iMac Calibration: does initial state matter?

To the calibration experts on this forum:

I am waiting to get Spyder2Express in the mail to finally calibrate my new 24"Alu-iMAC screen. in the meantime I decided that the screen looks best with the preinstalled AdobeRGB profile rather than the iMac profile (whites are white and not yellow, etc.) My question is: do I have to set my monitor back to "iMac" profile when I start the calibration? if it matters, can anyone explain me why?

Thanks a lot,

Alex

No, not with EyeOne, and I would assume most calibration software. It sets the monitor to it's native white point, gamma and luminance value before it starts the calibration routine.

Cheers,

Terry

Adobe RGB 1998 is an editing profile, NOT a monitor profile.
Color Management is that every device (RGB or CMYK) has an .icc or .icm profile.
When you calibrate a monitor you are creating an .icc profile for it.
A calibrated Monitor has NOTHING to do with printer output matching the Monitor.
Printer(s) need a profile for them to match a calibrated monitor.

I am fairly aware of how color management works and my question didn't even mention printing. I am also fully aware that Adobe RGB is a color space, not a monitor profile. However, my iMac came with several preinstalled monitor profiles, and one of those was called AdobeRGB and somehow it produced the best looking images on my screen when viewing them in Safari or in Lightroom. My question was: should I start my calibration with my iMac display set to the "iMac" monitor profile or that does not matter? If I do the calibration correctly, I will end up with a nice custom profile for my monitor that would give me something close to the true colors. (Presumably those would also match the colors of a print made on a calibrated printer from an ICC-aware application).

So, the question remains, does the initial (pre-calibration) state matter?

Alex

On my i-Mac 20" it did not matter what monitor profile I started with.

The Spyder 2pro which I have is excellent hardware but I recently tried other software
and it is much better than the colorvision software - much more neutral grays.

The Spyder2 pro software which I have used for the past couple of years produces a slightly too cool profile - very slight magenta+cyan tint.
www.integrated-color.com/index.html
I profile to a luminance of 120, as the basic i-Mac is much too bright.

To come back to your question, all the profiling software can be started from whatever profile is then installed.

regards, maurice

Hi, Alex. Just because the display list finds a profile doesn't mean it's suitable for use with a monitor. By default that list shows every colorsync profile on your computer. If you turn on Show Profiles for This Display only, you will notice that the image colorspace profiles go away.

Conchita said:

Hi, Alex. Just because the display list finds a profile doesn't mean
it's suitable for use with a monitor. By default that list shows
every colorsync profile on your computer. If you turn on Show
Profiles for This Display only, you will notice that the image
colorspace profiles go away.

Click to expand...

Another way to think about it - if you have profiles loaded for multiple printers, you wouldn't think about using the wrong printer profile on a different printer, right? In the same way you should not use colorspace profiles as monitor profiles, although as you found they will work - it's just not doing anything for accuracy.

As stated you can start with any profile and calibrate away, the calibration software builds a profile around only the display you have and ignores whatever profiles you might have set.

One thing to keep in mind is that with CRT's you used to have to have them on for a half hour or so before calibration, but I'm not sure if LCD's take the same time to have color stabilize. Also, it would be best to dim the lights in the room you are calibrating in lest overly harsh light enter from the sides and throw off the calibration.

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