Could people with uncalibrated monitors, upload their edited images for people with calibrated monitors to assess whether it might be a good idea to think about buying one?
Quite rough-and-ready (and totally subjective I must admit), but for people on a restricted budget, such as myself, it could be better than nothing…
Here’s on photo that, to me, seems okay. Is it right out of whack? Should I be thinking about buying one? I have an old Eizo Coloredge and so the monitor would be the thing calibrated not the PC.
In case you were wondering, the bottom reflection is meant to look a bit tarnished.
Also, I made a hash of trying to hide the lens flare: any suggestions?
(I chose this image by coincidence but would like to wish those attending the FOSS conference in the UK a happy stay.)
Agreed with @paperdigits. Calibration and profiling is about accurate colors, not “nice” ones.
You wrote twice “buying one”. One what?
The logic there makes no sense to me, which leads me to think you may be confusing calibration with profiling and unclear about how the whole thing works.
Your current Eizo is probably fine, just update your calibration and profile.
For a “monitor calibration assessment” use a colorimeter and a program capable of providing a monitor calibration assessment, such as ArgyllCMS and DisplayCal.
Indeed, the Nine Degrees Below website is an excellent resource.
To go a bit further, the monitor is likely only one piece of the color puzzle, if you will.
If the monitor is your final display medium and you share over the internet, you have to try and account for everyone else’s monitor. This is impossible. I have a really bad, old monitor that I look at photos on occasionally just to see what someone else might see. Depending on how bad it looks I may make further adjustments.
If you’re going to print your work, then your printer will work in its own color space and likely have it’s own color cast. You’ll need to account for that well.
Thanks for your advice and input. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to revise sentences and see that I cut the vital word ‘colormeter’ and forgot to add it again (it was this item that I referred to twice). I did keep the vital word ‘subjective’ in my post (I have an aversion to the word ‘nice’ and have a strong inclination never to use it).
I bought a used colormeter several years ago; however, as colormeters have filters that are made of gelatin and perhaps was too old or had been kept in the air it was more than useless. I bought the Eizo monitor for the reason that the monitor would be calibrated. I needed to switch over to an XP machine as Eizo’s own application for this purpose didn’t support Linux.
Thanks for the 9°s link that you kindly suggested. I’m sure that it’ll be interesting and helpful reading.
If it is okay, I’ll come back to you to ask related questions in a few days. Knowing that this subject is a minefield I’m sure that I’ll have some!
@Rich ah! All good then I had an Eizo for a year, it had a built-in colorimeter. I had to install Windows in VirtualBox just to interface with that built-in colorimeter, but once I got the ICC profile I could use it anywhere in Linux.
I generally use a X-Rite/Pantone Huey colorimeter on my laptop natively in Linux, though they don’t sell those anymore.
I don’t know of any objective studies of contemporary colorimeters to test how well they function and to find out what price makes sense to pay, I’d be interested in reading such if anyone has a link.
I don’t know of any objective studies of contemporary colorimeters to
test how well they function and to find out what price makes sense to
pay, I’d be interested in reading such if anyone has a link.
I had an Eizo for a year, it had a built-in colorimeter. I had to install Windows in VirtualBox just to interface with that built-in colorimeter, but once I got the ICC profile I could use it anywhere in Linux.