Color calibration issues - blue tint w/ sRGB

You might want to have a play with the colour calibration assistant in System Preferences > Displays; doing it by hand is a bit of a pain, but with patience you should be able to get close. Failing that, beg, borrow, steal, or buy a colorimiter (a friend of mine has one of these, and if you need accurate colour it's well worth the investment).

I have an older (CCFl backlight) MBP, but get a similar blue tint using either sRGB profile; the contrast also seems a little lower than the default. Both effects, though, may be more down to my eyes than anything else -- the default profile has always seemed a little orange, so the switch from that to sRGB may be making me think it's blue whereas perhaps it's actually just less orange. Stupid human visual system! :P

I have a couple of external monitors; subjectively, my HP matches the MBP display quite well when they're both set to either sRGB profile but my Acer looks a significantly less blue. However, without being in a controlled environment and without a "scientific" way of comparing the output it's hard to say which ones are wrong.

Hi,

I have just discover this thread regarding calibration. I am ultra noob when it comes to Color profiling and calibration.

I have calibrated my DELL 3007WFP-HC with 5900K and 2.0 Gamma which is the default color temp. Since I don't have DELL PC I have to live with 5900K default temp

And I have calibrated my MBP with x1600 Graphic card 6500K at Gamma 2.0

again my MBP is bluer.

I guess i have two question

1. what is the default temp on MBP LCD
2. do i need to load different profile settings in either aperture and/or Photoshop CS3?

Just wondering if you can shine somelight.

Thank you so much in advance.

I started a whole thread about the night and day difference between the Macbook Pro 17 and the Cinema display.

If Apple only makes a few variations of a Mac Pro, a Macbook Pro, a Mac Mini, and a Macbook then why is there such a difference between displays?

I found that Apple changed vendors in China on the Macbook Pro 17 - BS. And I also found most Professionals out there calibrate their Cinema Display but leave the notebook screen alone. They may try to calibrate or may use Color LCD profile set to gamma 2.2 and D65 but they have given up on this.

Worse yet... Apple is using a 3D LUT table and so calibrations tools like the Monaco Optix XR PRo will not allow you to tweak the results because of the 3D table.

I found if I calibrate the notebook with a Huey Pro and the Cinema Display with a Monaco, I get as close as I can get, but the notebook will always be dull and bluish whereas if you use the Color LCD profile and gamma 2.2 you get brownish.

This is sad. For Apple to make so few products and they cannot display well together... BUMMER.

I have spent over $7,ooo for a system and converted from being a Windows user to a Mac head and feel let down.


R

You shouldn't use the sRGB profile as display profile, it's a standard RGB color space. It won't change the LUT in the video card so you will see the default values that's why the display is bluish. Calibrate your display with software or hardware calibrator. Use the sRGB profile only in the graphic applications as RGB color space.

Brief intro before I pontificate: I have a degree in imaging and used to be one of the guys you talked to at Eastman Kodak about monitor color calibration (before Kodak drove me crazy).

A few points:

First, sRGB is a needlessly small gamut color space invented by Microsoft. In the professional imaging field it is looked at with great disdain because it is imposing a needless crushing of your monitor's color profile. I've talked to one of the color experts at Adobe and he completely agrees. I don't know who at Adobe is recommending sRGB, but they are W R O N G. I personally call sRGB 'StupidRGB' in order to remind myself exactly what it is worth.

Second, the field of color calibration, color matching and color correction is complicated and requires considerable understanding to perform correctly. There are entire books on the subject, well worth reading. You can even take classes on the subject, such as at Rochester Institute of Technology (plugging my Alma matter). If you have shopped around for color calibration devices you will find they are incredibly expensive, and there is a reason for that.

Third, LCD screens generally SUCK for color matching. Here are a few reasons why:

(A) The viewing angle of most LCD screens is so small that if you tilt your head up, down, right or left you end up with a shift in color balance and contrast. Result: no way can you accurately color match. This is most certainly the case with ALL MacBooks, MacBook Pros and iMacs. The Cinema displays are vastly better. You can check this out yourself at your local Apple Store.

(B) In case you had not heard, none of the MacBook or MacBook Pro laptops are capable of showing all colors to which the human eye is sensitive. They don't do 'millions of colors' despite advertising you have read. They do about 260,000 colors and dither the rest. Dithering does NOT create colors that are not there. It just fakes them. The result again is that it is impossible to use these LCDs for accurate color matching. I have no knowledge about whether this color problem is the case with iMacs, but refer to the paragraph above regarding their viewing angle problem.

(C) The color gamut on even the very best LCD display is at the mercy of the fluorescent light bulbs inside the displays. The massive problem with fluorescent lights is that they do not have a continuous color spectrum. What you get are specific wavelength peaks with complete dropouts of other colors. Ye old CRTs with electron guns and glowing phosphors were/are not perfect either, but they were/are MUCH better at representing the full spectrum of light. Their gamut is much larger and more accurate than any LCD display. CRTs remain THE professional display for color calibration and color matching, even today.

I could rant on, but I think you get the message: Color matching on LCDs is a lousy idea, and on MacBooks and MacBook Pros it is essentially an impossible idea. The colors you need are not there on the screen. What you see is not what you get in terms of color. Give up.

That having been said, you can optimize your results for guestimation purposes. The very first thing I do with ANY display, including on Mac laptops, is go into the 'Displays' preference pane, hit the 'Color' tab and 'Calibrate...' the display. You MUST use 'Expert Mode'. Don't bother with mickey mouse mode. Fiddling with the settings will drive you nuts at first. But practice makes perfect. As long as you are not color blind you WILL get the hang of it, even if you don't understand what it is doing. Don't get psyched out. It works rather well.

When you get to 'Gamma' (you can look these terms up on Wikipedia) you want to use the same Gamma number as the other monitor you will be using for viewing. 1.8 is fine for Macs. Beats me why the 'PC' standard is 2.2. It is essentially a harsher contrast, but try it and use it if you like it, on BOTH monitors. Do NOT use 'native gamma' as it is rare that two displays have identical native gammas.

Next up is your 'white point'. Again, you want both your displays to have the same white point. D50 is the standard for viewing images in daylight. D65 is a bluer 'white point'. 9300 is the bluest of all. These numbers represent 'color temperature' as it is called. The sun has a color temperature hovering around 5000º Kelvin, thus D50 where D = Display. D65 = 6500º Kelvin, etc. Again, there is lots to read about in this field. Do NOT use 'native white point' on your displays if you are color matching because again, they won't be the same on each display.

When you get to the point of naming your color calibration profile you MUST include in the name the gamma number you used and the white point number you used. You will want to know, believe me. Here is why: You are going to want to make further color calibration profiles for different situations either now or in the future. Here's one example:

Lighting environment: Are you working on your MacBook Pro in the dark? Are the walls in the room a neutral color? Or are the walls colored? What kind of light is being used in the room? Fluorescent? Incandescent? Daylight? Details in the lighting environment in which you are working will affect how you perceive color on your display! You may want a morning color profile, an afternoon sun profile, and a night profile. If you have windows near you, these different times of day will affect the light in your work area and how you perceive color on your display. Again, go find a good book if you really want to understand this stuff.

A good basic calibration for plain old every day work, useless for color matching but nice to look at: I go through the calibration process for my lighting environment then use a gamma of 1.8 and I check off 'Use native white point'. Why? LCDs look their best at their native white point. You get good contrast with optimum color. Try it, you'll like it.

:-Derek