iMac calibration/profiling

[Damo77]

Thanks for your post, Chris.  It's nice to hear some practical, down-to-earth, non-guru input.

[JessicaLuchesi]

i have the 15" MacBook pro released a few months ago, no problem with dimming the display.  The new 24" LED display also can easily achieve luminance in the 110 range.

Thank you Wayne. I'm planning on replacing my MacBook white by sometime next year, but I wanted to know. Still reading Real World Color Management

[Ben08]

Chris, it's nice to hear that someone else is using Shades after profiling. That's the approach we're currently using on the three new 24 in iMacs in our studio. Not ideal, but it works well enough. As I mentioned before, we leave the iMacs's brightness controls one notch up from the bottom or they take themselves to full brightness when rebooting (all 3 of our iMac 24s do this). --Ben

[digitalshiver]

I just bought the iMac 24 inch two days ago. I just tried a moment ago to calibrate it with Eye-One Match version 3.6.2 profiling software (this is the newest version, which I think is years old) and the graytag macbeth (xrite)  i1 photo measuring device. I have used this combo for many years on my CRT monitors with no problems. This was the first time I've applied them to an LCD (the iMac).

The device measured everything nicely, but the Eye-One Match 3 profiling software did absolutely nothing to adjust the monitor luminance. I entered a target value of 140 and when I was all done, the luminance level was still 229.

So I downloaded a trial version of the latest version of ColorEyes. Wow! This software - while still using my i1 Photo measuring device- lowered luminance to precisely 140. Their website announces clearly that they have updated the software to handle "even iMacs".

The second I was done calibrating, I went and paid for it. It also has a test screen to look for banding problems. I had none. The test gradient was as smooth as glass.

So....

I think iMacs needn't be avoided, and use any measuring hardware you want, but I can't stress enough how impressive ColorEyes is.


charles

[digitalshiver]

Forgive a post that makes me look like a ColorEyes shareholder. I have no relationship with the company beyond being a customer, but I thought I'd post this excerpt from a press release, because there seems to be ongoing concern about apple displays. Also, according to the following, it sounds like coloreyes manages to make actual hardware changes before resorting to vid card adjustments. I'm happy to stand corrected if I'm not understanding this correctly:

"Integrated Color Corporation, creator of groundbreaking tools for digital cameras and monitor profiling, announced today that the company’s ColorEyes™ Display Pro monitor profiling software now supports the full range of Apple monitors, including the Apple Cinema Display as well as the MacBook, MacBook Pro and iMac.

ColorEyes Display Pro is one of the most powerful profiling tools on the market today and gives users unrivaled precision. The software works with most colorimeters and spectrophotometers on the market today, meaning users can simply upgrade their current software rather than purchasing additional hardware. And, with the addition of support for Apple monitors, ColorEyes Display Pro fits into virtually any workflow.

Apple has been very successful marketing high quality displays to imaging professionals. Customers demand accuracy from their displays and a simple process to get there. By adding hardware brightness control for Apple displays, ColorEyes Display makes short work of regular screen calibration."

That's all I've got, folks. Hope this helps.

charles

[jjlphoto]

The Eye-One Match software cannot measure the changed Brightness / Luminance, as long as the window of the control panel 'Displays' is still open. So please adjust the Brightness slider as desired, close the 'Displays' control panel, then wait a second until the eye-One match software has actualized the measurement values. If needed, open the 'Displays' control panel again, adjust Brightness again, close control panel and wait for actualized measurement values. Please repeat this procedure until you have reached the desired Luminance.

Follow up: I tried this method with some success. Was now able to drop luminance value to 160. It seems purchasing Color Eyes may the only way to get it down further.