Need help with monitor calibration and workflow

[zhopudey]

I've finally managed to convince my boss to upgrade all our crappy TN monitors to something decent. While NEC is out of the question, I can atleast get half decent Dell or LG ips panels. I'll also get a X-Rite colormunki. I'd like some guidance to make sure I'm doing this right.

1) I read somewhere that spyder express only works with a single monitor, while colormunki can calibrate mulitiple. I have 15 workstations, so i hope colormunki is the right tool for the job.

2) The more I read about this topic, the more confused I get. Can anyone point me to a good website where i can learn about the basics of calibrating?

 

Here is my hw and sw -

Win 8.1 > Max 2015 > VRay 3 > Photoshop CS6 > GTX 750 Ti > Dell/LG IPS monitor (the cheaper ones).

 

I suppose the xrite software in basic mode will be eay enough. But what do I do after that? Do I need to do anything in Max and VRay? And how do I set up photoshop?

[Amen]

Hi, we are getting the spyder studio. Our monitors are nothing special but we have to get better and reliable printing results, which is the main reason for us to calibrate.

 

It could be intersting to compare the colormunki (interesting name) and the spyder studio.

[zhopudey]

The spyder studio costs much more than the colormunki display? Can it calibrate printers as well?

[Amen]

The Spyder Studio is a little bit more expensive and consists of two pieces. But they can do more or less the same. I think the Spyder software is a more powerful, but I am not sure if will use the more advanced features.

[Stephen Thomas]

The ColorMunki is a great piece of kit. I used it before in a previous office and am currently using X-Rite 1 Pro. I don't have any experience of Spyder products, but I think if you search Jeff Mottle's posts on Colour Calibration on here he doesn't recommend them.

[zhopudey]

Ok i'll search for his posts. Need to read up a lot on this topic.

[SgWRX]

x-rite gets my vote and colormunki will serve you well. a couple things to keep in mind.

 

Photoshop:

1. Go into Color Settings under the Edit menu

2. Set working spaces to sRGB, US Web Coated (SWOP) v2

3. Gray Dot Gain 20%, Spot Dot Gain 20% (defaults i believe)

4. Color Management Policies should all be Preserve Embedded Profiles

5. Profile Mismatches: Check the boxes, Missing Profiles: Check the box.

 

When you save a render from Rendered frame window or save to file, upon opening it in Photoshop you should get a message saying there is no embedded profile what do you want to do, I choose Assign Profile: then pick my monitor's profile generated from the x-rite device, but i keep the check box that says "and then convert to working RGB" - which is sRGB.

 

If you open an image from the web that you've saved you could potentially get this message too or it may have a different profile such as aRGB. you can go ahead and open it the same way if it doesn't have a profile embedded. In the case of a different profile, use the document's profile but then when it's open, convert it to sRGB via the edit menu once it's open.

 

As you learn/read more about aRGB (adobe rgb) you'll understand when and why to use a different profile. But for 3ds Max rendered images, unless something has changed or VRAY does something different, the images are almost always closest to the sRGB profile or, like I mentioned above whatever your monitor profile is when the colormunki was used. When you are profiled with the colormunki, if you simply assign sRGB to the image from Max when you open it, it might look "duller" than what you see in the rendered frame window.

 

I've found that the above works with HDR rendered images as well. Often and HDRI (sky for example) won't have an embedded profile or again when you render in HDR it won't have an embedded profile, so in the case of purchasing a sky off the internet, you can assign it sRGB but in the case of rendering an HDR you can assign your monitor profile and then convert.

 

The idea is, that generally speaking everyone uses or assumes sRGB for the interweb or windows etc... it's a "standard". how and when you deviate is up to you but i've found sticking with it is a good practice.

 

Windows:

 

Once you use the colormunki to profile your monitor (i use a dell u2412m with good results - which is NOT wide-gamut avoid that unless you really need the benefits of it), you might have to change windows 8 "color management" to allow windows to automatically load that profile everytime you start windows. I had to do this in Win7. Otherwise what happens is, the profile won't load up and you have to manually load it each time.

 

Colormunki:

 

Using the colormunki it should step you through setting your monitor's contrast, brightness etc... you want to choose the options for "LCD brightness which is 120cd" (but might be different outside the USA) and you want "native white point" when setting the color temperature. many will argue about 5000k and 6500k - just do "native white point" on the LCD monitor because the profile compensates for the color temp of the lights back lighting the montior.

 

didn't mean to overwhelm you

[zhopudey]

Wow! I'll print this out and keep referring to it. Thanks!