Is there an acceptable range for black luminance to be in? I worked with a LaCie CRT for years, and black luminance was always around 0.23 cd/m2. I think I read somewhere in my research for a new monitor that black luminance should be in the range of 0.28 to 0.35 cd/m2. Is my memory correct on this?
I have a new LaCie 324 that I just calibrated for the first time. Black Luminance was 0.11 cd/m2. This is much lower than I was expecting. Is this telling me something about my new monitor?
It’s most likely telling you that you have a good display that can get very black!
Black luminance is something to watch out for in LCD displays. These work in a different way than did the CRTs. Since the backlight is on all the time, it’s really up to the quality of the liquid crystal “switches” to “blacken” the display so no light gets through. More on this here:
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Monitors_Part_One
A lot depends on your white luminance level. (The brighter the backlight, the lighter your black level will tend to be.) It depends somewhat on what sensor you are using. (I have found the Spyder 3 tends to read blacks higher than does the i1Display 2 for example.)
But you are asking for a range. The Eizos we have around the lab range between around .08 to .16 for black luminance - when run at a brightness of ~110 cd/m2. A typical, cheap LCD will only be able to get down to .30 or so at the same brightness.
So unless you are running your white luminance at 80 or something, it sounds like you are in great shape!
Thank you for the reply. I feel better about my calibration numbers now.
I am using the Blue Eye software that came with the monitor, and my DTP-94 which Ive had for some time. I set my White luminance target to 120 Cd/m2 and left the black to the default of zero.
After calibration, white luminance was 115 Cd/m2 (4% Deviation) and black luminance was 0.11 Cd/m2. It sounds like Im good to go.
One last question. I am about to have a printing profile made for me, something Ive never done, but feel its past the time I should do this. Will calibrating my monitor affect the printing profile? It seems to me it shouldnt, but still a question that has come up.
Any profile you make of your monitor won’t directly affect the profiling of your printer. Profiles are designed to be platform-independent, computer-independent and monitor-independent.
The only thing I’d add is that if you are trying to get your display and your printer to match, some people might calibrate their display and suddenly think that their “printer is too dark” or something. So calibrating the monitor will affect how well the monitor matches the printer, but it does not really affect the printer profile itself.
Thank you for the reply. Thats what I thought, but its a lot of prep work on my part to have a profile made for the paper I use the most and my printer, and I didnt want to have to do it over.
The difference between monitor and prints were spot on when they were both brand new back in 2005, but within a few months, prints started coming out dark with a green tint to them. It was consistent, so when done processing a photo, I would then reduce the green channel by 3 points, and brightened by 20 points, and prints were reasonably close to the monitor, and no one but me would notice. The difference between monitor and print is different with my new LaCie 324, and rather than play with the green channels and brightness, I decided to get a profile made for me.