How often do you calibrate your monitor ?

[mi75]

A few months ago I bought a cheap $300AU Samsung 22'' monitor. Anyway the color was pretty crap straight out of the box and I had no luck fixing it by eye so I bought a Spyder3 Pro calibrator.

 

It looks good when calibrated at Gamma 2.2 and White Point 6500k but the next day its down to 1.89-1.97 & slightly higher but well with in acceptable white point.

 

Is it a matter of you get what you pay for with monitors ?

 

How often are people recalibrating monitors (daily/weekly/monthly) and do you find much difference when you do ?

 

I've been doing it weekly and find I have a noticeable difference.

 

Thanks

Mart

[Devin Johnston]

I do it when I get tired of seeing the reminder screen that the software uses to nag you, so it's probably once every month or two. As far as the quality of the monitor goes I'm sure there is a difference between a $300 display and a $1000 but unless they are right next to each other you'll never know the difference. As long as you’re getting good results and your prints are matching what your monitor is displaying I'd be happy with what you've got.

[STRAT]

As long as you’re getting good results and your prints are matching what your monitor is displaying I'd be happy with what you've got.

 

this is my ethos. i never calibrate. for me it's never been an issue in nearly 20 years. i've always had good monitors (easily had 100% in that colour perception test i posted) and always set the brightness/contrast to a degree that matches my colour printed output.

 

it's pretty relative too - you spend fortune in time and money worrying about calibration because your peers and colleges say you 'must' do it, only to realize that not only do your clients not understand a thing about it (or even have a clue what the whole subject is on about) or even care, but even when you send your work off to print half the time the printers **** things up and get the image looking crappy anyway.

 

I suppose if you're into high-end publication printing on a regular bases then calibration is important, but for me? - a good quality monitor is good enough

[mattclinch]

good quality dell 30" lcd monitors, and i'd say we x-rite i1 recalibrate every 2-3 weeks. the difference is usually significant enough for it to be necessary.

[Devin Johnston]

i've always had good monitors (easily had 100% in that colour perception test i posted) and always set the brightness/contrast to a degree that matches my colour printed output.

What do you consider a good monitor, and how much would you spend if you have a dual setup?

 

The problem we've had in our office is we will spend hours getting colors looking right on the screen and of course when you print everything is wrong. The only way to get around this is to calibrate monitors and printers but this is an expensive process that can easily cost thousands of dollars. We have in house inkjet and lasers which cost tens of thousands of dollars and the only printer that even gets close is a $300 Epson inkjet, but it's slow and expensive.

[STRAT]

What do you consider a good monitor, and how much would you spend if you have a dual setup?

 

 

we typically use Formac monitors (about a couple hundred bucks each) - http://www.pclaunches.com/entry_images/0207/26/formac_xtreme-5.jpg

[Devin Johnston]

Are you using a Mac?

[STRAT]

i am, but 95% of the time i'm in PC mode on XP64

[BrianKitts]

I do it when I get tired of seeing the reminder screen that the software uses to nag you, so it's probably once every month or two.

 

took me about two years of running on calibrated monitors before I saw the little checkbox in the dialog box when you save your .ici profile that allows you to turn off the reminder (at least on gretag macbeth's eye-one share application) It's nice not having it pop up everytime you start windows.

 

I typically calibrate every 60 days or so, unless I see a difference in images on my monitor versus someone elses. Then I'll calibrate to double check my monitor to make sure mine's good before telling them there's is off.

[markf]

When I finally got rid of my old CRt moniters and swithched to flat panels, I invested in a monaco Optix hardware calibration device. I also got a new ink jet printer that supported custom ICC paper profiles. The whole process has left me confused. There's a glitch using windows with dual monitors (which I have) that adds to the confusion. My prints come out ok but still too noticeably dark as compared to the monitors.

 

I probably re-calibrate once every three months or so. Mainly because I'm still confused and a bit frustrated by the process. I'll revisit it all again when/if I have the time in the future. I'd like to have a close a match between monitor and print as possible.

 

The best info I've found regarding all of this is:

http://www2.chromix.com/index.cxsa?pid=1.cn29

[mi75]

Problem solved!

 

It ended up being a problem with the ATi video card screwing with the monitor profile settings on restart. It didn't reset the profile to std but only slightly lowered the gamma to around 1.8-1.9 instead of the 2.2 I had in the Spyder profile.

 

To solve the problem I went to msconfig and turned off the startup for the Ati CLIStart.exe then did a few tests and all seems good!

 

Hope that helps someone else who may have a similar problem.

[Mike.]

I've been through many disappointments until I decide to calibrate my monitors and printers. every image I produced on my software was quite impossible to get printed with the same colour sand contrasts. the printed versions were so dark that i was working 'blind', with over exposure in the renders, just crossing fingers so that the printed version will be well contrasted. the colour of the textures I created were so different than the colours I was obtaining at render....

I have some monitors which just don't display colours and contrasts correctly. I assume most of them are like that . now calibration is a critical parameter in my work. Now I can trust my monitor, and that is what makes the difference in the picture manufacturing process.I don't work in 'blind' mode any more

I could n' t work on an uncalibrated monitor any more .

it's cheap to calibrate a screen. why wouldn't one do it.

I can say that you are quite happy when your texture colour on the little balls in the software matches the texture you created, when the rendered texture matches the little ball colour, and when the printed picture matches the one on your screen!! it's a real pleasure