SXE-26

[Damien Symonds]

Troubleshooting

If you’ve ended up at this page, you must be frustrated, and I don’t blame you. Calibration should be a straightforward process, but for a small unlucky minority, it’s a PITA. Something must be wrong somewhere.

Here are a few things to consider …

• I know I've already said this multiple times, but I must say it again.  The light around your computer is so critical.  Sometimes even changing the location of your computer in the same room is enough to fix problems.
• It's time to ask yourself if your screen is good enough for editing. This is particularly relevant if you have a cheap PC laptop, or all-in-one. Those things just aren’t very good, you know?
• Are you sure you chose the correct “Display Technology”?  If you chose “Standard” but your screen is really “General”, for example, that will throw things off.

Even if it isn’t a very good screen, let’s not run out to the computer store straight away …

• Is there another computer in your house you can try calibrating? It would be good to check that the calibrator itself is ok. Heck, even if you have to drive over to your BFF’s house and try calibrating their computer, it’s worth the drive. Have a wine and a gossip while you’re there.
• Is there a desktop screen in your house you can plug in to your computer and try calibrating? If a different screen gave the same bad results, it might point to the problem being in your computer itself.
• It might be your graphics card. Have you checked for updates to your graphics card drivers?
• Maybe it’s the cable you’re using to connect computer to monitor? If you’re still using an old VGA cable, that sure can affect things. Your screen and computer should have DVI, HDMI or Display ports, so make sure you’re using them.
• Contact Datacolor. They’re the experts, after all. Hopefully they’ll be able to identify your glitch and straighten it out.

Please feel free to comment below, or post in Ask Damien, and I'll help you if I can.

[Jodie99]

Hi Damien 

I have an iMac retina screen. I've calibrated several times following your steps. I've adjusted to 5000k for colour and still finding my screen cooler than my prints my prints actually look quite yellow compared to my screen. Should I go even lower? Thanks Jodie 

 

[Damien Symonds]

4 minutes ago, Jodie99 said:

Hi Damien 

I have an iMac retina screen. I've calibrated several times following your steps. I've adjusted to 5000k for colour and still finding my screen cooler than my prints my prints actually look quite yellow compared to my screen. Should I go even lower? Thanks Jodie

No, I wouldn't think so.  Everything you've said suggests that your room light is too warm.

[Jodie99]

Ok Thanks, I have daylight balanced bulbs and blackout blinds. Could it be the daylight bulbs are the wrong colour temperature? 

 

[Damien Symonds]

It seems likely, yes.  Turn off the lights and open the blinds so some daylight comes in, and compare the prints to the screen then.

[Yvonn.ie]

Hi Damien

so my prints are colder than my screen, and more magenta! I've taken the warmth up to 9400  and I think it's just about right now - is this reasonable, as it's off the scale! Might explain why I like the look of what you call too cold images though, I must be seeing them warmer than they are despite having previously calibrated as per the Spyder instructions arrgh...

I'm in daylight, north facing, currently 1pm.

The brightness target I have to set at 70 to match, previously I had it at the default so I'm guessing my photos were way too dark then without me knowing it.

But... there still seems more magenta in my prints, I can't see any way to address this. It's a decent screen and fairly high end PC replacement laptop, with a graphics card. I think I might need to buy that new screen sooner rather than later. I don't have any other screens that I can try.

 

Anything I have missed re the magenta / green bias?

[Damien Symonds]

7 hours ago, Yvonn.ie said:

Anything I have missed re the magenta / green bias?

https://ask.damiensymonds.net/topic/31990-sxe-22/

7 hours ago, Yvonn.ie said:

I've taken the warmth up to 9400  and I think it's just about right now - is this reasonable, as it's off the scale!

Yeah, it's definitely not reasonable

Try the link above to fix the magenta problem, but you should definitely plug in a new screen as soon as possible.

[Yvonn.ie]

thanks Damien that has helped a lot, and I think maybe what I was considering excessive warmth on the screen may have been somewhat green rather than yellow. I've now got the slider half way over to the full purple side and the magenta-ness matches the prints, but also now looked colder than the prints! So I've recalibrated at 6500 and with the purple adjustment I think it now matches quite well. Hopefully over time my eyes will be trained to better tell the difference! 

I'll check again once more prints arrive.

By they way I am not sure what the Gamma one does as when I slide it I get an error message saying 'SanitycheckLUT failed" hmmm

[Damien Symonds]

That's weird, but if you're at the stage of messing with SpyderTune your sanity is probably pretty frazzled anyway, so maybe best to leave that one alone.

[Pritha]

Hi Damien, I have two screens I calibrated, and the monitor looks really good, however the laptop screen seems to be more magenta than the prints. Is there a way to modify that with a SpyderXPro? 

[Damien Symonds]

3 hours ago, Pritha said:

Hi Damien, I have two screens I calibrated, and the monitor looks really good, however the laptop screen seems to be more magenta than the prints. Is there a way to modify that with a SpyderXPro? 

No, sorry.  You need the Elite to control the green-pink spectrum.