Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
On Friday 03 Apr 2015 02:57:07 waben...@gmail.com wrote: Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: A wide gamut monitor is a great thing even if you don't need it for softproofing. I shot a lot of colorful photos (e.g. from bugs, blossoms and live concerts with colored limelights). They look great on an AdobeRGB monitor but much more boring on a standard monitor. If the monitor is the only means of looking at the photos and the photos are the only reason for the monitor, then it’s not enough for me (right now anyway). And as far as I read, watching movies on a wide gamut will not be a very good experience, as those are tuned to look good on “normal” displays, resulting in much oversaturated colours. That's true as long as you cannot switch the color space of the monitor to sRGB. But there are some models which can be used in sRGB as well as in AdobeRGB color space. The Samsung that I bought even has some additional modes for NTSC, PAL and HD-TV. When I watch videos, the colors are much better than on my PlasmaTV. I also thought about buying an Eizo. But they are very pricy. An Eizo without wide gamut, without factory calibration and without 16bit LUT hardware calibration costs more as my Samsung with all these features. Maybe the Eizo is more reliable over the years, but who knows. I used to buy Samsung, but I don't like how they treat their customers in recent times, so they are on my no-buy list (same as Sony). And I do have a knack for buying more pricey stuff if it’s worth the quality. It gives me a feeling of “mine’s better than yours”. :o) Sure, I don’t quite like the lack of connections and features on the Eizo (such as picture-in-picture or HDMI), but I do like their appearance (no gloss, no touch buttons, no wobbly stand). I'm sure that Eizo produces great monitors but the only one that fits my meets (=30,UHD, AdobeRGB + sRGB, Hardware Calibration) is the CG318-4K. But it costs about 7500€ and I was not willing to pay this price. :-) I'm really willing to pay for high quality products, but if I can get about the same quality for _much_ less money then the choice is easy for me. And meanwhile I'm realistic enough to realize that my personal purchase decisions are not affecting the market-price of such a big and successful company like Samsung is. Try out an Spider4. You can buy it as a new device for about 75€. Test the results on your monitors and when you are not satisfied, just send it back. No risk at all. I’m also not a big fan of that (buying and sending back). Especially if you buy it for a purpose and only then find out it’s not adequate or downright broken. While it’s convenient, it produces a climate of I think sending a product back is ok as long as one don't do this intentional only to try out this product. But I think that when one buy for example a colorimeter that is according to its manufacturer able to handle monitors with LED backlight monitors but then it fails to do so, it is absolutely ok to send it back. Also when I buy an expensive so called high quality product but in fact it has a lousy quality (like the two Dell U3011, the LG 31MU97-B or the first Samsung U32D970Q that I bought) I really don't have any qualms of conscience when I send it back. “it’s normal that what you buy may be crap and you’ll have to try again”. It gives manufacturers the freedom to cut even more corners without anyone complaints from the consumers. And it’s ecological absurdity on all ends, considering how toxic electronic manufacturing is. I'm working as a photographer and like most of them I own a bunch of lenses. I only bought (and will buy) high quality professional lenses from well known manufactures, no cheap consumer glasses. These lenses are the best you can get and are really expensive. And for the lot of money that I have to pay for it, I expect a perfect quality. But more than once I had to send back a lens, because it was faulty (for example bad centering, big inclusions or one time even scratches in the glass, unusable AF etc.). When I buy cheap, I don't expect much. But when sometimes even expensive professional products from well known vendors are crappy because of bad quality control, what else can I do than sending the crap back to the vendor? I don't believe that the manufacturer will produce better stuff when I would stay with the crap. This is also why I put a lot of time and energy into research before I purchase something pricey. For instance, I read in hardware forums and through reviews for many weeks before I finally decided on all components of my PC that I assembled last year. I didn’t want to get into a situation that would force me to return something, b/c there is also risk involved - the extra expense, parts break during shipping, or problems with the retailer. I can’t be bothered with the hassle. I also do
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: [...] This is also why I put a lot of time and energy into research before I purchase something pricey. For instance, I read in hardware forums and through reviews for many weeks before I finally decided on all components of my PC that I assembled last year. I didn’t want to get into a situation that would force me to return something, b/c there is also risk involved - the extra expense, parts break during shipping, or problems with the retailer. I can’t be bothered with the hassle. I also do much research before I buy something. My wife often calls me crazy because I sometimes need weeks before I make a decision, even when I just wanna buy some LED bulbs for our kitchen. :-) [...] Since this is off topic anyway, what did you conclude with your research on LED lighting? Is it really worth the cost, or are we talking of yet one more marketing lifecycle? Please have in mind that I'm not a native speaker. Therefore I probably sometimes use terms that are not correct in a given context. I say this because I'm not sure whether research is the right word for what I'm doing when I try to get informations about specific products. Maybe the word investigations is better. :-) But to answer your question. I think that LED lighting will be the main Light technology for the next years or even decade(s). But there are maybe good chances that the classical semiconductor based LEDs will be replaced or at least supplemented by OLEDs or a similar technology. In the last months I replaced nearly all conventional and energy saving light bulbs in our house. I use LEDs with 4500K in the baths, floors and in the kitchen, 6500K LEDs in my office, 3200K LEDs in the bedrooms and 4500K as well as 3200K LEDs in the livingroom. I really prefer LEDs over conventional energy saving lamps, because they have a much higher lifetime and IMHO also a better light spectrum. Of course there are high quality full-spectrum energy saving lamps and I used these before in my office but they are expensive and they have a much shorter lifetime then LEDs. -- Regards wabe
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 06:36:16PM +0200, waben...@gmail.com wrote: Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: I thought about getting a wide-gamut display, namely a Dell with rgb-LEDs, but in the end decided against it because its quality seems But if you buy online, you always have the option to send back a unsatisfactory product. to fluctuate a lot. And while I do some photography, I don’t do it professionally or deal with printing. A wide gamut monitor is a great thing even if you don't need it for softproofing. I shot a lot of colorful photos (e.g. from bugs, blossoms and live concerts with colored limelights). They look great on an AdobeRGB monitor but much more boring on a standard monitor. If the monitor is the only means of looking at the photos and the photos are the only reason for the monitor, then it’s not enough for me (right now anyway). And as far as I read, watching movies on a wide gamut will not be a very good experience, as those are tuned to look good on “normal” displays, resulting in much oversaturated colours. I also thought about buying an Eizo. But they are very pricy. An Eizo without wide gamut, without factory calibration and without 16bit LUT hardware calibration costs more as my Samsung with all these features. Maybe the Eizo is more reliable over the years, but who knows. I used to buy Samsung, but I don't like how they treat their customers in recent times, so they are on my no-buy list (same as Sony). And I do have a knack for buying more pricey stuff if it’s worth the quality. It gives me a feeling of “mine’s better than yours”. :o) Sure, I don’t quite like the lack of connections and features on the Eizo (such as picture-in-picture or HDMI), but I do like their appearance (no gloss, no touch buttons, no wobbly stand). Try out an Spider4. You can buy it as a new device for about 75€. Test the results on your monitors and when you are not satisfied, just send it back. No risk at all. I’m also not a big fan of that (buying and sending back). Especially if you buy it for a purpose and only then find out it’s not adequate or downright broken. While it’s convenient, it produces a climate of “it’s normal that what you buy may be crap and you’ll have to try again”. It gives manufacturers the freedom to cut even more corners without anyone complaints from the consumers. And it’s ecological absurdity on all ends, considering how toxic electronic manufacturing is. This is also why I put a lot of time and energy into research before I purchase something pricey. For instance, I read in hardware forums and through reviews for many weeks before I finally decided on all components of my PC that I assembled last year. I didn’t want to get into a situation that would force me to return something, b/c there is also risk involved - the extra expense, parts break during shipping, or problems with the retailer. I can’t be bothered with the hassle. OK I noticed this has become more of a political manifesto. So I’m gonna stop here. :) -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla’ Please do not share anything from, with or about me on any social network. Experience is a handy thing. Sadly, you only gain it after you needed it. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: A wide gamut monitor is a great thing even if you don't need it for softproofing. I shot a lot of colorful photos (e.g. from bugs, blossoms and live concerts with colored limelights). They look great on an AdobeRGB monitor but much more boring on a standard monitor. If the monitor is the only means of looking at the photos and the photos are the only reason for the monitor, then it’s not enough for me (right now anyway). And as far as I read, watching movies on a wide gamut will not be a very good experience, as those are tuned to look good on “normal” displays, resulting in much oversaturated colours. That's true as long as you cannot switch the color space of the monitor to sRGB. But there are some models which can be used in sRGB as well as in AdobeRGB color space. The Samsung that I bought even has some additional modes for NTSC, PAL and HD-TV. When I watch videos, the colors are much better than on my PlasmaTV. I also thought about buying an Eizo. But they are very pricy. An Eizo without wide gamut, without factory calibration and without 16bit LUT hardware calibration costs more as my Samsung with all these features. Maybe the Eizo is more reliable over the years, but who knows. I used to buy Samsung, but I don't like how they treat their customers in recent times, so they are on my no-buy list (same as Sony). And I do have a knack for buying more pricey stuff if it’s worth the quality. It gives me a feeling of “mine’s better than yours”. :o) Sure, I don’t quite like the lack of connections and features on the Eizo (such as picture-in-picture or HDMI), but I do like their appearance (no gloss, no touch buttons, no wobbly stand). I'm sure that Eizo produces great monitors but the only one that fits my meets (=30,UHD, AdobeRGB + sRGB, Hardware Calibration) is the CG318-4K. But it costs about 7500€ and I was not willing to pay this price. :-) I'm really willing to pay for high quality products, but if I can get about the same quality for _much_ less money then the choice is easy for me. And meanwhile I'm realistic enough to realize that my personal purchase decisions are not affecting the market-price of such a big and successful company like Samsung is. Try out an Spider4. You can buy it as a new device for about 75€. Test the results on your monitors and when you are not satisfied, just send it back. No risk at all. I’m also not a big fan of that (buying and sending back). Especially if you buy it for a purpose and only then find out it’s not adequate or downright broken. While it’s convenient, it produces a climate of I think sending a product back is ok as long as one don't do this intentional only to try out this product. But I think that when one buy for example a colorimeter that is according to its manufacturer able to handle monitors with LED backlight monitors but then it fails to do so, it is absolutely ok to send it back. Also when I buy an expensive so called high quality product but in fact it has a lousy quality (like the two Dell U3011, the LG 31MU97-B or the first Samsung U32D970Q that I bought) I really don't have any qualms of conscience when I send it back. “it’s normal that what you buy may be crap and you’ll have to try again”. It gives manufacturers the freedom to cut even more corners without anyone complaints from the consumers. And it’s ecological absurdity on all ends, considering how toxic electronic manufacturing is. I'm working as a photographer and like most of them I own a bunch of lenses. I only bought (and will buy) high quality professional lenses from well known manufactures, no cheap consumer glasses. These lenses are the best you can get and are really expensive. And for the lot of money that I have to pay for it, I expect a perfect quality. But more than once I had to send back a lens, because it was faulty (for example bad centering, big inclusions or one time even scratches in the glass, unusable AF etc.). When I buy cheap, I don't expect much. But when sometimes even expensive professional products from well known vendors are crappy because of bad quality control, what else can I do than sending the crap back to the vendor? I don't believe that the manufacturer will produce better stuff when I would stay with the crap. This is also why I put a lot of time and energy into research before I purchase something pricey. For instance, I read in hardware forums and through reviews for many weeks before I finally decided on all components of my PC that I assembled last year. I didn’t want to get into a situation that would force me to return something, b/c there is also risk involved - the extra expense, parts break during shipping, or problems with the retailer. I can’t be bothered with the hassle. I also do much research before I buy something. My wife often calls me crazy because I sometimes need weeks before I make a decision,
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: I thought about getting a wide-gamut display, namely a Dell with rgb-LEDs, but in the end decided against it because its quality seems About two years ago I tested two Dell U3011. The first one had such a bad homogeneity of luminance that I sent it back instantly. The second one was a lot better but nevertheless not as good as my Acer and after some days of thinking I also sent it back. Same thing with my new Samsung monitor. The first one I received had a big problem with backlight bleeding so I contact the vendor. They exchanged the monitor and the second one was ok. It also has a little backlight bleeding on the upper left side, but it is only slightly visible when watching dark pictures in a low light environment. At normal conditions it is invisible. So I decided to stay with this one. It seems that these days the quality of a lot of products fluctuates, even in the professional domain. Of course that depends on the quality control of the manufactures. But even very expensive products (like professional camera lenses) from well-known manufactures are often concerned by quality variability. But if you buy online, you always have the option to send back a unsatisfactory product. to fluctuate a lot. And while I do some photography, I don’t do it professionally or deal with printing. A wide gamut monitor is a great thing even if you don't need it for softproofing. I shot a lot of colorful photos (e.g. from bugs, blossoms and live concerts with colored limelights). They look great on an AdobeRGB monitor but much more boring on a standard monitor. It's the same with UHD. The sharpness is amazing. I never saw my photos in such a great quality. Everything looks so clear and realistic, almost three-dimensional. I never planned to spent so much money for a monitor, and the expense still hurts. But since I have it I never wanna give it away. :-) If your monitor don't have a wide gamut but have a LED backlight then some of the cheaper colorimeters are also not suitable because LEDs doesn't emit a continuous spectrum and thus can confuse older colorimeters like the Spyder2 AFAIK. That’s good to know. I decided for an Eizo with a standard IPS panel and probably white LEDs. It is reported to have a good colorspace I also thought about buying an Eizo. But they are very pricy. An Eizo without wide gamut, without factory calibration and without 16bit LUT hardware calibration costs more as my Samsung with all these features. Maybe the Eizo is more reliable over the years, but who knows. coverage, though. But as I mentioned, ideally I also want to use it on my laptop which has a very bad TN panel with LEDs. Perhaps I could even use it on my very old CCFL monitor which is still in very good shape. Try out an Spider4. You can buy it as a new device for about 75€. Test the results on your monitors and when you are not satisfied, just send it back. No risk at all. You can also buy a Spyder2 at ebay. A friend of mine bought one for 20€. Of course you can't send it back when it doesn't work for you (I don't know if it works well with LED backlights). -- Regards wabe
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 06:45:09PM +0100, waben...@gmail.com wrote: Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: Hey gurus I may soon get me a shiny (not in the sense of glossy, mind you) new monitor. Along with it, I’m planning on purchasing a colorimeter to properly calibrate it. Can anyone give me a recommendation for a device that runs well with Linux? If your monitor has a wide color gamut then you probably need a more sophisticated device however. In that case a ColorHug AFAIK probably would also not work for you. I thought about getting a wide-gamut display, namely a Dell with rgb-LEDs, but in the end decided against it because its quality seems to fluctuate a lot. And while I do some photography, I don’t do it professionally or deal with printing. If your monitor don't have a wide gamut but have a LED backlight then some of the cheaper colorimeters are also not suitable because LEDs doesn't emit a continuous spectrum and thus can confuse older colorimeters like the Spyder2 AFAIK. That’s good to know. I decided for an Eizo with a standard IPS panel and probably white LEDs. It is reported to have a good colorspace coverage, though. But as I mentioned, ideally I also want to use it on my laptop which has a very bad TN panel with LEDs. Perhaps I could even use it on my very old CCFL monitor which is still in very good shape. That's the reason why I bought a new monitor (Samsung U32D970Q) some weeks ago that is able to do a hardware calibration (different colorimeters an spectrometers are supported). Monitors with hardware calibration are kind-a out of my range still. :) Thanks for your input so far. -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla’ Please do not share anything from, with or about me with any social network. A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
RE: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
Hi Frank, You maybe want to have a look at ColorHug: http://www.hughski.com/ I don't own one, but it should work just fine. Franz Frank Steinmetzger wrote: Hey gurus I may soon get me a shiny (not in the sense of glossy, mind you) new monitor. Along with it, I’m planning on purchasing a colorimeter to properly calibrate it. Can anyone give me a recommendation for a device that runs well with Linux? It doesn’t have to be a super-pro device, but no el-cheapo either. I’ll need it mostly for photo editing and the warm feeling of having an above-average setup. *g* Oh and I want to improve my laptop experience, because those things usually come with crappy screens in the first place. So I’m looking at a price range of no more than 150€. Also, I’m looking for info on how to set up KDE (or the entire system?) to use the thusly generated colour profiles. So any food for thought? Thanks -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla’ Please do not share anything from, with or about me with any social network. Bees aren’t at all hard working, they just can’t fly any slower.
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
You forgot one important point: It's a completely open product! ColorHug is OpenHardware. The software is OpenSource (hosted at github). Concerning setting up your computer with the generated profile: I think that should be possible with colord. Rich Freeman wrote: On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 7:48 AM, Franz Fellner alpine.art...@gmail.com wrote: You maybe want to have a look at ColorHug: http://www.hughski.com/ I don't own one, but it should work just fine. I'm still not sure if I feel the need greatly enough to invest in one, but this looks like a very nice solution. They offer a LiveCD which you can use to just create an icc file which you can save to media or they have a free pastebin-like site that you can post them to for a week to retrieve after you reboot into your main OS. That means you can trivially use this solution on numerous computers without installing drivers/etc or worrying about compatibility. I'm sure getting it working natively on Gentoo wouldn't be a big deal either. For $100 it doesn't seem like a bad deal. It does look like you have to take care of the import side yourself (I've never actually done that which is ironic since I've spent the last two years working on a system for automating corporate import declarations - I imagine the courier will handle it for a fee - I doubt the duties are much). I guess they don't just do what all the cheap Amazon vendors do and stamp gift on the outside of the package. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 7:48 AM, Franz Fellner alpine.art...@gmail.com wrote: You maybe want to have a look at ColorHug: http://www.hughski.com/ I don't own one, but it should work just fine. I'm still not sure if I feel the need greatly enough to invest in one, but this looks like a very nice solution. They offer a LiveCD which you can use to just create an icc file which you can save to media or they have a free pastebin-like site that you can post them to for a week to retrieve after you reboot into your main OS. That means you can trivially use this solution on numerous computers without installing drivers/etc or worrying about compatibility. I'm sure getting it working natively on Gentoo wouldn't be a big deal either. For $100 it doesn't seem like a bad deal. It does look like you have to take care of the import side yourself (I've never actually done that which is ironic since I've spent the last two years working on a system for automating corporate import declarations - I imagine the courier will handle it for a fee - I doubt the duties are much). I guess they don't just do what all the cheap Amazon vendors do and stamp gift on the outside of the package. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Purchase and setup of monitor calibration device
Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: Hey gurus I may soon get me a shiny (not in the sense of glossy, mind you) new monitor. Along with it, I’m planning on purchasing a colorimeter to properly calibrate it. Can anyone give me a recommendation for a device that runs well with Linux? It doesn’t have to be a super-pro device, but no el-cheapo either. I’ll need it mostly for photo editing and the warm feeling of having an above-average setup. *g* Oh and I want to improve my laptop experience, because those things usually come with crappy screens in the first place. So I’m looking at a price range of no more than 150€. Also, I’m looking for info on how to set up KDE (or the entire system?) to use the thusly generated colour profiles. So any food for thought? Thanks If you don't wanna spent much money you can buy a used Datacolor Spyder device on ebay. The older ones (e.g. Spyder2) are really cheap, but also very slow. :-) If your monitor has a wide color gamut then you probably need a more sophisticated device however. In that case a ColorHug AFAIK probably would also not work for you. If your monitor don't have a wide gamut but have a LED backlight then some of the cheaper colorimeters are also not suitable because LEDs doesn't emit a continuous spectrum and thus can confuse older colorimeters like the Spyder2 AFAIK. You really should check this out because if your colorimeter doesn't work proper for your monitor the result will be worse than without calibration. :-) A good software is media-gfx/argyllcms. Some time ago I tested it with a Spyder2 and also with a X-Rite i1 Display Pro. Argyll was better then the software delivered with both colorcheckers. Nevertheless it was not possible to proper calibrate my wide color gamut monitor because it was a rarely used model (Acer AL2723W) that is not supported by the Spyder2 or i1 Display Pro. There are ways to calibrate such a unsupported wide gamut monitor with a Spyder2 or i1 Display Pro (and other colorimeters) anyhow, but then you need a calibration file for argyll made with an spectrometer especially for this kind of monitor or a calibration software from the monitor manufacturer that is adapted for the monitor model. That's the reason why I bought a new monitor (Samsung U32D970Q) some weeks ago that is able to do a hardware calibration (different colorimeters an spectrometers are supported). One advantage with hardware calibration is that you don't have to deal with icc profiles. If you work with icc profiles you often have problems with color banding/clipping and improper greyscales. This also depends on how you can adjust colors and gamma with the settings of the monitor itself. If you do all the calibration with an icc profile and the colors/gamma of your monitor are way off then the result will be probably not very good. Sorry, but my English is not good enough to explain the whole background in an understandable way. :-) -- Regards wabe
