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I’m trying to use a Spyder 3 to calibrate my laptop screen, but while the results are ok for brighter colours I’m getting garbage results for low R/G/B values which leads to bizzare colour banding in what should be smooth gradients.
The tone curves show what’s going on:
Spyder3 is not an accurate device at all. That’s the main cause. Get an i1d3.
In the mean time use “simple curve + matrix” profile and BPC. Recalibrate with these settings, they may improve your banding issues.
Calibrite Display Pro HL on Amazon
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.“Profiling” tab, profile type combo. Choose single curve matrix and check black point compensation BPC).
Single curve will make 1 TRC instead of the 3 TRC of your screenshot, “cheating” color managed apps to color managed less and to asume that they are dealing with a monitor with near perfect neutral calibration. Sames goes with BPC, “ideal black”.This is a way to cheat color managed apps if your spyder provides “visually” good results in non color managed apps.
If this requirement is not met, I mean you don’t get “visually good enough calibration” in non color managed enviroment (Internet Explorer for example), then buy a better measurement device (i1d3).Thanks – don’t know how I missed that! But if you’re tricking colour-managed apps like that, then is there much point in calibrating/profiling at all?
The spyder provides “visually” good results in IE. See below for comparison (IE on left, chrome on right)
Thanks – don’t know how I missed that! But if you’re tricking colour-managed apps like that, then is there much point in calibrating/profiling at all?
The spyder provides “visually” good results in IE. See below for comparison (IE on left, chrome on right)
- Because your current colorimeter is not accurate at all (your last message), so you cannot work with its results.
- Because even good devices may same some limitations (dark readings in spectrophotometers)
- Because most color managed apps use 8bit precision even if they support 16bit images, so rounding errors may be a real problem in lots of situations. They could be a bigger problem that slight innaccuracies introduced with those “tricks”.
- Because your device (screen) has limitations that calibration cannot solve (contrast for example).
Just a few examples…
Those all sound like reasons not to bother with colour management at all. ?
Those statements imply quite the opposite: there is no way color management will make your devices go off their limits.
Color management provides you with tools to survive in that frontier, like BPC. I think that you misunderstood what color management is.Anyway, if you want to do it in a more accurate way you need at least one new device.
The spyder provides “visually” good results in IE. See below for comparison (IE on left, chrome on right)
IE is not color managed at all (same for Edge). Chrome seems to have weird bugs with regards to color management. Always test in “known good” applications with working color management (like Photoshop, Affinity Photo, XnView with color management enabled, Firefox with
gfx.color_management.enablev4 trueandgfx.color_management.mode 1).Thanks. I was only checking in IE because Vincent suggested it. Is there a definitive list of “known good” colour-managed Windows applications anywhere?
Thanks. I was only checking in IE because Vincent suggested it.
It seems that you misundertood that part too, or that I didn’t manage to explain it to you.
Anyway, a more detailed explanation:
Your 1st screenshot showed ugly TRC behaviour in dark end. That’s why you open this thread.
Unless you change your measurement device, your current chances to “see” if that behaviour was actually happening and your current calibration is useless or if it was a product of inaccurate dark readings from your spyder are limited to a visual inspection of the dark zones of a gradient with calibration applied but without taking account of TRC info.
One possibe way to check this, I mean behaviour with calibration ON but forgetting TRC from profile, a is visual inspection on a non color managed app. For example MS IE/Edge.
It is a bad browser but is very useful to spot if you have problems specifically related to calibration removing from the equation problems related to color management.
If you suffer this kind of problems in the dark end in a color managed app is not that easy to point to the source of the problem. Example: bad calibration? inacurate TRC info? app unable to deal with color management rounding errors?So:
If that visual inspection with non color managed app goes OK (our condition, “MS IE test PASSED”) then you can try to make a profile with 1xTRC+BPC to solve or at least mitigate the bad behaviour that your current profile shows without buying a new device (a possible solution).
After that you make this new profile you can evaluate it with your favourite color managed app.If visual inspection shows weird behavior in dark end (“Test FAILED”), that calibration is useless and you need a new device (a solution).
I hope that this explanation will be clear enough to solve your doubts.
Thanks. I was only checking in IE because Vincent suggested it.
That’s fine, Vincent expanded a bit above on the rationale for the test (I would say that MS Paint is better for testing the effects of calibration alone though, because IE 9+ and Edge, while not taking into account the display profile, do assume sRGB for display, so they convert images with, say, AdobeRGB profile embedded, to sRGB. MS Paint on the other hand just displays the pixel data as-is).
Is there a definitive list of “known good” colour-managed Windows applications anywhere?
No, although I intended for some time now to add something like that to the Wiki (but the list will likely be kept quite small so it can be effectively curated), which hasn’t happened mostly due to time constraints. The apps I mentioned are a starting point and should cover quite a few use cases (color managed image editor – image viewer – browser), although those applications have limitations (e.g., multi-monitor color management is not supported by Firefox and XnView, and XnView does not color manage all file types it supports).
