Still not sure about ambient light standards. Any advance on D50 28lux anyone? "As dark as is comfortable." is how I like to work but is certainly at odds with most designers I know. The original question was prompted by a friend who is being pressured to supply files that he feels are too light by clients who view them in bright conditions. It is the same problem I had in my catalogue photography days when I was forced to supply overexposed trannies to a client who viewed them on a dim lightbox with yellowing perspex set in front of a window.
This is a totally stupid situation as you obviously realize. It always amazes me the number of people out there whose business and reputations depend on an accurately displaying monitor who have a run of the mill monitor. A monitor well past its throw out date, probably poor evenness etc. from day one. These people seem to think they can judge your pictures on it! Its usually got the desktop set to some awful colour scheme, in a room with strong colours and overhead light from multiple industrial tubes and light streaming in from unblinded windows. And BTW what's calibration...I just twiddle the brightness and contrast till my pictures look right...Ugh!
Richard Kenward wrote: "I think you will find that setting your calibrator to .30 and around the 85 mark will be fine with an ambient lighting of about 28lux, though no doubt someone will disagree with me...I have an idea that Thomas Holm likes to go down from .3 to .2"
At the risk of seeming dense, Richard, what is all this about? These numbers don't seem to tally with any part of the eye1 process. Are they values that can be entered in more sophisticated software? If so, what do they refer to?
In the Optical software, always considered the gold standard by many but a feature likely to be in perhaps the advanced options somewhere on other software, the .3 is the setting made with your brightness control and the white point is set with the contrast control. We have this set to 85 though there are moves afoot to have the pre-press world work at 120 I think. The idea being to more accurately match the level of illumination of proofing booths. Actually I think its an underhand plot to burn out CRT monitors at a much greater speed, so the three year replacement cycle goes to 1.5years or less. Hell, I bet there are many brand new CRTs that struggle to get there! Far too bright for my liking!
3.Having calibrated a screen how can I tell if it is right?
OK,OK so I'll spend some money on a test image & file but then I am back round to lighting - presumably a test image is only going to be useful if viewed in controlled conditions so I suppose I need a viewing booth.
Yes that's right if you really want to be on firm ground, but do remember to change the light tubes regularly <G> For anyone new to digital imaging it's certainly not a cheap option and that's why you do have to charge decent fees to produce professional results because the investment is high and it never slows down!
{Any
reason why I shouldn't make one? I know I can get hold of the lighting so
can anyone recommend a source of guaranteed neutral grey paint?)
Cannot help there, but it may help to give you the density of the interior of the Graphiclite booth here which is generally rated high by those who know a thing or two. If you have the older version of the Pantone Solid to process guide it falls between the Pantone Cool gray 4C and the 5C and is a matt of course.
If you have much involvement in supplying stuff for print, it will increase your credibility considerably if you use a recognised unit in the event of a difference of opinion. Not so good to have to say oh it's a booth I knocked up at the back of the studio actually...same as the commercial ones though!!
Snip
The hotfix supplied by GretagMacbeth certainly improved things but the software does not seem to be fully developed yet and unless they improve it pdq I guess I will be spending money on the basiCColor solution, once that supports the eye1 device. At least I now find it much easier to resist the urge to gamble on a bargain printer profiling system!
There is always an unknown price to pay for cheapness unfortunately and its easy to be seduced! It's also easy to make the wrong buying decision in today's world.
Hope that all helps a bit.
Cheers
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