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[OM] Re: [OT] Pantone huey + First Monitor Impressions

Subject: [OM] Re: [OT] Pantone huey + First Monitor Impressions
From: Willie Wonka <alienspecimen@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 10:56:02 -0700 (PDT)
Funny you mentioned the Samsung, Moose...that model was on the top of my list.  
I have a good experience with one of the local Circuit City's here, but was 
disappointed when was told that when it comes to monitors, not all are being 
displayed and I have to buy on blind faith.  Went to Best Buy next door just to 
check things out and they had hundreds of monitors on display.  Before I 
bought, I checked the viewing angle of each one of them by tilting and moving 
around.  My monitor has the exact vertical viewing angle as the Samsung.
  If I remember correctly from the ergonomics class I took couple of years 
back, the monitor should be positioned in such a way, that the imaginary line 
from your eyes to your monitor should hit the screen perpenticularly somewhere 
in the middle of the upper third of the monitor.  This explains why they are 
designed like that.  
  BTW, now when the monitor is far at the end of my desk, things are much 
better.  The monitors in the store were placed on high shelfs and I had to 
reach and tilt them to test the vertical angle, bringing my eyes too close to 
it...
  Boris
   
   
   
   
   
          Subject:   [OM] Re: [OT] Pantone huey + First Monitor Impressions    
From:   Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>    Date:   Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:50:53 -0700
          
Willie Wonka wrote:  > Thank you guys for the quick response and thank you 
Andrew for volunteering   > to check with your friend Mark.  >   My first 
impressions from getting the new monitor were mixed.  It is a   > great 
improvement from the 17 inch CRT I bought five years ago just because   > had 
excellent specs.  >   There are two things that bug me about the new monitor:  
>   I.  The vertical viewing angle isnt that great (although the horisontal is  
 > superb).  I knew that when I was at the store.  It is better than most of 
the   > monitors that I considered and it probably would be ok if it weren't 
set for   > the line about half an inch below the top.  Just a notch lower 
would have   > been perfect IMHO, but as I sez, all others were set that way.  
I thought   > that the rule of the thumb was somewhere in the upper third of 
the screen.  >     So if you knew it didn't have what you wanted, why did you 
buy it? I   recently acquired a new LCD to replace my CRT, which
 has the habit of   dropping out the blue channel, and it was getting more 
frequent.   Although I did a bit of looking at stores, I found it singularly   
uninformative. The material displayed is of questionable quality and the   
height of the displays was often above eye level.    I did a lot of reading on 
the web of reviews, both official and user   reviews, confusing at first, but 
with more input, patterns started to   emerge. I ended up buying a Samsung 
226bw, without ever seeing one in   person, and am quite pleased. If there is a 
full color image in screen   when I walk into the room, color/contrast aren't 
good, but sitting at my   desk, the image is unchanged over the range of head 
motion up and down   and side to side that I can make without hurting my body. 
There is none   of the sort of thing you talk about. I don't veen understand 
what you   mean by "set for the line about half an inch below the top". Mine is 
  clear and even all over.    It also resolves find
 detail better than either the Sun/Trinitron or   Sylvania 19" monitors I've 
been using.    A note on sizes for those who have yet to go LCD. The diagonal   
measurement is even more misleading with 16:9 aspect ration monitors.   The new 
22" wide screen monitor is only about 1/2" larger in the   vertical dimension 
than the 4:3, 19" CRTs. I had worked this out   beforehand, but I imagine some 
folks have bought the same nominal size   in a wide-screen as their old CRT, 
only to find the images smaller.  >   II.  I don't know how I am going to 
adjust the whites...  >   In a mean time I have managed to confuse myself when 
it comes to monitor   > calibration.  When you buy a sensor, any sensor...they 
measure light relative   > to what?  Here is where the source of confusion is:  
>   I know that people would see lightness and saturation differently in   > 
pictures.  I realized that recently, when for the nth time I looked at some   > 
landscape I wanted to take a picture of with
 each of my eyes individually.    > My right eye sees little darker and the 
colors are slightly more saturated.    > Not by much, just enough to notice.  
So, I was thinking that if there is a   > noticeable difference between the 
eyes I use, there must be difference   > between how other people see and it 
might be more pronounced...  >     And yet, you can't see through anyone else's 
eyes, and will never have   any idea what they actually visualize in their 
heads. For all I know, if   I were to somehow able to have a direct brain to 
brain feed, I would   find that you see in color negative relative to what I 
see. But all that   doesn't matter, as we all know what is "normal" for use for 
all natural   scenes. We have in effect, "calibrated" our vision systems by 
viewing   countless "frames".    So what calibration works on is consistency. 
Using hardware measuring   systems, they measure reproduction of standardized 
color sources and   record the differences from a virtual
 ideal reproducer. These   differences may then be used to adjust the signal to 
the reproducer so   its output comes close to the correct colors. Standards 
have been   implemented for all aspects of color capture and reproduction.    
In a fully color managed system, the image captured by   film/scanner/sensor is 
adjusted using the icc profile for that/those   devices in the process of 
saving the master file. When that image is   viewed on a calibrated monitor, 
the image is again, temporarily,   adjusted in the process of display. so 
although the editor/whatever is   working with the "pure" file, the display 
system is adjusting the colors   going to the display to correct for 
inaccuracies of the monitor.    Printing used the same idea as viewing on a 
monitor, adjusting color on   the way to the print mechanism to correct for its 
measured inaccuracies.   So images of a particular thing created with different 
tools of capture   be the same objective colors on different screens
 and in prints from   different printers.    And it doesn't matter what any 
particular person "really" sees, as the   image will hold the same relationship 
to the original for them as for   anyone else, even though what they"see", were 
it possible to know   outside their mind, may or may not be quite different 
from what you   "see". Remember, research shows clearly that the virtual images 
we "see"   are not very closely related to the "RAW" capture of the sensors in 
our eyes  >   Based on that observation, I came to the conclusion, that no 
matter what   > tool I use, at the end my pictures will look too dull to some 
or   > oversaturated to others.  Am I missing sompin'?  >     I hope I've 
explained above. Calibration means only that we who are   calibrated are all 
looking at the same measured colors, but that's quite   a lot, compared to the 
chaos elsewhere.    Most people aren't aware of such differences between their 
eyes as you   notice. In fact, I find it odd, as I
 would assume the visual cortex   would correct for that. I have a slightly 
different situation. My left   eye has 20/20 vision when corrected, while the 
right is 20/10. when the   right eye is closed or obstructed, I occasionally 
wonder if the slightly   fuzzy (to me) world I then see is what most of the 
population is seeing   all the time. But it is normal to them.  >   Boris  >   
P.S.  I went and used the Adobe calibration tool...figured out that at   > 
least I should make my eyes happy...:)  >     I went through that with the 
Adobe and other tools for color calibration   using the screen and my eyes. I 
thought it was pretty good - until I got   a real calibration system - oops!    
So all that's very well, but then it comes up against a couple of things   
beyond its control. One is the relative nature of human senses. In the   case 
of vision, that means that the relative brightness of surroundings   affects 
the apparent brightness of the image, be it on screen or print. 
  So, to calibrate a screen, one must input something about the intensity   of 
the light in which it will be viewed. And that's one place where the   Huey is 
supposed to come in, adjusting screen brightness as room   brightness changes. 
That's of no interest to me, as the moderate   brightness of my intentional 
computer cave never varies except when the   light burns out.    At least with 
a screen, it provides its own light. Prints are dependent   on the nature and 
intensity of the light under which they are viewed,   both because of our 
vesion system and because hey don't always reflect   light the same. A lot of 
professionals who depend on color accuracy only   view prints, and sometimes 
screens, in special lighting.    My recommendation, based on a fair amount of 
research, is to skip the   Huey and get a real color calibration system. I use 
a Monaco Optix   sensor with their software in a package called Monaco Optix XR 
Pro.   There are other systems, some of which use
 the same sensor with   different software, and I thingk they are probably all 
pretty good. The   trick is having a sensor that reads a series of colors and 
brightnesses   directly on the screen. One of he problems with the Adobe and 
other   systems that rely on your eyes is that they only calibrate color, even  
 if you et them right, at one brightness, but screens aren't necessarily   
linear in color balance with brightness.    When I got the Samsung, I 
calibrated it next to the Sylvania. while   there s a slightly different 
quality to the images, the colors sure look   the same to me, at least when the 
CRT is behaving.    Moose  


       
---------------------------------
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