Spectraview and sRGB

I have an NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXi monitor, Spectraview II software, and an X-rite i 1 puck. I want to create a profile that will allow me to see what average people see on their monitors, so I can adjust my images accordingly. Everyone says to make an sRGB profile, but when I choose "sRGB emulation.tgt" in Spectraview, I get this: "Error: The file appears to be an invalid format." All other targets are fine.

NEC tech said this is normal for my monitor. He suggested going to "Color Gamut" and choosing sRGB, but the Color Gamut option is grayed out ("Native" is what is listed). I don't really understand this stuff very deeply, I'm afraid. I have been using the Photo Editing target, 2.2Gamma, D65, and brightness 160. This is high for prints, I know, but seems the closest to what most computers display. Still, I send folks images and they often seem too bright on their screens.

Any advice? Thanks.

Mac Pro, 10.6.5, NVIDIA 8800, Spectraview 1.1.07

Nedley said:

I have an NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXi monitor, Spectraview II software, and an X-rite i 1 puck. I want to create a profile that will allow me to see what average people see on their monitors, so I can adjust my images accordingly.

Click to expand...

Can't be done. The world is full of crappy monitors being used to view images on non-color-managed applications.

Nedley said:

Everyone says to make an sRGB profile, but when I choose "sRGB emulation.tgt" in Spectraview, I get this: "Error: The file appears to be an invalid format." All other targets are fine.

Click to expand...

sRGB is a color space. It is not a device profile.

Nedley said:

NEC tech said this is normal for my monitor. He suggested going to "Color Gamut" and choosing sRGB, but the Color Gamut option is grayed out ("Native" is what is listed). I don't really understand this stuff very deeply, I'm afraid. I have been using the Photo Editing target, 2.2Gamma, D65, and brightness 160. This is high for prints, I know, but seems the closest to what most computers display. Still, I send folks images and they often seem too bright on their screens.

Click to expand...

Generate a profile for your monitor and publish your images on the web in sRGB. That's the best you can do.

Thanks, Robert. I obviously have a lot to learn about color management. I had film shooting/printing down pretty well and then this digital thing came along. I get now that sRGB is not a profile. It has been frustrating that everyone has advice on Spectraview settings/PS settings for printing, but not for web viewing. I have resigned myself to fiddling, posting, and then looking at my adjusted images on others' monitors. Seems like a round about way, but it is all I can come up with.

Robert Peters said:

Can't be done. The world is full of crappy monitors being used to view images on non-color-managed applications.

Click to expand...

Robert Peters said:

Generate a profile for your monitor and publish your images on the web in sRGB. That's the best you can do.

Click to expand...

Additionally, you can also softproof with sRGB, it may not show you very precisely what the general public will see (for once since most people won't have calibrated monitors in the first place and often do not use applications that use colour management, making it a wild guess how 'wrong' they see colours, and secondly since sRGB is only a sort of an inaccurate average of a constantly changing monitor hardware distribution).

But it will show your images in a gamut range that is more representative of the average monitor than the gamut range of your NEC monitor.

Thank you, Robert.