Display Calibration at it’s Best

This is a screen capture of X-Rite’s i1 Match Software. I used my i1 Pro Spectrophotometer to build a calibration and profile for the new 24″ iMac. The default white point was right at 6500 Kelvin and the resultant calibration yielded a perfect 120.0 cd/m2. This is rare. Sometime you get lucky. Other iMac’s I have calibrated don’t give me the same results – that’s not necessarily bad – except one of the best ways to get multiple displays to look similar is to have similar luminance say +/- 2 candelas.

Eye-One Spectrophotometer

Eye-One Spectrophotometer
Originally uploaded by colorcritical.

It is very difficult to control color without measuring it. This is why I would really never do any digital color reproduction without a spectrophotometer like the X-Rite i1. Here the i1 is on it’s scan table ready to can a line of ink on paper.

I basically build a profile anytime I see a color drift. By calibrating and or profiling I can account for drift. Devices tend to drift in their subjective reproduction of RGB and CMYK . It is also important to remember RGB and CMYK are just values devices use to produce a color. The colors those values produce is what a color manager is most interested in and the best way to get these values is with a color measuring instrument. More info can be found at X-Rite Photo.com

i1 Share – encompus orange

i1 Share – encompus orange
Originally uploaded by colorcritical.

Getting the right color can be a massive challange. Here is a screen shot of i1 share in action to solve an everyday problem one may have getting the Pantone equalivalent of a measured paint swatch. The situation is that we needed to have Pantone color that was a close match to the color of our walls, in fact we wanted the color of our walls to match our business cards and our website. So we started the process by measuring the color of our walls and getting a L*a*b* value in i1 Share. Share then gave us the closest Pantone Coated color Pantone 158C. i1 Share will also give us a CMYK or RGB mix for a given ICC Profile. The power of this is vast and it is a free download from Gretag Macbeth. Of course the real power comes from the i1 and the complete Pantone library. So the next time your in our studio or on our website check to see our color match between our business card, the color of our painted walls, and our website.