New X-rite i1Display Pro Monitor calibrator.

[IamSam]

Now that I have my new calibrator, I want to see if it has helped.

Since this image was the first to bring to my attention that my monitor needed some help, I thought I would stick with it to maintain consistency.

Original



This my latest change to the image after my calibration.
Curves Adjustment layer.
Set White point.
Set grey point to white of eye.


So what's the verdict.


Here's the older image from right before the calibration.

 

[gedstar]

Looks good to me on my calibrated monitor Sam, skins tones look good although I don't thing I have the experience to give a true verdict.

 

[IamSam]

Thanks Ged, I think the colors need some tweaking but I just want an image using the curves adjustment as the baseline. Not sure when my monitor went awry, but I can already tell the difference.

 

[dv8_fx]

Same here.... skin tone looks better. I'm not on a calibrated monitor but am playing it by eye.

I might be wrong but I detect a slight blueish tint in the shadows in 2nd image? ... most especially along her right side hairline and around eyes.....

 

[IamSam]

Thanks dv8. That's what Tom was noticing before. I can see it now. I don't know what is causing that.

Let ma ask this..........where would you take your first 'white point' reading from? Maybe that's the problem.

 

[Tom Mann]

Hey Sam - Definitely an improvement, but still not perfect, IMHO. I'm quite sure the reason for the remaining problem is that you didn't set a black point. Just look at the lighter areas of hair NE of her left eye (ie, towards the mid-upper right side of the image as we view it): They are clearly tinged with a cyan color. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that there is a cyan or blue light shining on her hair, so I'm going to try to nail that, as well. Of course, this makes the *very* big assumption that her hair really is black, not say a dark chestnut color. This is why I asked her about this earlier, but unfortunately never received an answer.

The problem in setting a black point is that there is nothing in this photo that clearly must be black -- there are dark regions, but not unambiguously black regions, and we certainly don't want to make her hair go jet black. In addition, there is the problem that many of the adjustments made with the three eyedroppers tend to change the contrast in different brightness ranges, and so, IMHO, it ultimately comes down to making some extra final, small changes based on our eyes and what we see in the monitor.

Sorry, but I've got to run, but will be back later. Here's what I got when I first set the whites, then set the blacks, and then set the mids based on the sclera on your latest image, and then followed up these curve adjustments (the black adjustment done separately and set to color blend, not normal, the other two set to normal blend mode) with tweaks that I'll describe later today.

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

PS - I forgot to mention in previous posts that not only is there no place in the picture where the shadow color balance can be definitely set, NEITHER is there any place in the photo where color balance of the highlights can be set, either.

The reason that the lights in the ceiling doesn't really do anything for setting the color balance is that they are almost completely maxed out in all channels (ie, R, G, B all greater than ~250), so putting the highlight eyedropper on them will only slightly move them to 255,255,255, upping the brightness a bit but doing almost nothing to the color.

This is a prime example of where taking a shot of a color checker card in the same light would have completely eliminated almost all of this uncertainty that we are discussing.

T