Poll discussion: White Balance Settings

[barryvee]

This kinda intrigued me a bit.

My monitor (a BenQ) has the choice of 'bluish', 'reddish' and 'normal'. The custom settings don't have any of those numbers mentioned in the poll.

What's the diff, and what do you recommend?


(please move/merge if a topic exists already)

[Dekoda]

This kinda intrigued me a bit.

My monitor (a BenQ) has the choice of 'bluish', 'reddish' and 'normal'. The custom settings don't have any of those numbers mentioned in the poll.

What's the diff, and what do you recommend?


(please move/merge if a topic exists already)

I guess they're using the tint color as opposed to temperatures. As you go to higher temperatures, the colors look bluer, as you go to lower temperatures, the color gets redder. The normal temperature that most people use is either 6500 degrees or 5600 degrees. I use 6500 as that seems more natural. I have seen other monitors that used 9500 degrees, and they look nice and bright, but they also look too blue/white. With your monitor, I'd stick to normal.

[Lesley]

This link is quite interesting.



Macs have a built in calibration tool, System Preferences/Displays.

L

[Bertie]

I tried both. 5600K looks much brighter and better on my monitor.

[Rubarack]

My system's hooked up to an HDTV so it doesn't mention these figures

[jayo]

I use 6400K. I remember for awhile I had a monitor I'd set to 5500K (daylight), then realized it wasn't doing me any favors.

Seemed like the reasoning behind high color temps in monitors (like 9300K) was for office environments where you're looking at spreadsheets, etc. But of course now I can't remember where I saw it...

[Dekoda]

I tried both. 5600K looks much brighter and better on my monitor.

I tried 5600K and it looked a little too yellowish/orange on my monitor, so I stick with 6500K. It also depends on the monitor. I use Pantone's Spyder to calibrate my monitors, since my older Monaco's Colorimeter wouldn't calibrate LCD screens. I think Jayo is right, they use 9500K for office work, since it's mostly text and spreadsheets they work with.

[Frans]

Mine is on sRGB which prolly looked best when I tested all the modes. I think white looked too blue otherwise.

[MrVideo]

Unfortunately the poll is flawed.

Like another poster, my LCD only has fixed choices for reddish, plain white and blueish. It also has a manual mode where you can set the RGB colors separately.

Because the poll vote is not allowed to happen unless you choose one of the two settings, all of us who don't have those two settings, per se, can't participate in the poll. There needs to be an "other" option so that comments can be made and submitted.

[Frans]

Unfortunately the poll is flawed.
..There needs to be an "other" option so that comments can be made and submitted.

Not nessecarely, you just need to provide more possible answers. Fixed answers are MUCH easier to process and count. I don't know why only two temps are listed when my tft supports at least three (that's excl. sRGB).

I'm wondering if how someone sees pictures isn't somewhat person specific?

[daimm9]

I am another whose monitor uses its own classification in place of Colour Temperature. There are three basic settings, each of which can be fined tuned by r-b-g sliders, calibrated in percentages. Standard setting 3 is yellowish, and I guess roughly equivilent to 6500 Kelvin. Standard setting 1 is blue and almost unusable. Standard setting 2 is muddy.

[German]

Most common standard for picture editing is 6500 K / 2.2 Gamma (that's what I use too). But usually factory setting is 9300 K. Of course without calibration it's impossible to achieve exact colors. A good monitor should provide the possibility to set color temperature and gamma.

[Dekoda]

sRGB is the color space that you're using, and isn't related to the temperature of the display. If you were to calibrate your monitor with third party software, you'd use the profile that would be created with that software instead of sRGB. The thing is, if you used the profile that the calibration software creates, it might be outside the sRGB gamut.

If you were to adjust a picture with the calibrated monitor, then post it on the Net, if someone downloads it and is using sRGB as their color space, the picture won't look the same to them as it did to you. This is a problem for on-line photo developers like Kodak or Shutterfly. It's best to convert the picture back to sRGB before uploading it to one of these developers so that you know what it will look like to them.

Photoshop has numerous color profiles that you can select when editing pictures. I use Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB, as they're similar. If I'm planning on printing the picture out on one of my printers, I'll select the calibrated color space, then when I'm ready to make the print, I'll select a custom profile that I've had made for the particular printer that I'm going to use. There are no unhappy surprises when I do it that way.(paper for my dye sub printer is $2 a sheet, so mistakes can add up in cost. The two inkjets are a little cheaper, but still...)

[Chasaffton]

Has anyone checked this thread http://forums.abbywinters.com/vbulle...ead.php?t=4667

We have been down this path before

[Bertie]

I meant 6500K, not 5600K. Come to think of it, some of the skin tones in AW photos look a little too yellow, especially where a flash has been used. Has this got anything to do with this poll?

[laktor]

My computer including monitor is working well right now so I'm not going to chance messing anything up by touching ANYTHING on my monitor, so I won't be participating in this poll, sorry. And I'm not sure what buttons to push anyway to find the setting.

[FloridaRob]

My computer including monitor is working well right now so I'm not going to chance messing anything up by touching ANYTHING on my monitor, so I won't be participating in this poll, sorry. And I'm not sure what buttons to push anyway to find the setting.

... That could be my post, as well. I tried for 20 minutes to find color settings of this type for my HP laptop. I've seen them on tube-type monitors but there's no trace of a setting I could find here. I do have Photoshop if that would help me, somehow.

[Dekoda]

... That could be my post, as well. I tried for 20 minutes to find color settings of this type for my HP laptop. I've seen them on tube-type monitors but there's no trace of a setting I could find here. I do have Photoshop if that would help me, somehow.

Right-click on the desktop and click Properties. Go to Settings....then click on Advanced. Look for your graphics card and click on it. Next click on Graphics Properties. This will get you to the adjustment controls.

[arsby]

Amazing we're have a discussion about this.
Dekoda and I can remember back when the pictures were so grainy you could barely tell a nipple from an eyeball, and "color picture" meant various shades of green. And you could barely see it anyway because you forgot to set on your screensaver one night and and that search result screen from two weeks ago got burnt into the monitor.

[FloridaRob]

Right-click on the desktop and click Properties. Go to Settings....then click on Advanced. Look for your graphics card and click on it. Next click on Graphics Properties. This will get you to the adjustment controls.

... Thanks, Dekoda. When I do that, I arrive at a box that reads, in the very top level, "Plug and Play Monitor and Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/..." before space runs out.

It has two sections, the DPI setting and the Compatibility section. I just see no more than that!

But that's OK! I'm but one among many thousands. My images are fine. I'm guessing I'm at the fabled 6,500 number.

Rob

[MrVideo]

Not nessecarely, you just need to provide more possible answers. Fixed answers are MUCH easier to process and count.

While fixed answers indeed are easier to count, etc., it appears that the various monitor manfacturers are doing it differently, making pigeon-holing the poll selections extremely difficult.

[German]

Just curious - what are the results of this poll?

[Abby]

52% 9300
48% 6500

[Frans]

which is to evenly split to do anything with I guess ?

[FloridaRob]

Wondering if this curiosity pertained to the new lights about which we have read?

Is it not reasonable to assume that color temp. settings are then, somehow, compensated-for by another level of tint setting so that those using either of these very different temp. settings wind up viewing a very similar image? Hard to imagine that a site featuring SKIN, would have viewers having very different experiences! Is this a dumb question??
Rob

[Abby]

unfortunately, not, Rob.

With half our customers using one white point, and the other half using another, around half our customers are seeing our images looking appalling. Sucks, but there's nothing we can do.

We're now balancing for 6500k, for what it's worth.

[Chasaffton]

Why the swicth from 9300k to 6500k ?

When most are at 9300k ( 9300k at 52% and 6500k at 48% ) and that is what you were balancing

http://forums.abbywinters.com/vbulle...ead.php?t=4667

19th December 2005, 04:11 AM #7
Abby
Abby Winters


Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 4,441 the pics are processed to look best at 9300, FTR.

a

[FloridaRob]

This really is surprising. There may be lots of flesh here but it's not the only flesh and white on the WWW. I now wonder if those who see "appalling" images only see that problem here and not everywhere else on the web. For me, images here and everywhere else look fine. Something's not adding up!

[Frans]

With half our customers using one white point, and the other half using another, around half our customers are seeing our images looking appalling.

Isn't that subjective to a degree? Most members enjoy and like the images, and most won't know or realise they are viewing an image with a badly calibrated monitor. When does a picture on a screen look ok, when the person viewing it thinks it's ok or when it's technically ok?

I just checked the diff between 9300 and 6500 on my monitor, seems 9300 is more blue-ish/subdued? I think my monitor at work is at 6500, though the lighting there is harsher obviously

Why the switch from 9300 to 6500 anyway? Do you suspect most monitors without color-temp settings to be at 6500?

[ham]

unfortunately, not, Rob.

With half our customers using one white point, and the other half using another, around half our customers are seeing our images looking appalling. Sucks, but there's nothing we can do.

We're now balancing for 6500k, for what it's worth.

Truly a subjective figure and depends on system. Don't beat yourself up for no reason.

[MightySpork]

With half our customers using one white point, and the other half using another, around half our customers are seeing our images looking appalling. Sucks, but there's nothing we can do.

Have you considered creating a page that assists users in adjusting their monitor settings? I Googled adjust monitor white point and found these pages with test-pattern graphics and advice on how to use them.

http://home.comcast.net/~morrised2006/tips/monitor.htm
http://www.scarse.org/adjust/white.html
http://epaperpress.com/monitorcal/

[OlderGuy]

unfortunately, not, Rob.

With half our customers using one white point, and the other half using another, around half our customers are seeing our images looking appalling. Sucks, but there's nothing we can do.

We're now balancing for 6500k, for what it's worth.

My LCD monitor [Philips] says 9300 for CAD/CAM, 6500 for Image Management

[farmer2]

I agree with NOT switching. Switching guarantees that 100% of users will see either older or recent images at the wrong color balance. By leaving it at 9300K everybody CAN set the proper balance for all images.

[louseboy]

I think 6500 is pretty standard for images. 9300 is way on the blue end of the scale, and it'll make most images (except for ones that have been specifically balanced for that colour temperature) look pretty unpleasant (unless you have a thing for smurfs).

[Luxman]

I've just checked my CRT pre-press monitor and it's set to 9300.
I must say it's an adjustment that I like.

It matches the pictures very well.

Lxm

[FloridaRob]

Somehow, I think we must be missing something here. Apropos this chat, I followed some links offered above and some links from those and, somewhere, read that most monitors are, indeed, at that higher, "bluish" setting. I have to wonder, no more than I know on this subject, whether it is possible to then take the "bluish" monitor and adjust it, still while at that standard temperature setting, to simply offset the tint through other levels of color balancing.

(Or, vice-versa!)

Hard to believe that two of us could look, side-by-side at the same images on the same website and be happy to see such different skin-tones!

I have to say that the "newbies", just above, have a point!