iMac 24" Profiling

[Yannick Hagman]

Hi

I try to profile my iMac for print with eye-one display 2. What is the ideal whitepoint for print (europe)? 5000k? Gamma should be 2.2 from what I read. I couldn't get the brightnes/luminance to the recommended 120.. The screen seems way to bright.

I didn't found the contrast setting - does an iMac have one?

Cheers,
Y.

[Michael Schrengohst]

Try this

http://www.charcoaldesign.co.uk/shades

[Yannick Hagman]

:)

But seriously, is no-one calibrating his monitor here?

[David Collard]

I'm not a monitor guru, but I heard the beloved iMac 24" is only
a 6 bit display. So that could be your problem.

[Yannick Hagman]

Hi Dave,

20" iMac => 6 Bit
24" iMac => 8 Bit

[Yannick Hagman]

from that Apple link Vincent posted: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2026

Choosing gamma and white point

During the calibration of your display, you will need to choose gamma and white point settings. The correct choice depends on how you are most likely to use your images. The best rule of thumb is this:

Unless you have a color management expert instructing you otherwise, select a 2.2 gamma and a D65 white point.

Because Windows PCs use 2.2 gamma, images edited in the traditional Mac 1.8 gamma will appear incorrectly to most viewers on the Internetﾗthis of course means that your Mac friends need to switch their displays to 2.2 gamma when perusing your 2.2-savvy work. Mac-using photographer Gary Ballard maintains a handy demonstration of this phenomenon here.

Labs and Internet-based services using the RA-4 wet process, such as in a Fuji Frontier minilab, almost universally expect you to use a 2.2 gamma in the sRGB IEC1966-2.1 color space. That's true for services such as Pictage, Smugmug, and Shutterfly.

Why D65 over D50?

Well, the D50 white point was all the rage among pre-press professionals 10 years ago, and you'd even find talk of D50 in advertising materials. Not so much anymore. D50 comes from a time when the dominant method of photo processing still involved paper, light tables, and viewing lamps. Now the emphasis on digital editing and Internet publishing makes the D65 native white point of modern displays a dominant factor.

The difference between D50 and D65 may still be automatically worked out "under the hood" without your awareness, using a technique known as "chromatic adaptation." That's why D65 is recommended now, unless you are a highly trained expert user.

just for the record, objectively speaking, Andrew Rodney definitely qualifies as both a "color management expert" and as a "highly trained expert user".

In short 2.2 gamma became also the standard of Apple nowadays. If anyone knows how to set contrast or white point on an iMac let me know.