Bob, I don’t think people are ignoring you on purpose! Personally I’m waiting for Brent to show up, because he’s probably one of the more knowledgeable people on the forum on the issue of color management.
I do have a question/comment for the sake of clarity about #1: Is your computer capable of storing more than one monitor profile? Macs can, but it sounds as though you use a Win machine, and I suppose it would also depend on the OS you’re using. You might want to poke around and see if you can find a way to save one "set of settings" to use with Elements and a second set for general use.
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Bob, If you’re using an LCD screen, you’ll find that Adobe Gamma won’t work. It’s not designed for LCD screens.
If you were using a CRT, the directions are correct. You should maximize the Contrast, then adjust the brightness until the square interior box "just disappears" . That is the optimal point. You never again adjust those settings until the next time you want to calibrate ( perhaps every month or so ).
You might look at this thread, brent bertram "fpd monitor with dvi connection" 7/31/03 4:15pm </cgi-bin/webx?50> . I don’t know of a free application ( like Adobe Gamma ) to calibrate and profile an LCD display . Perhaps , in the future, Adobe will provide such a utility, but not so far.
As to the color management setup, I always use full color management ( best for print, using the AdobeRGB colorspace ). The profile you create with Adobe Gamma is used regardless of your choice of color management mode. That profile, loaded by the Adobe Gamma Loader.exe at boot time, adjusts your image view to the standard "calibrated" state in any color managed application. Ian Lyons Image Flow < http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.lyons/ps7-colour/ps7_color.gi f>
Someone posted to this forum earlier with an LCD screen and said there was a calibration utility (it might not have used that exact phrase) in the monitor’s software. Do you have such a thing?
I remember another poster with an LCD said that factory default was very close to giving a good match between printer and screen.
You are aware that the settings in your printer driver are adjustable and give quite different results to a printout, right?
PSE has three color management settings; full (Adobe RGB), limited (sRBG for web use) and none (images on screen will look the same when anyone views them with their browser, because browsers aren’t color managed). Many people here, including myself, use No Color Management. I edit images from my digital camera and from my scanner. Neither of these produce images which fit nicely into the full Color Management setting, they look way too saturated and red. Using No Color Management, for me, allows a good match between what I see on the screen and what my printer produces.
Just a thought, you might try… * set your monitor back to default * if there is some ‘calibrating software’ with the monitor, use it * make sure the profile that came with the monitor (if there is one) is associated with it in the OS * set PSE to No C.M. * pull the tab for ‘Layers Palette’ down from the well so it sits permanently on the right side of screen * pull a colorful and varied image into PSE * File>New (set size to 8.5 x 11 or whatever and the resolution to the same as image) * on image, use marquee tool to select a portion (like a band) of image (left to right) * copy/paste that section to a new layer * click on eye of original layer to make invisible (just section showing now) * drag the section layer to new blank doc and drop it (if you can’t see both files, use Ctrl/- (minus sign) on one at a time to shrink them up) * select that section, copy/paste it to a second layer, it will be above first layer in palette * with 2nd selection outlined for selecting, get the Move tool from the toolbox and drag it below the first section so they don’t overlap * repeat above to add another couple of layers * you should now see repeat sections, not overlapping on your new file * click on eyes for all layers except #1, only one visible now * choose printer settings in your driver and write them down…now print that one layer (your printer will only print layers which are visible) * put same paper back in printer * make #1 layer invisible, make #2 layer visible * choose different printer setting in the drive, write them down and print * repeat for as many outcomes you wish to try * compare the results with the screen image
I have an Epson printer, and I use either ‘Same as Source’ or ‘Printer Color Management’ for the ‘destination’ in the driver. I also use the setting of ‘Color Controls’ and a gamma of 1.8 and print at 1440 (I also bump up the saturation some in the driver to get a better match with screen). For my Epson, these work for me to get a good match with the printout.
Let us know after you fool around with this a bit, where you stand.
– Yes I’m using an LCD: Sony SDM-S81 (and if I may gloat – 18") – No, I cannot seem to find any calibration software that came with the monitor – I will search Sony’s website – I am printing via online mailorder printers (i.e. shutterfly), not my own printer, and thus can’t immediately test my experimentation results or else this would make it a whole lot easier
Brent – thanks for clearing up the Adobe Gamma issue – so I guess I can’t use Adobe Gamma for my LCD and I’m looking for a free solution here so Eye1 I think is not for me. Nancy – as far as your suggested experiment, modified it a bit – set my monitor’s backlight, contrast and brightness to levels I’d use on an everyday basis, and then took 2 photos, processed them in PSE using 4 different brightness adjustments with color mgmt both full and off and sent them off to shutterfly. Hopefully, this will give me a crude gauge for future photos.
Any follow up would be appreciated, but not neccesary as y’all been very helpful.
To follow on Nancy’s thoughts, if you can find a profile for your LCD display, possibly installed with a utility pack with the LCD display , you could load it into Adobe Gamma, and then , not modifying it at all, go thru the Adobe Gamma utility and save the profile as another name. It will then be your default monitor profile, and might be a decent match.
After you get everything ironed out, I would be interested in hearing about your LCD. Somewhere down the road I am interested in purchasing an LCD for myself (though it probably won’t be immediately, as I just bought a new, very capable computer)
Nancy, I would think the purveyors of LCD’s would respond to the concern with their next generation of equipment; the CAD and graphic design ‘lobbies’ are too significant a purchasing segment to be ignored.
Additionally, we can all hope that an updated Adobe Gamma utility might be released with Photoshop 8 . We all know that LCD displays are here to stay, I suspect Adobe knows the same thing.
Brent, are there enough adjustable parameters on an LCD for something like Adobe Gamma to do the trick? If so, you’re absolutely right – Adobe should be in there with an update to Gamma, even before PS8! All the Dell and Compaq/HP systems that I see in the ads are being offered with LCD’s as the basic selection; their time has arrived, it would appear.
I can calibrate my LCD screen in the Display properties/Settings/Advanced/S3 Gamma Plus tab. Your Display adapter may have a different name.
To get there, click on Display in Control Panel (or right-click on the desktop and choose Properties from the list). In Display, click on the Settings tab and then down near the bottom, click on Advanced. You should see your Display adapter on one or more of the tabs. The one for mine says S3 Gamma Plus. On this tab, I can adjust gamma, brightness and contrast, and also save a scheme if I want. There is even a calibration image provided (a bowl of fruit). Lots of other options, I know nothing about — but I wish I did! I can also click on a Default button to return everything to the way it was. LOL
I find this thread very helpful, BTW. I am a professional quilter and I need my quilt photos to be true to color. I’m very particular too, but the customer is even more so! LOL In the pattern business, the picture on the cover or on the web is what sells it.
Have I used Electric Quilt, she asks? Hehe. I just wrote a software book for them! "EQ5 Drawing: Exercises is Block Design." You can see their website for details. <grin>
I also teach on line classes on EQ5 and actual quilts (QuiltUniversity.com). I want to be able to improve my quilt contruction digital pics and my screenshot images using PE. Currently, I use CorelDraw and PhotoPaint. Haven’t got Illustrator…yet!
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