Need calibration help - Spyder with CRT and Mac

Canon EF 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II USM

01/28/2006 01:22:53 AM · #1

This is a pretty specific question regarding hardware and software monitor calibration.

I hope someone can help me, because I'm getting really frustrated now after buying a SpyderPro calibrator. Up until now, I've calibrated my CRT (LaCie Electron Blue) about 3 times with fairly good results. But now I need to calibrate again and I'm having a really hard time with it. I have a PowerMac G5.

When I get to the first step, which is to distinguish the white boxes and set contrast, I can't see any separation in white at all, no matter how I change the contrast. Same thing with the black boxes and brightness. I went ahead and performed the color testing anyway, but I'm not at all happy with the result.

What I've tried is all sorts of re-setting of the monitor, loading different calibration results from earlier, and even tried calibrating with the Mac's built-in calibration program.

Do you have any advice? It seems like the problem is only with luminence, but I also wonder what color temperature and gamma I should be using with my setup.

orussell

Canon EOS Rebel T6s

01/28/2006 03:12:08 AM · #2

Using SpyderPro2 with PC and my Dell monitor, they reccommend the factory settings, i.e. no adjustments and let the calibrator/software do the rest. I think it's different maybe for CRT. Maybe that's the problem, you are throwing in a bias right off the bat. Just a thought.

Also make sure that you aren't running Adobe Gamma or other manual correction software in the background. I'm sure you know this anyways.

Message edited by author 2006-01-28 08:13:36.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

01/28/2006 09:21:40 AM · #3

A little bump, in case anyone else has ideas. Thanks for your response, orussell. I started over with the factory settings, as well as my previous good calibration.

It seems like the color is good now, but I still can't see as much of the grey spectrum (or whatever it's called) on the voting pages as I can with my little laptop. The big ol' LaCie monitor should be much better at seeing the gradient scale on a DPC voting page than the laptop, but I can only distinguish the scale's squares in the middle part of the scale using my CRT.

So here's a call for help for others who might know something about my annoying calibration problems. Thanks, DPC!

Artifacts

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

01/28/2006 09:25:07 AM · #4

Originally posted by puzzled:

Do you have any advice? It seems like the problem is only with luminence, but I also wonder what color temperature and gamma I should be using with my setup.

Don't know about the other but they recommend temperature 6500 and gamma 2.2 if you want it to be set for Photoshop.

Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC for Canon

01/28/2006 10:48:43 PM · #5

Thanks, Steve. 6500 k and gamma 2.2 seems to work best, but I still can't see the dang little boxes on a dpc voting page.

Hopefully someday I'll figure out what to do to the monitor, calibration setup, or computer in order to see all the white-gray-black squares. Kind of frustrating to have this relatively fancy monitor and calibration set-up, but not be able to calibrate correctly :-(

Delaunay

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

02/01/2006 04:22:25 PM · #6

I also have a Spider2Pro.
I use it in my Cube G4 with Apple 17" LCD and I get good results.
But I had problems trying to calibrate a friend's CRT monitor, I found out that before start the calibration you should set your monitor sistem to 6500K and the Gamma to 2.2.
Spider software for itself is not abble to set this preferences for the CRT monitor. This should be made manually in the monitor setup prior to start with the Spider software.
If you don't do it, you will get conflicts and a poor calibration.

If you haven't done like this yet, I hope this will help!

magnus

Canon EOS-30D

Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS for Canon

02/01/2006 05:07:27 PM · #7

If you aren't even getting in the ball-park using the MacOS built-in calibration software, then the problem can't be the Spyder's fault. Sounds like there's something wrong with the monitor. If you're sure there isn't a hidden setting on the monitor somewhere that could explain this, then maybe it's a hardware problem. How old is the monitor? They definitely loose contrast as they grow old, but it usually happen very slowly.

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

02/01/2006 05:31:19 PM · #8

I run a PC so perhaps this doesn't apply but do you have Adobe Gamma Loader running? I believe you are suppose to disable it from auto loading or don't run it at all.

02/11/2006 12:55:22 AM · #9

I'm reviving this post to adjust my questions, now that I've tried the advice posted here.

Magnus is probably closest - now I suspect that I have a hardware problem and that this has nothing to do with my Spyder. My monitor was built in January 2005 according to the stamp on the back of it, so it's not old.

I've checked and re-checked all the connections from the monitor to computer and power supply. I've reset the monitor to "factory settings" many times. I've tried changing settings (contrast, gamma, color temp, etc) using Adobe Gamma, Spyder, and the monitor separately.

The problem is still that I can't get in the ballpark with contrast or the white setting. Here are some examples: In Adobe Gamma, I can't see the little oval in the black rectangle, no matter how I adjust the monitor or color sync settings. On the DPC voting pages, I can't see the white rectangles at the far left of the scale, and Firefox and other menus look completely blown out in the highlights. Colors look fine, but it's brightness or contrast that is all messed up.

I tried connecting the monitor to my laptop, but I the laptop doesn't seem to recognize the monitor, and I'm having trouble finding drivers for the Lacie Electron Blue IV CRT (the Lacie website doesn't have this driver). For the MacIntosh, I guess the driver is just part of the system. Anyway, it used to work perfectly. I can't think of any hardware or software changes I've done to cause my problem.

My question is now: How do you know whether something (hardware) is blown in the monitor or whether it's a computer issue?

This is so sad for me - it's taking away my joy of photography, because I spent all this money on a good monitor and now it looks so ugly. The shop where I bought the monitor is quite a ways away from where I live and it's only open on weekdays, so I will have to take time out of work to go there. That's why I'm hoping someone here might have a suggestion of what I can try at home.

I will be sooo very, very happy if someone can help me. It would be nice to know whether this is something I can fix with existing software or if it is in fact a hardware problem that needs to be taken in for repair.