Calibrating an Apple Cinema Display-

[Ryan E. Walters]

So I have a 23" Apple Cinema Display and I was wondering what peoples thoughts / recommendations are in regards to calibrating it. Supposedly, according to Apple, it should not need much if any calibration as that is why they call it a cinema display. But I doubt that to be true. (If it is great.)

From what I've read online it looks like there are hardware / software programs that you can get to calibrate the monitor (A Spyder)- would this work?

[Nir Shelter]

there are a few options in that respect external calibration devices such as X-Rite, Eye-One or Spyder3. But am not sure which one would be better for the Apple cinema displays. I would like to know as I am also about to purchase a monitor and would like to be able to calibrate it.

[Ryan E. Walters]

Thanks for the heads up.

It would be good to know: 1. Are those methods good / viable? & 2. Which one is the best / most reliable?

[Ziggy Uszkurat]

I use a Spyder 3 for all our Macs including the two 23 inch Cinema displays we use for FCP/Color. They seem to hold their calibration pretty well. The Cinema displays were close to the final Spyder calibration but there was a slight difference between the two displays before calibration.

Hope that helps
Ziggx

[Ryan E. Walters]

I use a Spyder 3 for all our Macs including the two 23 inch Cinema displays we use for FCP/Color. They seem to hold their calibration pretty well. The Cinema displays were close to the final Spyder calibration but there was a slight difference between the two displays before calibration.

Hope that helps
Ziggx

That is good to know- is that using the default Cinema Display setting (Before calibrating)?

Also, have you tried using it on a mac book pro? It would be nice to get my Laptop Screen matching the 23" LCD as well.

[Ziggy Uszkurat]

Yeah, default cinema display... also calibrated Macbook Pro (17") - that was different and now it matches :)

Best Wishes
Ziggy

[michael zaletel]

Another solution is the Matrox MXO:

Matrox MXO turns your Apple Cinema Display or other DVI monitor into an artifact-free, true-color video display you can trust, even for color grading. It’s packed with features that make it the ideal monitoring solution for Final Cut Pro, Apple Color, Adobe After Effects, and other QuickTime-based applications. You won’t need to buy expensive HD monitoring equipment or the SDI-to-DVI converter required for preview with some I/O cards. In addition, MXO’s realtime downscaling feature also lets you view your HD projects on an SD monitor.

http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo/workflow/

Works with 23" ACD but not 30".

-michael zaletel

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Michael,

The MXO is a good tool, but it still doesn't provide a way to measure color temperature output from your monitor and actually calibrate the display. If the monitor itself has a slight shift to blue, as many LCDs do, you wouldn't ever know it without using a color probe.

I use a Spyder3 Elite to calibrate my LCD screens. Works great. The only annoying thing I've run across is that there's a long standing and known bug with display profiles in OSX when not using Apple's displays. When restoring the monitors from sleep or screensaver, the system occasionally reverts back to the default color profile and you have to load the display settings dialogue to get your color profile to snap on. It gets real annoying on my system with the dual 30" Dell monitors.

All my displays are matched real close.. Apple, Dell, Samsung, Macbook Pro. There are differences in physical attributes, such as differing intensities of backlight, that keep all the displays from matching one another 100%. One of my 30" Dell monitors is a year older than the other and the steps on the backlights don't match and the older monitor has a very, very slight yellow tint to the screen that is a physical attribute of the screen coating. Completely unnoticeable except when the two displays are sitting side by side and both displaying 100% white. I had to correct the newer display to match the older display's white point. Otherwise using them side by side on the same system was driving me nuts when I was editing a project shot on a white cyc....

[Ryan E. Walters]

Great to know. Thanks Jeff, Michael, & Ziggy.

I've also been thinking about getting one of those Dream Color LCD's. I should probably use the Spyder3 on that as well? Or is there another method for calibrating that screen?

Thanks for the help. :)

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The DreamColor is overpriced, IMO. The new Dell 24" uses the same panel and is half the price. Also there's no way to get 10bit output from OSX into a DreamColor, or any other display, unless you take 10bit from a card like a Kona, BlackMagic or RED Rocket. OSX only supports 8bpc on their display driver interface. DreamColor (and the new Dell) only accept 10bit via HDMI and DisplayPort. OSX still doesn't send out 10bit over DisplayPort, just in case you start thinking that it might. ...Apple really needs some guidance with their display hardware and software choices.

But yes, you need to calibrate that DreamColor or the Dell or whatever you use. The Spyder3 or similar is what you need. You will need a different type of color probe to calibrate plasma, CRT and projector screens. A contact probe like the Spyder3 or EyeOne are good for LCD and rear projection LCOS / DLP.

And no LCD is going to be the perfect solution for color grading. It's very difficult to get true blacks, even on the best LCD in a dark room. But the latest LCDs like that DreamColor or the new wide-gamut Dell are going to do very well. And they're good enough for anything you will probably do on your own once you have them calibrated. If you need better you should go see a pro colorist.

Eizo also makes a monitor that uses the same panel as the DreamColor. It's about the same price, maybe $100 more and I think it's nicer than the DreamColor as it has more internal adjustment controls than what HP or Dell give you.. I think they also sell it bundled with a color probe and calibration software too if you want.

[Ryan E. Walters]

Which Dell 24" are you talking about?

From my quick google search I found the following prices:

Eizo ColorEdge CG243w around $2300 - $2400
HP Dream Color LP2480zx around $1300 - $1900
Dell 24" $200 - $600

[M Hsu]

the flanders scientific monitors are getting pretty rave reviews

[Irri]

I'm having a few problems with calibrating displays.

I have a Kona 3 going into a Blackmagic HD Link going into an Apple Cinema Display. I send REC709 bars from FPC and can use blue only on the HD Link. This shows me that there is a little magenta. However, when I use blue only it disables the colour curves in the HD Link so I can't correct it. I also have an i1 probe, but its software can't be routed through the Kona AFAIK so that is no use. Another problem is the brightness setting on the cinema display: where do you set it?

In another setup I have a RedRocket into a HD Link in a Cinema Display. How can I send colour bars through the SDI out of the RedRocket?

I have an MXO2 lying around. Not sure if that would help with anything.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Which Dell 24" are you talking about?

It's the Dell U2410, currently selling for $600.

Uses the exact same LCD panel being used in the DreamColor display. But keep in mind that the internal processing is in fact different. For $600, this display is a bargain.

The DreamColor and Eizo have better internal processing if you have the ability to feed it a true 10bit signal. If you can't feed it true 10bit, you won't gain much. But the images on these newer LCDs is quite good.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Irri,

The Apple Cinema Display is not really the right tool or display for the job here. There are no directly accessible controls for image quality, color balance, etc.. You are also at the mercy of any anomalies introduced through your HD Llink converter. The only way to compensate for this would be to calibrate the output from the Kona3. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do and I don't really know of any solution to do this. The Kona and other cards like it are not intended to apply corrective LUTs on their output, but rather to output proper signals to an externally calibrated device. Such as a studio monitor with its own calibration and adjustment controls.

This is why many people are going the route of plasma displays. Even consumer models usually have enough adjustments to get close to the right calibration level. Higher end consumer models and "pro" models do even better. With the ACD, what you see is what you get. And You're actually better off to connect it via DVI/Displayport and get it calibrated that way then have your RED Rocket or Kona card play out via the systems GDI via that monitor.

[Ryan E. Walters]

It's the Dell U2410, currently selling for $600.

Uses the exact same LCD panel being used in the DreamColor display. But keep in mind that the internal processing is in fact different. For $600, this display is a bargain.

The DreamColor and Eizo have better internal processing if you have the ability to feed it a true 10bit signal. If you can't feed it true 10bit, you won't gain much. But the images on these newer LCDs is quite good.

Brilliant! Maybe it is time to consider switching ...

[Frank Jonen]

Here are 2¢ from someone with a print design background originally.

Right now I'm using the x-rite i1 pro with Apple Cinema Displays* after the color munki create was such a let down and according to x-rite I shouldn't have bothered as it's for laptops only.

Things to watch for with a colorimeter and software
1. can you set the white point
2. can you set the gamma

The x-rite so far had no issues when I briefly had an Eizo in mixed with the Apple. Profiled and in sync even when booting or sleep. So maybe the Spyder software is using aliases in the ColorSync folder, I don't know. Always had Gretag McBeth, later x-rite colorimeters.

When you get an Eizo display they give you a custom version of the x-rite i1 Display 2 with it. Use that to calibrate it and their own software. this way the profile info is stored in the display and it can perform its self checks from one corner of the screen to the other. They're expensive though. Makes Apple's look cheap.

Only way to get true 10 Bit so far is by using both plugs of each graphics card and a Quato display. According to Quato they bundle the info so they get 10 Bit via their drivers. I didn't go for the Quato, getting a Scarlet instead, same price point.

@Jeff I tried plasma displays once. Never again. The image is constantly moving like looking at a film noise loop. Which is logically as the plasma chambers need to get fired up constantly.


*I just can't stand looking at half a million buttons and LEDs puked all over the front side of a display while I work.

[Clifford Norton]

Hi!

I'm new. I'll chime in on this topic.

I love the Apple LEDs, but they're not the best for a color managed workflow. As others have pointed out, they lack granular controls and edge to edge conformity. If an Apple Cinema Display displayed equal color values in each of its corners and its center, it would be purely coincidental (and *highly* unlikely!).
As mentioned, Eizo makes great displays. Edge to edge uniformity, wide angle of views and excellent color integrity are some of their strengths. Internal color profiling and monitoring allow for true display matching from unit to unit. Don't be fooled by other manufacturer's claims. They all just want to sell you brighter and contrastier. A well calibrated system will limit brightness and contrast to a certain gamut.

The profiling packages out there now are all pretty similar in their results. It's the UI that differs. One caution I can mention is bug in the Spyder system that has existed since I bought one of their first products, OptiCal, back in 1993-ish. You must be an admin user to create a profile with a Spyder. Some people, like myself, prefer our day to day user accounts to be non-admins for a variety of reasons. ColorVision (datacolor) could allow non-admins to save their profiles to their home folders, but they have chosen not to do this to encourage upgrades or something.
The one package that really stands out for me is basICColor Display 4 (http://color-solutions.de/english/index_E.htm). It's hard to buy, restrictive in its licensing and has a fairly clunky UI, but does just a fantastic job! Once set up, it runs totally smooth and is simple to work. It has a proprietary gama algorithm (optional) and a unique verification system. Unlike other systems that run "verifications" ("Thumbs up! Great job, buddy"), basICColor shows a chart of each color tested and its variance from the target. And its 16 bit LUT can be "tuned" by simply running it again if variance is too high.
Samy's Camera, Los Angeles branch (pro dept) sold this package once upon a time, but if not anymore try GrafixGear (http://www.grafixgear.com/index.php).

EDIT:
Forgot to mention... basICColor Display can be bought as software-only, so you can use it with your existing colorimeter if you want. You can run a free 14 day tryout of the app if interested.


Hope this helps!

Cliff