Question to all you calibration pros

Hardware
1

So I went out into the wide wide web, read a lot, tried to understand. Searched the forum, read even more and tried to grasp it all :crazy_face: and come back with a question to all those calibration genius here at pixls…

…but first, one step back…

Under Windows I ran the Datacolor software with my attached SpyderX and SpyderX2 later. They had this little but helpful feature of ambient light control which I really enjoyed as I didn’t have to care too much having the calibration adjusted to the environment, as it happened automatically. Just needed to change the profile in darktable when it was switched by the software.

So that is where I’m coming from.

Then I changed to Linux Mint. Found Argyll CMS and DisplayCal. I did my display calibration, but left out ambient light correction for the moment as I was not aware how it would work.

This whole thing came back to my mind lately and I wanted to meet changing ambient light conditions with my display calibration. After all this reading and trying to get all bits together I came up with the following bottom line of understanding:

  1. first of all adjust the display brightness to roughly match the surrounding brightness (e.g. 160lx)
  2. set DisplayCal to a custom white level and activate ambient light level adjustment. Set both values to the ambient / display brightness (e.g. 160lx)
  3. finally calibrate the display with whitepoint and black level both set to “As measured”
  4. repeat 1. through 3. for all ambient light levels I would like to cover.

Is this approach correct? I would further assume, that I just need to adjust my display brightness when ambient situation has changed and select the proper profile from the Mint color control applet.

Thanks in advance to all of you sharing their thoughts here :wave::blush:

2

I think for many the concensus is don’t use this …it just introduces another variable that you don’t really control…Better to control your lighting and get a good profile in that controlled lighting. I think this is of course also why you see hoods to block indirect light and light bars to compensate for changes in lighting… Just getting a good profile can be tricky enough…

Personally I dont’ use it but it will be interesting to hear from others. I am pretty certain there was also advice several times on the display cal forum not to enable that when profiling …

I guess lets see what others think…

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3

Yes I totally agree with you Todd, not to put too many variables to this already tricky stuff. Typically my laptop is fitted with a DIY display hood and my “editing working place” has a comfy dim and indirect ambient light at 6500K. I still need to adapt my display hood to my new laptop to have everything in place again.

My question (without having pointed that out in my OP) is more in the context that I sometimes have my edits done at “non optimal” conditions / places, the ambient light being more dim or brighter. In such cases I would like to understand how to set my calibration up “correctly”. Not meaning to have a perfect profile, but at least not to be completely off.

So same here, I’m also eager to see what others think about this. Have a nice sunday :blush:

4

Just profile at night, with the lights as you like them. If you have color ciritcal work, do your final edit pass at that same time.

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5

Steps 1–4 would be correct (in step 3 “calibrate” → “profile”).

However, as already mentioned, it’s hardly worth it. While formally the profiling will work, it probably won’t result in very usable profiles, even if those “non optimal” conditions can be reliably characterised.

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