I can't seem to get my monitor calibrated. I tried the other day and it was horrible. So I am left to select an existing profile from the pref selection box. The iMac does not look that good to me so I selected Adobe RGB 1998. Does this sound ok to you Mac users? Remember, I am new to this system.
rogue_designer
Reciprocity Failure
Are you talking about the working space for you images? or the specific monitor profile?
I recommend trying to calibrate it again (I assume you are using the calibrate tool in the system preferences). It will probably seem a bit "light" compared to PC monitors you've used in the past. I prefer it that way, but it's an aquired taste.
I recommend trying to calibrate it again (I assume you are using the calibrate tool in the system preferences). It will probably seem a bit "light" compared to PC monitors you've used in the past. I prefer it that way, but it's an aquired taste.
agfa100
Well-known
I have a Ti 15" g4 powerbook and just leave it in "color LCD" works fine for me, I also use "colorsync" with my HP printer and wisiswig which is all I am looking for.
wbill
wbill
kbg32
neo-romanticist
Yes, Adobe 1998. It is in your system preferences menu. I recommend it for your working color space in Photoshop as well.
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mwooten
light user
What Keith said. Keep everything in Adobe 1998 except when exporting for the web, and then use sRGB.
jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
Adobe 1998 is a good source profile, but not a very good monitor profile.
Jorge, what kind of trouble did you have profiling your monitor? It takes a while if you turn expert options on, but it shouldn't be difficult.
One thing of which you do have to be a bit careful is to make sure you've only got ONE color management system active. For example, if you've calibrated your monitor using ColorSync, do NOT use the Adobe Gamma utility or any other monitor-tweaking utility.
Another question: When you say your monitor calibration "was horrible," what do you mean? Do you mean that the process was horrible, or that now that the monitor is calibrated, your images don't look the way you expect?
If the latter, it could be that your monitor calibration is perfectly correct, but your image calibrations are wrong.
"Calibrating" a monitor basically just characterizes it so that the color-management system knows how it displays various colors. Then it uses that information, along with the source and output profiles, to add consistency to the results you get.
You've got to give the color-management system accurate information about how each device renders each color, so it can tweak the values to provide consistency. (In effect, it's saying, "This guy's monitor is too blue, and his camera is too red, so when I display images from the camera on the monitor, I have to turn down both the blue and the red. On his printer, blue is fine but it's not red enough, so when he prints I can leave both the blue and the red alone." And so forth.)
So when you calibrate the monitor, you're just storing values that tell the CM system how much "windage" the monitor requires -- for three colors and three light/dark values per color (if you've got Expert Options turned on, which you should.) This by itself shouldn't make your images look "horrible," although it certainly might make them look different.
Apple LCDs are usually very consistent, so I'd suggest you go back to the iMac default setting to start with. Make sure you've got appropriate profiles selected for your sources and output devices (if your camera is set to the Adobe RGB color space, for example, set your RGB source profile to Adobe RGB; if your printer came with profiles, set the output device profile appropriately.) Then see how things look/print.
Once you understand what the default settings do, you can try to get better, but change only one thing at a time. For example, if you go back and build a new profile, build it with the same color temperature and gamma settings as the default.
It may seem like a lot of work now, but once you get it done you'll very seldom have to do anything to it. Incidentally, this isn't a Mac thing specifically -- setting up color management in Windows is at least as difficult. It's going from unmanaged to managed color that requires the effort. To those who are saying right now, "Then why should I bother, when I'm happy with the results I get from unmanaged color?" the answer is, "Wait until you buy a new printer or change papers, then you'll see!"
Jorge, what kind of trouble did you have profiling your monitor? It takes a while if you turn expert options on, but it shouldn't be difficult.
One thing of which you do have to be a bit careful is to make sure you've only got ONE color management system active. For example, if you've calibrated your monitor using ColorSync, do NOT use the Adobe Gamma utility or any other monitor-tweaking utility.
Another question: When you say your monitor calibration "was horrible," what do you mean? Do you mean that the process was horrible, or that now that the monitor is calibrated, your images don't look the way you expect?
If the latter, it could be that your monitor calibration is perfectly correct, but your image calibrations are wrong.
"Calibrating" a monitor basically just characterizes it so that the color-management system knows how it displays various colors. Then it uses that information, along with the source and output profiles, to add consistency to the results you get.
You've got to give the color-management system accurate information about how each device renders each color, so it can tweak the values to provide consistency. (In effect, it's saying, "This guy's monitor is too blue, and his camera is too red, so when I display images from the camera on the monitor, I have to turn down both the blue and the red. On his printer, blue is fine but it's not red enough, so when he prints I can leave both the blue and the red alone." And so forth.)
So when you calibrate the monitor, you're just storing values that tell the CM system how much "windage" the monitor requires -- for three colors and three light/dark values per color (if you've got Expert Options turned on, which you should.) This by itself shouldn't make your images look "horrible," although it certainly might make them look different.
Apple LCDs are usually very consistent, so I'd suggest you go back to the iMac default setting to start with. Make sure you've got appropriate profiles selected for your sources and output devices (if your camera is set to the Adobe RGB color space, for example, set your RGB source profile to Adobe RGB; if your printer came with profiles, set the output device profile appropriately.) Then see how things look/print.
Once you understand what the default settings do, you can try to get better, but change only one thing at a time. For example, if you go back and build a new profile, build it with the same color temperature and gamma settings as the default.
It may seem like a lot of work now, but once you get it done you'll very seldom have to do anything to it. Incidentally, this isn't a Mac thing specifically -- setting up color management in Windows is at least as difficult. It's going from unmanaged to managed color that requires the effort. To those who are saying right now, "Then why should I bother, when I'm happy with the results I get from unmanaged color?" the answer is, "Wait until you buy a new printer or change papers, then you'll see!"