Totally new to screen calbration. Can’t decide which calibrator to buy ??

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  • #31579

    Ankit
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    Hello everyone !!

    I am total newbie to screen calibration. Wanted to choose between “X-Rite i1 Display Studio  or Spyder X Pro”. Mainly want it to edit & color grade videos & pictures. Can be helpful in normal printing stuff too. Can’t go for any higher budget. Kindly suggest which one from both will work best with DisplayCal ??

    Which one will provide more consistent results & mode fidelity when it comes to natural colors to provide an honest base for video editing to happen & one which is more durable & value for money ??

    Can i color calibrate lcd TV or Smartphone too with any of these ??

    Will be highly grateful to everyone’s response.

    • This topic was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Ankit.

    Calibrite Display SL on Amazon   SpyderX Pro on Amazon  
    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    #31581

    Kuba Trybowski
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    DisplayCAL is an app for advanced users, not beginners.

    If you’re a beginner, there’s an excellent YT channel with X-Rite-specific calibration tutorials, which I highly recommend:

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWEYAVNm0jI5az9MjR9SoHw

    Although they are eclusively for the more expensive models (the i1 Display Pro, Pro Plus nad i1 Studio, which use CC Profiler/i1 Profiler, rather than CC Studio/i1 Studio), they are very user-friendly and easy to understand. You can also talk directly to the author.

    Go for the i1 Studio  colorimeter and the latest version of the CC Studio app (formerly X-Rite i1 Studio):

    https://calibrite.com/us/software-downloads/

    For image editing use the following settings:

    Brightness/luminance: 80 cd/m2

    White point: D65 or 6500K

    Gamma: 2.2

    Tonal response curve: Standard

    Contrast: Native

    Color patch set: The largest one available.

    For grading videos you need a differrent tonal response curve, like  rec.709/BT.709 and possibly a differnt gamma value.

    #31582

    Ankit
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    Very much appreciate your quick & kind suggestions + information.

    Will definitely check out that youtube channel.

    Although you did’nt let me know  if i can color calibrate smartphone & tv too ?

    #31590

    Vincent
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    @Ankit any i1d3 colorimeter will do the work, the pro is faster and compatible with HW calibration, i1display studio is not. Also you can upgrade them by software (“spectral corrections”) to measure future LED backligjhts in a distributed way. SpyderX is not able to do that.

    You can measure TVs and smartphones as long as you have a suitable CCSS correction.
    Since most martphones have no color management there is little you can do about it, maybe Xrite true color aapp.
    For TVs use DisplayCAL cousin HCFR.

    If you have enough budget go for the i1displaypro. HW calibration is more common today than in the past, including some TVs.

    #31608

    Алексей Коробов
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    Very rare and expensive TV’s have Calman calibration software compatibility. Others seems not to have abilities for good tuning. Some smartphones show sRGB images pretty well out of the box, but you can’t set display profile in Anroid or iOS. X-Rite True Color is almost unusable in practice and may be buggy. What do you want to print? How serious is your interest to color management discipline?

    #31609

    Kuba Trybowski
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    X-Rite ColorTrue isn’t even available anymore.

    Calman costs $2000 or $3000:

    https://store.portrait.com/professional-software.html

    #31611

    Ankit
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    @Vincent Thank for your response. Actually now i am making my mind for “Display Pro Plus”. Since we might buying a new 4k HDR or maybe OLED TV in near future.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Ankit.
    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Ankit.
    #31614

    Ankit
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    @АлексейКоробов   Thank you for your response.

    When it comes to smartphone. I have Sony Xperia X, which just has manual setting for red, blue & green but nothing more fancy. Although it has an automatic X-Reality Engine mode which says to make colors look more natural but don’t know its accurate or not since i am new to calibrated version of any display so don’t know how a calibrated display even looks.

    Don’t heard of calman though……..

    For TV i just want it to br calibrated for viewing pleasure (which a 4k HDR maybe an OLED we might be buying in near future). Since my eyes are very critical of small differences like my ears. As i am mainly an avid music creator & usually have criticality for only sound atm.

    I am a totally a solo content creator as i do everything from music creation process from scratch to static images creation to final video production for it to the end. I don’t have any good camera right now, so i am mostly into animation studd for the moment. Untill now i have been editing on uncalibrated screens (my laptop & my smartphone). But since i noticed my edits don’t look as i want on different screens i look at. So thought of diving into screen calibration.

    Thats the seriousness part you asked for & my skills just tend to evolve day by day.

    For printing i just want close possible color acurracy to the screen but not very critical for printing casual images……

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Ankit.
    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Ankit.
    #31615

    Ankit
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    Also “Display Pro Plus” will be good enough for printing accurate images too ??

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Ankit.
    #31619

    Ankit
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    By the way image editing is the most skilled part i have right now when it comes to screen & highly serious for it. For now i urgently need calibration mainly for it.

    #31620

    Vincent
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    @АлексейКоробов   Thank you for your response.

    When it comes to smartphone. I have Sony Xperia X, which just has manual setting for red, blue & green but nothing more fancy. Although it has an automatic X-Reality Engine mode which says to make colors look more natural but don’t know its accurate or not since i am new to calibrated version of any display so don’t know how a calibrated display even looks.

    That is whitepoint, not gamut boundaries. Unless smartphone has some sRGB/Rec709 emulation mode images will look oversaturated.
    Most android amoleds have it (but you cannot modify gamut boundaries manually, only use those smaler gamut preset)  and maybe ios devices have color management (I do not use them so IDNK)

    Also “Display Pro Plus” will be good enough for printing accurate images too ??

    It cannot be used for printer profiling. Let’s assume that you send images to a print lab with proper color management or that you hire a service for profilling your printer, so for a combination of paper and inks you have an accurate ICC with printer or pronter lab behavior.

    With that informatioon (printer/lab ICC profile) you can use softproof (Photoshop, LR, C1..) to preview how images will look on a calibrated screen BUT that preview assumes/requires
    -that printed copy will be under some good spectral power distribution light source
    -with the same color in light source as screen white (or same screen white as light source)
    -with the same light intensity as screen ( lux divided by pi on paper= aprox cd/m2 in screen)
    Most people lack of such high quality light source for printed copies and D65 white on screen usually is not a good match for such light sources, it need to be warmer (and you can calibrate your screen to that warmer whitepoint)

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Vincent.
    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Vincent.
    #31623

    Kuba Trybowski
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    The Calibrite Color Checker Plus (formerly X-Rite i1 Display Pro Plus) is nice, since it supports the BT.1886 tonal response curve, used for professional video editing

    Like the Pro version, it also can be used for hardware calibration (it can talk to a color management chip in a hardware-calibrated display).

    However, to get accurate colors you need a wide-gamut display, preferably with a 95-99% coverage of the Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color spaces.

    A professional colorimeter won’t help you if you have a cheap, narrow-gamut office/gaming screen.

    What you need are both a good disaster and a colorimeter.

    #31624

    Vincent
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    The Calibrite Color Checker Plus (formerly X-Rite i1 Display Pro Plus) is nice, since it supports the BT.1886 tonal response curve, used for professional video editing

    That is software (CCprofiler), not HW. HW supports whatever you want since it does nothing related to that… HW only measures.

    Also Rec1886 is usually a bad choice for TRC unless you have a very very very high contrast display. IPS => do not use it

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Vincent.
    #31660

    Алексей Коробов
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    Ankit, you have to know color management essentials:

    Images must be paired with ICC profiles to make their accurate reproduction possible. ICC profiles interpret RGB (or CMYK, or other) color coordinates as strictly defined color for human eyes under some viewing conditions (falling light spectrum, lighntness level, image holder type and some others), this is not color spectrum reproduction itself. If conditions change in reasonable range, all image colors, except of some most saturated, can be repproduced under new conditions and their RGB coordinates will differ now from originals. Some ICC profile has its color gamut limits (colors coverage) and it is recommended to use standard profiles for images, while displays and printers profiles are always device-related and should cover some standards. For images in the Internet sRGB profile is highly recommended, cause only iMacs, Macbooks Pro and a few more expensive monitors cover other standarts (smartphone displays can cover, but profile emulation is not used in “vivid” screen mode). Printing does not allow to reproduce all display-related colors for physical reasons, but it can reproduce some dense colors, that is why screen proofing using printer ICC is recommended here and AdobeRGB coverage is needed for press design. Finaly you should know that displays with different panel lighting are actualy different viewing conditions, so their calibration can give different color sense when they stand vis-a-vis.

    If you seek accurate color reprodution in your work and ready to build your work process using ICC color management, but you can’t spend money for mainstream industry devices, I recommend you to by old, but tested and reasonably bundled i1Pro Rev.D spectrophotometer on Ebay. These are not perfect, most of inexpensive devices have UV (and deep violet too) cut filters, they may not have ambient light measurement feature, some devices are not bundled with print scanning ruler or display strap (“do it yourself”), but they will give you practical quality, they don’t depend on display corrections and free of production quality spread. Actual offers are:

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/265155802274 – simply new device that may not be UV-cutted but may be unnable to scan prints, 30-days return is acceptable, so you can test it and make decision

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/393544234490 – tested UV-cut device in minimalistic bundle (native white tile platform is strictly required for i1Pro and USB cable must hold high current)

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/114992539757 – the same, but with ruler, table and strap for some more money

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/174940186943 – new accurate and non UV-cut iPro 2 (Rev.E) that still grows in price, minimalistic bundle

    Use DisplayCAL for display measurement capabilities check and standalone Argyll with LittleArgyllGUI command generator for printing. To make full device state test install X-Rite Device Services and i1Diagnostics (old enough versions for i1Pro Rev.D), but beware, you must reinstall device driver (choose from two installed) to return in Argyll then. X-Rite embeds licenses in their devices, so your device may not work with i1Profiler or some of its features, but Argyll don’t need them. Yes, you will read a lot of help pages before you feel free in this sea.

    Good luck!

    #31672

    Kuba Trybowski
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    $260 is enough to buy a new Colorite ColorChecker Display Pro (formerly X-Rite i1 Display Pro):

    It won’t calibrate his printer, but at least he will have a current and supported device.

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