Me, my client and calibration

[stevesideas]

Im currently working on a project for a client that involves me rendering out still images for approval until the client is happy and we can go ahead and animate.

The problem is, my initial previews for the client had comments like, "colours look too washed out" and "needs more vibrance". This left me thinking...is my monitor calibrated correctly. I seem to have nice vibrance of colours from my monitor which then left me thinking...is the clients monitor calbrated differently to mine...probably.

So my question is, should I calibrate my monitor to the clients ?

I currently have 3 monitors (call me greedy, but i need them for all the windows I have open) and only the centre one has a nice graduation of lights to darks. My other monitors seem to have way too much contrast and are too bright. So when I drag the image (in the vray VFB) to one of the other monitors the image appears washed out.

Any ideas ? (Sorry if i have made this complicated).

How can I check if my monitor is calibrated accurately ?

Thanks

Steve

[dlparisi]

I would definitely not calibrate your monitor to your clients (unless theirs is the accurate one). I'm not really sure how you'd go about matching your monitor to theirs other than by eye anyways, so it still wouldn't be an exact match. Regardless, if you "calibrate" to this reference it has no relationship to the www, printers, anyone elses monitor, etc, etc. so you'd end up with a calibrated monitor that is technically "wrong".

Your best bet is to get a monitor calibrator: huey, spyder or eye-one are great options - the huey is pretty cheap too and will do a pretty simple but fairly accurate calibration.

[Clifton Santiago]

Yeah I second that. Clients (architects) are completely clueless when it comes to understanding what they see on the screen (just try and get them to understand the difference between RGB and CMYK, or gamma settings). Chances are their monitors are completely screwed up, and so are their printers, if they print in house. What I do is inform them that my monitors are calibrated to industry standards (6500 K, 2.2 G) and that if it looks wrong, its their fault.

I know its not our job as visualisers, but if its a regular, local (and small) l client, it wouldn't hurt to go and calibrate one of their monitors and inform them they need to use that one to view your images. They'll hate you for being arrogant and patronizing, but they will at least see your images correctly

[Aldaryn]

...just try and get them to understand the difference between RGB and CMYK, or gamma settings...

Not to mention the mystical relationship between print size, resolution, and image dpi... Man, I absolutely third that. Do not calibrate your monitor to match the clients! You can always send some quick prints to calm their worries.

And it also helps a lot to keep a badly adjusted (or a cheap crappy lcd) monitor besides the calibrated ones, so you can always keep in mind how your work looks on the screens of the marketing staff of you average stereotype client.

best regards,

A.

[Clifton Santiago]

Actually, forget what I said about calibrating a clients monitor. I did that once, and the next time I went over there, someone had screwed with the monitor settings, making it look all washed out. I asked why they did that, and they said that my calibrated settings looked wrong to them...

[Da_elf]

when i do prints they look like what ive got on my monitor. most of my clients get work from me for print so if they say it looks bad on their monitor then i just tell them their monitor is calibrated wrong and that if they do a print the will see everything is as it should be. that usually proves to them they need to change

[Timmeh]

I agree with Da_elf

Its best not to send digital images at all, as you have no idea if the client has a calibrated monitor. I tend to send photo prints (never had a problem with them). If you have to email images then best to make a note that colours etc will look different on all screens.

[Clifton Santiago]

You must have huge printing bills. You don't send the client electronic images? How do they put it in their powerpoint or desktop publishing files?

I couldn't afford to print out sometimes 10 to 15 images in a week (when doing conceptual renderings with multiple options).

[stevesideas]

I think maybe you misunderstood, or I gave you the wrong impression. The visuals are sent electronically and the final results will not be printed, they will only be viewed on screen. But obviously the clients screen is calibrated differently to mine.

So the client sees what he likes on his screen and doesnt get the same result i do on mine, so therefore the image i send him has to be adjusted (saturation increased and contrast increased) so it looks roughly the same as it does on my monitor.

It would just be nice if he could see the same original image that I see, he wouldnt be asking me to do these changes then.

[Clifton Santiago]

Sorry, my last post was @ timmeh.

Dude that sucks having to adjust for a bad monitor. But I guess if you can just save the adjustments so that they can just be applied to any renderings for the client at the end. However the real solution is for the client to get his head out of his ass.

[dlparisi]

I'd still not recommend calibrating your monitor to your client's monitor, it's just a bad idea IMO. If their monitor is that off, I'd ask them to install and run WiziWYG XP (just Google it, I can't find it on Praxisoft's website anymore). It's a free visual monitor calibration tool that comes pretty close to a hardware based solution. It's obviously not perfect and not as accurate as the real thing but it should get them pretty close to what you're seeing on your monitor.

Last resort for me would be a couple of Adjustment layers in photoshop to adjust brightness, saturation, gamma, etc. to try and match their output. Just turn them off before saving or it'll be "double exposed" when the client views it on their monitor.

[dlparisi]

One more thing... if you or you client is watching TV and the picture looks bad do you call up the TV station and ask them to adjust their signal to compensate for your TV? Obviously not and this is not that far off from your client requesting you to adjust your monitor to match theirs. This is assuming your monitor is calibrated to an industry standard.

[Da_elf]

i dont print everything i do. but i know that if i wer to print i would get what i get on my monitor. i send digital images and its only rarely i get a complaint. (seems alot of my architect clients use macs which i see have really good monitors)

[werticus]

i just brought some prints in to a client and they said 'ohhhhh so that's what it should look like' after having a similar discussion about why they shouldn't be using lcd's

it also saved me from a rather large number of changes along the lines of 'more contrast, more vibrate, deeper colours'

... argh!

problem is if i calibrate their cheap lcd's its still not going to be good enough.

[Timmeh]

You must have huge printing bills. You don't send the client electronic images? How do they put it in their powerpoint or desktop publishing files?

I couldn't afford to print out sometimes 10 to 15 images in a week (when doing conceptual renderings with multiple options).

Sorry, what I was meant to say: Send a printed version along with your digital image.

It may cost a little more, but I believe you will save on time and $$$ dealing with the client and adjusting the image to match their screen.

Small format photo prints don't cost too much!

(I shouldn't rush posting! :P)