Thank you for the report, Bill. Frankly, I very much questioned what you had said but had no solid information with which to dispute it.
I use PhotoCal myself (I'm an amateur) and I'm very satisfied with my Sony Trinitron (Dell-branded) monitor. I have a Solux desklamp and I find it provides me with accurate renditions of my prints so as to compare them with the screen. Maris ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Fernandez" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 4:46 PM Subject: filmscanners: OptiCal correction/retraction | Hi gang-- | | I have to correct some erroneous information I contributed a couple | of weeks ago. | | It turns out that OptiCal and the monitor Spyder can only be used as | a colorimeter (to measure color temperature and light intensity) of | your monitor, NOT your room lights. ColorVision tech support says | they don't support the use of OptiCal/Spyder for room lights and I've | been getting wacky results in making the attempt so it looks like | they're right. | | I also made a mistake in stating that if you use halogen viewing | lights you should adjust your monitor to the same color temperature | as those lights. It turns out that to do this you'd have to turn | down the blue channel so much that you'd get dingy images and very | little tonal gradation (on your monitor) in the blues. | | These misstatements came from misinterpreting some mentoring I'm | getting from an accomplished professional in this field. | | What's still true is that if you want to be able to compare an image | on the screen to a physical print right next to it then the color | temperatures of the viewing light and the monitor must be the same, | and the brightness of the light reflected off a white paper in your | viewing area must be the same as the brightness of your monitor. | | A new twist on this is that you can still do reasonably good | comparisons without having to match color temperature and brightness | if you do not have the print viewing area next to your monitor. That | is, if the viewing area and the monitor are never both in your field | of view at the same time, and if the environment around your monitor | is dark enough not to affect you're eyes' interpretation of the | colors on the monitor, then you can look at the monitor, "memorize" | the color and tone of part of an image, then turn your back on the | monitor and examine a print in your viewing area. Apparently it only | takes a few seconds for your eyes to adapt from one color temperature | to the other. | | Hope this helps, | | --bill | | | | | >>"OptiCal lets you use the Spyder as a Colorimeter! You can use it | >>to measure the actual color temperature of your viewing lights be | >>they halogen incandescents, high CRI flourescents or whatever, then | >>it lets you set your monitor to THAT color temperature rather than | >>to one of the generic standards (5,000K or | >>6,500K). " | -- | | ====================================================================== | Bill Fernandez * User Interface Architect * Bill Fernandez Design | | (505) 346-3080 * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * http://billfernandez.com | ====================================================================== |
