Monitor Calibration discrepancies

[ColdKodiak]

One of my pet peeves these days is doing work on my monitor setup (2 screens side by side), then checking it out later on monitors at school, or at other people's houses and finding that the image either looks dry, or washed out.
The quality of brightness in color, and in producing contrast just seems to be abnormally good for my monitor ( my 200$ monitor better than 400$ monitors my school works with?).

I never used to have this problem with my CRT. It wasn't until I moved on to lcd that the contrast range seemed to actually push me into producing images with contrast ranges that really required a bright montior to see.
Simply put, wtf?
I've calibrated my monitor to match those at other places as closely as possible (trust me, for months I've tried to get it close to perfect), but it just always seems out of reach. I've releveled images to look better for awhile now,
(for example, when I first got my lcd, I thought these levels looked good
http://www.coldconcept.net/spec11.jpg
then I saw it at school, and said 'wtf', and recalibrated my monitor and image so it'd look proper on most people's montiors:
http://www.coldconcept.net/speckray.jpg)
but I've been left a little skeptical about who or what people are seeing when I post something on the web.


am I the only one who is irritated by this, or has been trying to find a standard calibration norm that is prevailent?

[FlipMcgee]

I was actually thinking about this very same thing today. I always get the "colors look muddy" feedback with some submissions of mine and I scratched my head when I read these comments 'cuz I see non-muddy flesh tones on my screen.

But after cross checking with lcds at work they're right. Especially the magentas, pinks, oranges...all mud.

I'm thinking it's a losing battle since people customized their screens all the time. Lower the saturation, adjust the brightness due to an unavoidable window glare, etc. Everything's calibrated in your studio but it's not necessarily wsywyg in somebody else's screen.

I'm going to experiment and just use web safe colors when doing flesh. See if there's a difference. And maybe save the jpg out without embedding the profile that I use.

[FlipMcgee]

Just switched my PS color settings to: web graphics defaults. Now I'm seeing the mud on my monitor with the same pieces in question.

I'll attempt a couple of tests and will update this thread later.

[Magic Man]

Btw, just because your monitor has an awesome color and contrast range, doesn't mean that you tune it to its best setting, that will lead directly to your problems.

Get a good colorimeter and screen calibration software.

Another lo-tech way of making sure your colors aren't too screwed up is to get an image with similr histogram and color palette as yours from someone else's site and do a visual match side by side and use adjustment layers to alter the image properties.

m

[FlipMcgee]

Okay, here's some test sketches for comparison. Not scientific, but here goes.


First one is using my usual custom color profile that uses adobe1998. This should look muddy and patchy on many screens (but looks okay on mine).

Second are variations, painted and saved using the "web graphics defaults" color profile.

Last one same as above but re-saved with adobe1998.

[Jabo]

Check this out: When you save your JPG, make sure to uncheck the "Color Profile: <profile name>" checkbox (second checkbox in the "Colors" section of the save-dialog). That's the most safe way to make sure everyone sees what you see. The result will only be affected by the viewer's color profiles, not by yours. I found it quite handy.

[FlipMcgee]

Thanks for the tip Jabo.

Checked these images again at work. Once on an lcd and right now on a crt (these monitors aren't for graphics work, fyi).

Surprisingly, the blending and tones for all aren't bad on this crt. The muddiness and low saturation is more apparent in the lcd one, where the only acceptable versions for me would be the last row of the third file. Not too undersaturated and still maintains the hues I picked as I saw them in my studio lcd.

Maybe, something to consider for future thunderdomes. Agree on using one common profile or list the the color profiles the judges are using so competitors can optimize their finished work to their screen specs. Less practical would be to do provide more than one finished entry with different profiles. Or maybe just unchecking profile embedding, as Jabo advises, would be good enough.