Monitor recommendation for color accuracy?

[jim_p]

I do a lot of scanning and giclee printing, and my shop is known for accurate color reproduction. Thing is, in some ways this is despite our equipment, rather than because of it. In particular, I've come to the conclusion that the weak link in our chain is the monitor on our Photoshop system. We've color-calibrated the scanner, the printer, and the monitor with the same X-1 colorimeter, but the monitor still does not accurately show what the printer prints (particularly in the yellows). I'm thinking the problem might be color gamut issues in the monitor -- our biggest problem is prints coming out yellower than the monitor shows, so I'm thinking it might be weak in that area.

So: does anybody have any recommendations for a better monitor?

 

[Cliff Wilson]

I do a lot of scanning and giclee printing, and my shop is known for accurate color reproduction. Thing is, in some ways this is despite our equipment, rather than because of it. In particular, I've come to the conclusion that the weak link in our chain is the monitor on our Photoshop system. We've color-calibrated the scanner, the printer, and the monitor with the same X-1 colorimeter, but the monitor still does not accurately show what the printer prints (particularly in the yellows). I'm thinking the problem might be color gamut issues in the monitor -- our biggest problem is prints coming out yellower than the monitor shows, so I'm thinking it might be weak in that area.

So: does anybody have any recommendations for a better monitor?

By Color calibrated I assume you mean you have built a custom profile and set Photoshop up to use it?
If all you are doing is white balance then creating a profile may help.
Monitors fade, so just getting a newer one might help as well.

There are a number of variables that are probably effecting your results. For one, I suspect your viewing environment is not completely white point controlled. Get a light booth and set the monitor to the white point in the light booth, then view your source and results only in the light booth and you might have better results. (I know that sounds like over reacting, but it's real. The light you view it in WILL change the results. *see Note below)

The MOST likely culprit is that your printer is printing with CMYK and thus has a pure yellow ink and the monitor is trying to generate yellow with RGB. It just can't generate that part of the printer's gamut.

*Note: just to illustrate the point, we were recently judging a framing contest and one of the pieces had a mat that looked awful. It wasn't even close to anything in the art. We couldn't understand how anyone could choose that mat. Then, we noticed that the description form said it was designed under "color-corrected fluorescent" lights, so we carried it outside since the sun was the closest we could get to that white point. It was an almost perfect match in that light. Remember that pigment, substrate and white point effect the color you perceive. Things that look identical in one situation can look nothing alike in another.

 

[Warren Tucker]

Every process color printer, and that's all the printers I know of, are CMYK printers. Of course current ink jet high quality color printers employ more than 4 inks but they are essentially 4 color printers. Many are considered RGB printers, not because they use RGB inks but because their drivers accept digital RGB information and convert it to CMYK for printing. Up until a few years ago, picky photographers and printers employed RIPs (raster image processors) to bypass their printers drivers in the, misguided belief that the RIPs produced a wider gamut. With the advent of N color printers, printers with 8 or more inks, RIPs have become obsolete in in ink jet printing. That's difficult for those of us who shelled out thousands of dollars for the thinks but that's the case.

Printings inks cannot produce the same gamut that RGB devices using close to perfect white light can by combining pure red, green blue light. As an example, monitors can project white light that's close to perfect and it can be broken down to nearly pure red, green and blue. Printers using very imperfect inks can't come close to producing a convincing black by combining equal amounts of cyan, magenta, and yellow inks. That explains the inclusion of the K in CMYK. The K ink is black.

For these reasons, monitors have a broader color gamut than printers and can produce purer yellow than a printer can. Yellow printing ink is very weak. There are no light yellow inks in N color printers as there are light magenta, light cyan, light black and even greys.

I've got a very rigidly color managed color lab with top of the line equipment and software and Iknow there is Norway my printers can produce colors that will match what I see on my monitor (an Eizo Color Edge professional monitor with built in color calibration). Printers produce color by reflecting light through imperfect color absorbing inks, monitors produce colors by projecting pretty close to perfect white light through red, green and blue filters.

The only people who think they can do color correction by soft proofing are kidding themselves or they have easy to please clients. Projected color simply looks different than reflected color. If you print a proof that's too yellow, it means that there is not enough blue present and you can only tell that by comparing an original to a proof. If you're trying to match an image on a monitor to a printed one, all I can say is "good luck".

There was a time, about 9years ago when inkjet inks were subject to a high degree of matamerism but that's mostly been eliminated with the introduction of N color printers with several black and grey ink. Theoretically, an equal amount of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink will produce a nice neutral grey; in reality because the CMYK inks are imperfect you get only a muddy brown that's highly susceptible to matamerism (the tendency of colors to shift in changes in light temperatures. That's due to all but pure colors having a grey component. Good quality inkjet printers produced with N color inks produce barely noticeable shifts in color. That's because the grey components in the colors are now produced with grey inks and not equal amounts of C
MY imperfect inks.

If you are producing prints that have a yellow cast simply add aa little blue to the mid tones in photoShop's Color Ballance adjustment. In my experience accurate color prints are made by first printing a proof and then correcting in PhotoShop.

 

[Cliff Wilson]

... monitors have a broader color gamut than printers ...

Actually, monitors can achieve some colors that printers can't and printers can achieve some colors that monitors can't. You can think of their color spaces are different shapes in 3d space.

... and can produce purer yellow than a printer can. ...

guess I'm not sure what you mean by purer? Brighter maybe , because it's light emitted color generation.

... there is No way my printers can produce colors that will match what I see on my monitor ... The only people who think they can do color correction by soft proofing are kidding themselves ...

If by that you mean the gamuts are completely different? then I agree. However, it can be achieved with the overlapping gamuts if the viewing environments are well defined and controlled.. We did it at Kodak decades ago.

 

[Larry Peterson]

I am interested in this but from a slightly different perspective. I don't care about, nor do I do, any printing. I'm concerned about how correct the color is in the images that I produce for my site.

I have triple monitors on my computer and the colors I see are slightly different on all three. If I open up an image in Photoshop and drag it across all three monitors, it looks slightly different in each. The images I produce for my site seem OK, but I'm viewing them on my monitors in a fairly dark room. They might look horrible on someone else's.

I remember some of the discussions about color calibration but they seemed centered around the monitor and the printer not about the monitor alone. My main monitor is a Samsung and I am using the ICC profile for that monitor.

I just built a new PC and my main monitor has a fairly decent video card (EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130910 )

I'm still using old monitors from my last build and am am thinking about replaceing the present 24" Samsung (1920x1200) with a 27" 2560x1440 monitor - actual monitor TBD. From the little reading that I have done so far, it looks like I should be getting an IPS monitor.

Assuming that an IPS monitor is a the right choice, what else should I be doing to get the most realistic colors in my site images.

Hope this isn't too off-topic for this thread. When I first saw this thread I was hoping it would about this.

 

[stcstc]

high quality monitors can produce approx the AdobeRGB spectrum

the latest epson inkset, (in the 9900 for example) can produce almost all of the adobeRGB spectrum

Most cameras produce something similar


so if your working with a decent monitor and latest epson printers you should be able to accuratley (well not perfectly, but to what almost no one could tell) produce the same on the monitor as on print, with the knowledge that they WILL look slightly different because of reflective v backlit light

anyway, getting back to the question, after a certain point, the changes between monitors is small but the price jump is exponential. i would suggest buying from one of the big brands, NEC or ezio who produce monitors specially with colour accuracy in mind. You SHOULD also be making sure to calibrate regularly, i do it once a month on my monitors



Larry, one issue you will have with your system, most graphics cards can only support 1 lut being active at once, so although windows supports 3 monitors as you are using, chances are your graphics card can only support colour accuracy on one of them.

 

[Cliff Wilson]

I am interested in this but from a slightly different perspective. I don't care about, nor do I do, any printing. I'm concerned about how correct the color is in the images that I produce for my site.

I have triple monitors on my computer and the colors I see are slightly different on all three. If I open up an image in Photoshop and drag it across all three monitors, it looks slightly different in each. The images I produce for my site seem OK, but I'm viewing them on my monitors in a fairly dark room. They might look horrible on someone else's.

I remember some of the discussions about color calibration but they seemed centered around the monitor and the printer not about the monitor alone. My main monitor is a Samsung and I am using the ICC profile for that monitor.

I just built a new PC and my main monitor has a fairly decent video card (EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130910 )

I'm still using old monitors from my last build and am am thinking about replaceing the present 24" Samsung (1920x1200) with a 27" 2560x1440 monitor - actual monitor TBD. From the little reading that I have done so far, it looks like I should be getting an IPS monitor.

Assuming that an IPS monitor is a the right choice, what else should I be doing to get the most realistic colors in my site images.

Hope this isn't too off-topic for this thread. When I first saw this thread I was hoping it would about this.

I'm assuming you are concerned with how OTHERS will view your site?

Most monitors aren't even white point balanced. You have no hope. sorry. My best advice is to use AdobeRGB (This is an artificial RGB space designed to produce a gamut that can specify all visible colors. This makes it an ideal interchange space) as the storage space and then a calibrated controlled monitor will do an ok job with it.

 

[Cliff Wilson]

high quality monitors can produce approx the AdobeRGB spectrum

the latest epson inkset, (in the 9900 for example) can produce almost all of the adobeRGB spectrum

Most cameras produce something similar


so if your working with a decent monitor and latest epson printers you should be able to accuratley (well not perfectly, but to what almost no one could tell) produce the same on the monitor as on print, with the knowledge that they WILL look slightly different because of reflective v backlit light

anyway, getting back to the question, after a certain point, the changes between monitors is small but the price jump is exponential. i would suggest buying from one of the big brands, NEC or ezio who produce monitors specially with colour accuracy in mind. You SHOULD also be making sure to calibrate regularly, i do it once a month on my monitors..

This has more to do with what you consider "good enough" that measurable color rendition. AdobeRGB is an artificial color space designed to encompass all possible colors and thus makes an good interchange or storage space. NO device can render all the colors possible to specify with AdobeRGB. It could be that what you are doing is editing your images with the monitor to a subset that is renderable on your printer. This is possible.

 

[Lance E]

Depending on a number of factors - throw the friggin fancy calibration doohickey in the backroom and set your monitors by eye, the Windows calibration setup is actually pretty damned good. We are using an LG IPS screen on one of the newer machines and I'm very impressed - compared to our Eizo it is easily my favourite and my pocket hurt lots less.

 

[Warren Tucker]

Larry, your problem is that it doesn't matter what monitor or you use. The colors on your web site will depend on the viewer's monitor over which you have no controll. That said, your best bet is to set your monitor color space to sRGB, a color space that the typical consumer monitor will cover. At least on your monitor you will be able to see what colors can be projected and what happens to the the colors that can't. Colors that fall out of a monitor's gamut have to be altered to fit in somehow. All the colors you see in an sRGB space should be available on most consumer monitors.

Good grief, Cliff, monitors can, at least mine can, display a much wider color gamut that printers can print. I confront this problem daily reproducing art. That's why PhotoShop offers the ability to impose a printer profile on an image you are viewing and has an out of gamut warning feature. Wouldn't need that if the printer's gamut approached the monitor's. Surely you are aware that it is the paper that's a major determiner in what colors a printer can print?

No, I didn't mean that the printer's and monitor's gamut are completely different; I meant that the monitor's gamut is wider than the printers else we wouldn't need Pantone spot colors in process printing. What I meant by purer yellow is that the monitor can project pure red and green light while the printer's inks can't approach pure yellow. Have you ever seen a yellow ink patch. It's nearly invisible. I assume you've seen a nozzle check where the magenta cyan and black patterns are very clear while you can hardly see the yellow. Pure yellow means no blue and has nothing to do with how bright it is. A pure saturated hue.

As to white ballance with printers, that's almost completely controlled by the paper white of the paper. There can't be anything printed by process inks whiter than the paper.

I came up in an advertising environment (my mother was a partner in one of the largest in the south) and am familiar the functions of viewing booths: allowing everyone viewing a color anywhere to agree on what it looks like in a defined environment so they could agree on it knowing full well it probably wouldn't look the same printed and viewed in the myriad environments in which it was headed. In art reproduction, viewing booths are pointless exercises. No matter what the light temperature we, try to make our reproductions match as closely as possible to the original viewed in the same environment. Mostly white ballance is important in capturing an image, not in viewing it. Our Cruse Table scanner has as close to perfect white ballance as it's possible to attain. That's important in capturing an image because ambient light will affect how colors are captured. Our brains usually allow humans to see accurate color regardless of the light temperature establishing an interior gamut between perceived white and black.

 

[stcstc]

This has more to do with what you consider "good enough" that measurable color rendition. AdobeRGB is an artificial color space designed to encompass all possible colors and thus makes an good interchange or storage space. NO device can render all the colors possible to specify with AdobeRGB. It could be that what you are doing is editing your images with the monitor to a subset that is renderable on your printer. This is possible.

sorry but this is incorrect

sRGB was design by a collaboration of major software and hardware manufacturers as a base standard

Adobe RGB was developed by adobe to facilitate designers etc by giving them a wider colour space to work in

BUT, it DOES NOT cover the hole spectrum far from it

for example ProPhoto, which is adobe's new colour space, it is wider, to the point that a lot of men (women see more colour ironically) cant see the whole of the ProPhoto spectrum

MOST digital cameras for example really support around the AdobeRGB spectrum, some of the much Higher specced ones support high like profoto

 

[Cliff Wilson]

... Good grief, Cliff, monitors can, at least mine can, display a much wider color gamut that printers can print. I confront this problem daily reproducing art. That's why PhotoShop offers the ability to impose a printer profile on an image you are viewing and has an out of gamut warning feature. Wouldn't need that if the printer's gamut approached the monitor's. ...

What I said and what I meant is that printers can print some colors that monitors can't render and monitors can render some colors that printers can't print.

This is a 2d slice through a 3d color space that begins to illustrate what I'm talking about.

 

[stcstc]

What I said and what I meant is that printers can print some colors that monitors can't render and monitors can render some colors that printers can't print.

This is a 2d slice through a 3d color space that begins to illustrate what I'm talking about.

View attachment 18325

that diagram is not really suitable for this type of dicussion

every PAPER affects the gamut which is printable

as that diagram is only suggesting what the spectrum of the inkset is it is a red herring

a good way to see this is, open 2 paper profiles for comparison in colorsync and you will see they are different, even though the inkset is the same

 

[Cliff Wilson]

sorry but this is incorrect

sRGB was design by a collaboration of major software and hardware manufacturers as a base standard

ha, ha, that's seems to be the prevailing belief.
When I was Director of Color Management for Kodak, we sold the color engine to Microsoft for inclusion in Windows 95. As we were getting very close to release, Microsoft asked for a profile to a "standard rgb space" for monitors that they could recommend for use on web based photos. We explained that it would result in a clipping of color in the images because monitors did NOT have enough gamut to cover all possible device renderings. We said images should NEVER be stored in such a clipped space. They insisted. So, I went back to the lab and we created an "average monitor profile" from approximately 60 monitors of various ages and makes in our lab at the end of 1994. The resultant AVERAGE profile was called sRGB. Boy did that get misconstrued over the years!! LOL!

Adobe RGB was developed by adobe to facilitate designers etc by giving them a wider colour space to work in...

Adobe correctly tried to fix the silliness and did a somewhat competent job at it.

A better interchange or storage space would be LAB or LUV, but then everyone would need a conversion profile for their monitor. <sigh>

 

[Cliff Wilson]

that diagram is not really suitable for this type of dicussion

every PAPER affects the gamut which is printable

as that diagram is only suggesting what the spectrum of the inkset is it is a red herring

a good way to see this is, open 2 paper profiles for comparison in colorsync and you will see they are different, even though the inkset is the same

OF COURSE, but what I was illustrating is that no device COVERS the gamut of other devices. Particularly when you are talking monitors and printers.

 

[stcstc]

ha, ha, that's seems to be the prevailing belief.
When I was Director of Color Management for Kodak, we sold the color engine to Microsoft for inclusion in Windows 95. As we were getting very close to release, Microsoft asked for a profile to a "standard rgb space" for monitors that they could recommend for use on web based photos. We explained that it would result in a clipping of color in the images because monitors did NOT have enough gamut to cover all possible device renderings. We said images should NEVER be stored in such a clipped space. They insisted. So, I went back to the lab and we created an "average monitor profile" from approximately 60 monitors of various ages and makes in our lab at the end of 1994. The resultant AVERAGE profile was called sRGB. Boy did that get misconstrued over the years!! LOL!



Adobe correctly tried to fix the silliness and did a somewhat competent job at it.

A better interchange or storage space would be LAB or LUV, but then everyone would need a conversion profile for their monitor. <sigh>

so you developed IEC 61966-2-1:1999?

 

[Cliff Wilson]

so you developed IEC 61966-2-1:1999?

I was a member of the International Color Consortium, but the sRGB profile was not developed there.

 

[stcstc]

but agreed as a standard to work to there though no?

 

[Cliff Wilson]

but agreed as a standard to work to there though no?

Not initially. I left Kodak in 1996. The standard you sighted was a later outgrowth of the ICC. I can't say what happened after I left.

 

[Cliff Wilson]

Funny side note, the .icc extension on profiles originally meant International Color Consortium, but Microsoft called it Image Color Correction in all their documentation. I don't remember discussing it, but I guess it was an ownership thing.

I haven't even looked, does anyone know what the current folklore for the extension is?

 

[jim_p]

The only people who think they can do color correction by soft proofing are kidding themselves or they have easy to please clients. Projected color simply looks different than reflected color. If you print a proof that's too yellow, it means that there is not enough blue present and you can only tell that by comparing an original to a proof. If you're trying to match an image on a monitor to a printed one, all I can say is "good luck".

I understand that monitors and printers have nearly opposite color gamuts, and that projected color is not the same as reflected color. That said, is there a setup that will at least let one use soft proofing to dial it into the ballpark? I understand that in the end there's no substitute for a hard proof, but I'd like to see if I can lower the number of proofing cycles required...

The reason all this came about is that I'm trying to teach my staff to take on more of the digital imaging tasks that I'd been doing. Apparently I've developed a bit of a knack for *knowing* that the monitor doesn't match the printer, but kinda-sorta knowing how it's likely to turn out anyway. I'm not quite sure I know *how* I do this, but I can typically do a color match in one or two proofing cycles that takes my staff close to a dozen. I'd like to see if I can get my equipment to give my staff a leg up on this...

 

[Lance E]

Apparently I've developed a bit of a knack for *knowing* that the monitor doesn't match the printer, but kinda-sorta knowing how it's likely to turn out anyway.

Yep, that's how it actually works in the real world I decided. My thought is the IPS monitor for your practical approach.


FWIW - *.icc still means International Colour Consortium to me, but then I got into the photo industry in the mid 90's because it was going digital and I wanted to be a part of it. Google hates the real world and popular is all that matters - that's a change I am not so keen on.

 

[Warren Tucker]

Jim, of the three elements of image _reproduction_, the scanner, the monitor, and printer, the weakest link is the monitor not because it can't be profiled but because of the the nature of its color, projected RGB colors. If a camera is the capture device in the chain, it will by far be the most troublesome device. Scanners can be very accurately characterized, latest versions of printers can also be accurately profiled. And accurate profiles are the key to accurate reproduction. You should not have to rely on very accurate colors on a monitor to get in the ball park, well profiled printers and capture devices should do that for you. Before you do any corrections you should print an initial proof. That proof should already be reasonably accurate needing only minor corrections. If it isn't you need to look critically at your color management because the monitor isn't going to be much use. We use Epson Enhanced Matt paper for proofing and it's cheap. Print a proof and put it along side the original to compare colors; rely on the monitor to tell you if your corrections are going in the right direction. If you're not on the ball park with your first, you need to look closely at your capture device's profile. The printer profile is not likely to be the problem.

If you're using a camera as a capture device your corrections are going to be difficult because they are very difficult to profile. With a scanner, lighting and light temperature are always going to be the same as when you made its profiles. That's not the case with cameras unles you can rigidly control the light intensity and temperature and they are always the same as when you made the profile. I actually don't think that can be done in any thing less than a very professional studio.

Again, if your initial proof is way off, an accurate monitor won't matter much; the problem probably lies in the caputure device. Inkjet printers are very linear devices and are easy to profile and good canned profiles are readily available for most papers.