Hi All,
Color management newbie here 
. I am hoping that all the experts can help me solve the issue I am facing.
As others have faced before , I sent some prints to the lab and was disappointed with the results. Some were off by a couple of stops.
After a lot of reading, I came to the conclusion that D65 ( 6500k, 2.2 gamma and 80 cd/m2) were the correct settings. I have constant ambient light and there is no light falling directly on my screen. The CFL light is daylight balanced (5000k)
Iâve calibrated my monitor using Spyder3 Elite . If I need to achieve the settings mentioned above, on my monitor I have reduced my brightness to 0. After this , the least luminance reading I get is 90 cd/m2.
The problem I have now is that the pictures appear very dark on the screen ( well darker than I am used to ) . Iâve read in several forums that this is normal. I am soon going to send prints to the lab for some testing.
My question is , is it acceptable for brightness to be at 0 ?
Also , when I calibrated my monitor, Spyder suggested a setting of 5800k,2.2 gamma and 100 cd/m2. Iâve ignored this and went with the D65 setting mentioned above. Have I made the correct decision here ?
Appreciate your thoughts on this.
Thanks for taking the time to review my issue.
VJ
Hi VJ,
Welcome to the forum. This is a great question, so thanks for asking it.
If your goal is to match what is coming back from your lab, then there will necessarily be a bit of experimentation needed in order to hit on the right settings. You can start by looking at a piece of white paper from your lab and seeing if the white of your display (while the CFL light is illuminating it) matches the white of the monitor. Normally, youâd want to turn down the brightness of the monitor until you reach the spot where the brightness of the monitor matches the apparent brightness of the paper. If youâre bottoming out at 90 cd/m2, thereâs not much you can do, but itâs good to check to see if thatâs the case.
If your problem is with the color of the image, then you can change your white point setting. D65 is generally a good place to start for normal daylight emulation. 5800K would make the display warmer; a higher number would make it cooler. The correct value is the one that makes the display white match the color of white in your paper. Thatâs why I say youâll need to do some experimentation. Keep in mind that a âdaylight balancedâ CCFL may not in fact be exactly at D50, so itâs wise to trust your eyes to make the final decision.
Running at the bottom of the range of brightness that your display was designed for would make me a bit concerned. Ideally we would not want things to go below say 10%. There are some calibration packages that will make use of the video card curves to reduce the brightness of the display when you canât bring it down any more using the on-board brightness controls. i1Profiler is one of those. I donât believe Spyder3 Elite does that. More are mentioned in this article:
colorwiki.com/wiki/My_Printe ⌠ofileMaker
It might very well take a day or so to get used to a darker screen, but that might very well be whatâs right for your situation. We tend to get used to what weâre seeing visually, and then any change can appear to be âwrongâ to our eyes until we get used to it. So give it some time.
