my macbook calibrated to as standard as possible, if that makes sense at all. For example, I initially set the target tone curve

General Question: Mac os x desktop, preview, and photos app are all color managed by the operating system (colorsync utility) if i understand correctly. Does this change any considerations for calibrating and profiling the display in displaycal?  Like is apple color management aiming for a specific target gamma, so if I target something else in calibration, it can be problematic?

Question: in the report on uncalibrated display, I see that the native approx. gamma is 2.03. I originally set the tone curve to sRGB bc that is fairly standard for web viewing, for example. I noticed that the resultant curve had a hard time getting as smooth a black to grey distribution as setting the tone curve to the native gamma. This is expected, as i gather from the documentation. Any way to improve upon this besides reducing the ‘black output offset’?

Question: I had been using a white point setting of ‘as measured’. Am i correct in thinking: This means that it is using the white point as noted in the ‘report on uncalibrated display’? for my macbook this is ~6800K with a delta to locus of the daylight spectrum of 4.1. I dont know if the delta of 4.1 is quite a lot or not, but I will probably aim for 6500K in the future anyways.

Question: in the ‘report on uncalibrated display’ the native black level is  .4620cd/m^2. What would happen if I, say, chose a target black level much less than that? And when I choose a custom black level, it asks for a measurement. Why would this measurement be any different from the one in the ‘report on uncalibrated display’?

Thanks for any help in advance!

[Florian Höch]

Hi,

Does this change any considerations for calibrating and profiling the display in displaycal?

No.

I originally set the tone curve to sRGB bc that is fairly standard for web viewing,

Calibration tone curve doesn’t matter on macOS as the whole desktop is colormanaged. Leave at default 2.2 or use sRGB.

This means that it is using the white point as noted in the ‘report on uncalibrated display’?

Yes.

delta to locus of the daylight spectrum of 4.1

What’s your measurement instrument?

native black level is .4620cd/m^2. What would happen if I, say, chose a target black level much less than that?

Nothing. The calibrated black level will still be the loest achievable (in this case .462 cd/m2).

And when I choose a custom black level, it asks for a measurement. Why would this measurement be any different from the one in the ‘report on uncalibrated display’?

When you have several displays connected, you measure the black level of each and use the highest one to equalize all the displays. Note that this will only work in applications such as Photoshop due to macOS limitations.

[Nick Rebol]

Calibration tone curve doesn’t matter on macOS as the whole desktop is colormanaged. Leave at default 2.2 or use sRGB.

This is what confuses me. I have done two calibrations, one with tone curve target of sRGB, one with ‘as measured’ (the native gamma of the display is 2.03). I notice a difference when switching between the two of them when looking at photos in lightroom and the photos app. likewise when viewing a gradient at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php on a web browser there is clearly a difference between the two. One thing i did notice was that for the sRGB calibration the black level seemed high compared to the native black, so that could be the difference I am seeing? I also might just be confused about what it means for software or an os to be ‘colormanaged’.

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