acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 I am writing from calibration hell. Truthfully I have never been able to get prints to match my calibration and I finally just walked away from it for awhile and learned about other aspects of photography. I’m back for a second try. I just ordered new prints being very careful with the colorspace. They are all dark, warm and green as if there is a color space issue, but I can see in ACR that they are sRGB and in PS that they are sRGB. I have the color set to North America General Purpose 2 and the Assign profile setting is Working RGB just in case. Monitor is ASUS VS239H, calibrated with ColorMunki Display per your instructions 80/D55 but my prints are too dark and warm. The light fixture in the room where I want to edit has 3 4000K light bulbs in it. Prints are from MPixPro. (I downloaded their color profile; the prints don’t match with it on or off.) What should I try next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Symonds Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Could you post one or two of the photos? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 Here's one with darker tones Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 Here's a bright one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha LaRue Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 It's great that you have 4000k bulbs, but that doesn't mean that that is enough lumens for the size of your space. When you take your images outside on a bright sunny day, are they just as dark? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 (edited) When I take them outside they are more acceptable - skin tones look pretty normal, etc. BUT the color is so different from how it looked in my edit. It's particularly obvious in the bright one that it has green undertones in the white. In the dark one, it looks acceptable in the bright sunlight but just by dumb luck because it is very different from how the file appears on my monitor. Inside, I wouldn't want it displayed because it is just too dark. On your monitor do the white shirts look white? I'm trying to figure out if I have some obscure setting wrong in processing the file versus having some setting on the actual monitor that needs changing. Edited February 6, 2016 by acmc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha LaRue Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 What white shirts? The shirts the people are wearing? Don't worry about any other setting right now, just worry about your light in your room and your monitor. Once you get that sorted so that your monitor matches your prints, then you can do a better edit. So since you have noticed that your prints look much better in broad daylight, it leads me to believe that your 3 bulbs are just not enough light in your space, which is affecting your calibration results. You need to find bright bulbs, or a way to introduce more bulbs into your room to improve the lighting conditions there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 (edited) It's very bright in here - I am fairly sure that's not the problem. I have three bulbs 800 lumens each directly above my head in a fixture that I can almost touch with my hand if I am standing. the room is about 2 meters by 3 1/2 meters with almost white walls and an almost white floor. Very bright. They look a little better in daylight but not correct. They still don't match my monitor at all. How is my light affecting my calibration results when I turn the lights off during calibration per Damien's instructions? I just purchased these bulbs specifically so I would have correct lighting in here. I do have a 5000K craft light that I can place directly in front of the print but that still doesn't make them look correct. Edited February 6, 2016 by acmc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha LaRue Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 The light affects your results because just *running* the device isn't enough. You have to go back and make adjustments to your monitor (which is why you're comparing the prints to the monitor). So if the light in the room is too dim or not the right color, it can make the prints appear too dim or too warm and you'd make the incorrect adjustments to your monitor or struggle to be able to match your monitor at all. I'm also a little confused now because earlier you said your prints were much too dark inside, but now you are saying it's own a slight difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 Oh okay. I do understand that. I said they are "just too dark" . Not much. In this room with the lights on it is brighter and whiter than in the next room with the sun streaming in. The difference is when I am holding the print directly in the sunshine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha LaRue Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Well, for now, let's just assume you have enough light then and see have close we can get. Have you moved to the troubleshooting steps for the display? I'd try the part at the bottom here first, and adjust the brightness so that it matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 I have some new information. I was actually taking a picture on my iphone to post to show you how bright it is in here. Thought about the fact that the monitor is actually sitting at the front of an amoire. I decided to actually pull the monitor out and set it in the middle of the bright floor and recalibrate. After this recalibration my prints almost match the monitor! So it appears to me that the actual monitor is being affected by the ambient light during calibration. Past recalibrations have been done at night with the lights off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 Yes, I have been through the troubleshooting steps many times. I truly have tried to read *everything* and solve this problem on my own! (Which is why I finally walked away in frustration and let my Raw class membership expire. Now I regret that because there is a waiting list to get back in.) Since I have the best match I've ever had right now, I am going to wait until tonight and see how it looks when there is no other light in the room except my new bulbs. I'm just worried that the monitor will adjust itself again, since I don't see any way to make sure that doesn't happen. I called ASUS last night to make sure I had it on the right "mode" to use an external calibration and their customer service is pretty clueless about the whole thing. Thank you very much for walking me through these steps. I'll post when I see what happens tonight after dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha LaRue Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Why would the monitor adjust itself? Did you try putting the brightness on native and manually lowering the brightness of your monitor as low as it will go? How low did you need to go to get a print match? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 This is what I have wound up doing for now. I reduced the brightness on the monitor to 80. Then when I ran the calibrator on Native / 100 It showed that the right brightness should be 100 but it was reading 182. So at that point I reduced the brightness and ended up at 40 to get the green checkmark of 100. Then I completed the calibration. To fix the color, I went into the "user" color mode in the menu and adjusted the R the G and the B sliders until I got colors that match my prints. I still don't think this is really correct, because when I am looking at this forum page, which should be blue and white, the white part has a greenish/yellow cast in comparison to the white items on my desktop. Browser is Firefox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Symonds Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 8 minutes ago, acmc said: This is what I have wound up doing for now. I reduced the brightness on the monitor to 80. Then when I ran the calibrator on Native / 100 It showed that the right brightness should be 100 but it was reading 182. So at that point I reduced the brightness and ended up at 40 to get the green checkmark of 100. It sounds like you're trying to correlate the monitor's brightness setting to the calibrator's brightness reading? Those will never be the same. My screen here is on 27 for the monitor to achieve a reading of 80, for example. 9 minutes ago, acmc said: To fix the color, I went into the "user" color mode in the menu and adjusted the R the G and the B sliders until I got colors that match my prints. After doing this, you have to calibrate again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Symonds Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 A couple more questions ... How many screens does your computer have? Is it a desktop computer with just this Asus monitor? Or is it a laptop with the Asus plugged in to it? Also, are you very certain that the Munki preferences are set to a "Version 2" profile, rather than Version 4? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 Oh okay I will run the calibration again. Just one desktop with this Asus monitor attached to it. Yes, the Munki is set to Version 2 for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmc Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 I calibrated again, this time at Native and 80 and taking into account backlit screen vs. paper it is very very close - I'm satisfied with it for the first time EVER! Especially when I turn on the soft proofing the display matches the prints well. Turning on soft-proofing makes them a bit bland in comparison but I suppose that's to be expected. I checked the image with your action that shows blown highlights to make sure it was exposed properly. My whites in this forum are still not white but I don't care about that unless it's important for some other reason. I just want to be able to make prints with confidence. Good Morning to you; it is Saturday night here and I am going to a party where I think I will have a bourbon & ginger to celebrate. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Symonds Posted August 26, 2017 Share Posted August 26, 2017 @acmc, PLEASE post some photos in the classes. Don't let your membership waste away - make me work hard for your money. Post something for me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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