Photography Thailand Forum

[johnkphotography]

I have recently begun using a new monitor (Viewsonic Ultrabrite A90f+) and the color profile is incredibly bad.  To make things worse it only has a couple parameters (brightness, contrast and color temp) that one can adjust to get a more accurate color profile.  Needless to say I have done all that I can to callibrate without third party software and the profile is painfully far off.  I am considering purchasing the Spyder pro monitor callibration suite, with the printfix suite as well, but am wondering if it is a lost cause on this piece of crap monitor.  Will it be able to build an accurate color profile with this piece of dung or will I need to purchase a better monitor before I can get an accurate color profile.  Any feedback and or personal experience with building accurate monitor profiles on crappy monitors would be greatly appreciated.
 Thanks,
   John

[David Salmanowitz]

John--I am not familiar with this particular monitor but I have seen crappy ones before and no matter how well you calibrate them if they are lousy to start with they can only be capable of doing not very much, calibrated or not. Yes, seeing the image would be better than not having any monitor at all--but a decent monitor would be so much better. You do want a good one since you want to accurately see and adjust what you have photographed, and print what you are seeing. As far as calibration software I and some others I know use Eye-One Display 2, made by Gretag Macbeth. I have been very happy with it. It has a little suction cup unit that you hang on the front of your monitor and it makes the proper calculations with a bit of assistance from the user. Here is a local link I found. http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/index/products/products_color-mgmt-spec/products_cm-for-creatives/products_eye-one-display.htm?

[johnkphotography]

Thanks for the info David.  I will probably have to purchase a new monitor then.  Do you have any suggestions as to what types of monitors are good for digital photography and proper color callibration.  I am on a budget, so any solutions that are practical and relatively affordable are greatly appreciated.
 Thanks,
  John

[David Salmanowitz]

John--the only monitors I have ever had were a no name (it probably did have a brand name but I cannot recall it) for a year or two, a Sony for many years, and an Apple. Not sure whether you will be buying this monitor here in BKK or back in the states. Ever having only had the two decent monitors above I really could not tell you which one to get. You might be able to find a nice used one on ebay or another online site.
Try this link for info. http://www.google.com/custom?q=monitors&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&cof=AWFID:35f6ab491fb2b550%3BL:http://luminous-landscape.com/images/LL-logo.jpg%3BLH:81%3BLW:469%3BGL:2%3BBGC:000000%3BT:%23cccccc%3BLC:%23cc0000%3BVLC:%23cc9900%3BALC:%23993300%3BGALT:%23006600%3BGFNT:%23ffcc00%3BGIMP:%23ff9900%3BDIV:%23cc0000%3BLBGC:000000%3BAH:center%3BS:http://luminous-landscape.com%3B&domains=luminous-landscape.com&sitesearch=luminous-landscape.com&start=0&sa=N
The link did not look that big in the address bar.    If it does not open up just go to www.luminous-landscape.com and type monitors into the search engine.