Monitor calibration

[vespak]

I have a problem trying to calibrate my monitor. Basic setup is Mac G4 (OS10.3) Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 230sb Monitor & Epson 2100 Printer. Images are originated on a Nikon D70 and from 5"x4" scanned (by lab) transparencies. The problem is that I cannot calibrate the monitor to give even a rough approximation of the printed image. The Monitor image, even after maximum fiddling is a high contrast, high saturation image with limited tonal definition. Whereas the resulting corresponding printed image is just the opposite - flat, desaturated with huge amount of tonal definition. I have tried using different colour space settings in photoshop to no great effect. I can get excellent results, but this is done by guesswork, which is both time consuming and expensive. I phoned Mitsubishi's help line to be told that this should not be the case and even though this is a plug in and play type monitor it has industry standard calibration facilities and basically it was obviously my fault as I didn't know what I was doing, yes that's why I phoned you! I cannot even get it to calibrate the basic contrast test offered by the OS10 calibration software. So before I go and spend more money on calibration equipment is it me or the monitor? What monitors would you recommend?
Any help would be much appreciated.

[Michael Fanelli]

I have a problem trying to calibrate my monitor. Basic setup is Mac G4 (OS10.3) Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 230sb Monitor & Epson 2100 Printer. Images are originated on a Nikon D70 and from 5"x4" scanned (by lab) transparencies. The problem is that I cannot calibrate the monitor to give even a rough approximation of the printed image. The Monitor image, even after maximum fiddling is a high contrast, high saturation image with limited tonal definition. Whereas the resulting corresponding printed image is just the opposite - flat, desaturated with huge amount of tonal definition. I have tried using different colour space settings in photoshop to no great effect. I can get excellent results, but this is done by guesswork, which is both time consuming and expensive. I phoned Mitsubishi's help line to be told that this should not be the case and even though this is a plug in and play type monitor it has industry standard calibration facilities and basically it was obviously my fault as I didn't know what I was doing, yes that's why I phoned you! I cannot even get it to calibrate the basic contrast test offered by the OS10 calibration software. So before I go and spend more money on calibration equipment is it me or the monitor? What monitors would you recommend?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Several problems here.

Did you try something simple for calibration, such as the free Adobe program that comes with PhotoShop? For most people, other than hardcore pros, this works extremely well.

After you fix the monitor, what color space are you using? Even RGB is hard to get with ink. Also, ink-on-paper will never look like a monitor image. People who used to shoot slides know this all too well. You will not get that high contrast vivid color look on paper no matter what you do.

Are you printing with one of the color profiles provided by Epson? If you are and they aren't working, then you might need a custom profile for the printer.

An obvious but often overlooked problem is poor lighting of the print. To see what a print really looks like, you have to use strong daylight-corrected light. You can't hold a print up inside or under either incandescent or flouresent lights (no time to look up spellings!), or by a window. Look at the way that paintings and photographs are lit in museums. You will be amazed at what proper lighting will do.

[another view]

Just on that last point about lighting - there are some really good daylight fluorescent tubes out there, made specifically for color matching. Might be hard to find at Home Depot, but a pro photo place should have them. GE Reveal incandescents look nice, but they don't even come close...

Make sure that you're calibrating your monitor in the same light that you're doing PS work in. For me, this time of year it means dark outside (right next to windows) and halogen lights in the office. If I work during the day on weekends, it's just not quite the same result.