calibrating LCDs to look similar to CRT???

[pshupe68]

I just bought a couple of Samsung 225BW LCD monitors. I set them up and chucked my old 19" CRT under the desk. Now I am having an issue with my first render. I send it to the client and he says the colours are way off. I'm sure he's got a CRT. So I pulled out my CRT and placed it next to one of my LCDs. There is a huge difference in colour. How do I set the LCD to look like the CRT?? Should I just set them side by side with the same image and adjust necessary settings or is there a better way to calibrate. Thanks for any advice.

Regards Peter.

[CCS]

Get a Spyder. Well worth the $150

[joconnell]

Hi Peter,

as far as I know lcds are far closer to linear colour than a crt is by default so trying to make your lcd look like a crt would be pushing it way out of its normal working range - you'd probably introduce banding. It's very difficult to control how colours look on peoples monitors overall since they all use different settings but what you could do is run a dual setup using your crt monitor as a preview, alternatively calibrate your lcd to linear colour then you can use the colour settings in photoshop to see how it'd look on a regular crt monitor (gamma 2.2).

[pshupe68]

Thanks for the replies.

CCS - Do you have one? How does it work? Will it solve my issue? Will the LCD represent colours like the CRT??

joconnell - the problem I have is that my clients are looking at my renders on CRT for comments on colours etc etc. I have always used CRTs until recently. When I print my renders they look very close to the way they looked on the CRT. That is more the issue. I want my prints to look like the screen. Since I know the prints look like the CRT. I want the LCD to look like the CRT, which in turn will look good on the clients computer display as well.

Thanks guys - looking forward to more advice.

Regards Peter.

[dlparisi]

You can try a visual color calibration tool such as adobe gamma or even better, WiziWYG at http://www.praxisoft.com/pages/products.wiziwyg.html athough I've only tried it on CRT's.

[joconnell]

Hi Peter,

as someone mentioned the best thing to do is get a monitor calibtrator and calibrate the lcd to linear colour. once you have this done, photoshop has a working space profile so you can take an image on your linear colour lcd and apply a profile to it that matches a crt monitor so you can check what it'll look like on your clients monitor.

Trying to get an lcd monitor to look exactly like a crt is pushing it really far away form where it normally exists so your colour will suffer as a result.

[CCS]

Yep. Got one a few weeks back.

I'll get lots of ppl disagreeing with me on this, but here goes. I wouldn't use an LCD for final image work. At least, I prefer not to. They just don't offer the same color response. There are some that are much better than others, but I don't want to put that much money into a screen when a CRT has better response and costs much less. Try looking at an image on any LCD screen, then sit a little taller or lower in your seat. Then move left and right a little. See how much the colors change? Check the pro photo sites. They say the same thing. Most of them use a CRT for main screen, then LCDs for PS pallettes, toolbars, internet, email, word, etc...

That said, you can try some of these other websites and utilities. I've found they do a decent-ish job on CRTs, but few LCDs offer controls for calibration. Even so, these tools are dependant upon your eye which is at best a subjective instrument. Plus, even if you get gamma and tonal range set up nicely, it's probably not correct. For instance, I used some of those utilities to set up both my CRTs a while back. I got a very nice setup on each of them. However, one still had a noticeably yellow tone, while the other was slightly cool blue. Which one was right? Were either right? According to the workflow, they both were! Obviously there are limitations to that process (software and my perception).

While the Spyder is probably not 100% perfectly clinically accurate, it *is* an absolute. It takes out the subjectivity. When I ran it on my dual monitor rig, they are perceptibly identical. When I ran it on my laptop and LCD machine, they got *much* closer to my CRTs than they had been before, but they were still noticably different. I think that is probably due to the fact that they are LCDs, and the quality of my LCDs. Still, they are more than close enough for my purposes.

I have contemplated taking it to a few of my difficult clients' sites to offer to calibrate one of their screens so we're looking at the same thing.

Does that help at all?

[pshupe68]

CCS - thanks for the tips. It is unfortunate because I like the way the dual 22" wide screens work, and look, in my workspace. They are quite adjustable, which the CRT is not. Not to mention the CRT is huge and heavy. I will probably take one monitor back and do all my final image stuff on my CRT and use the other for rendering, e-mail, ACAD, etc etc. I might as well take it back as well and just get a 19" LCD.

joconnell - I'll have to take a look at this when things calm down a bit. I was hoping for a quick fix. Something to do with the monitor drivers to emulate CRT or something. Obviously I was a little naive, if not foolish.

diparisi - Yeah that looks OK as well but looks a little deep. As I said above I was hoping that it was just something simple I was missing and I could do a quick fix.

Thanks all for the input.

I'm still wondering if I people are using LCD for final image work and how they calibrate the monitors. Most of the time I render images and send them via e-mail or ftp to be viewed by my clients on their monitors, which are invariably CRT. And it just seems the CRT gives a closer image to how it prints.

Thanks again.

Regards Peter.