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Archive 2020 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

apertur3
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p.1 #1 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

I just got an Eizo CS2420, but I'm quickly learning that the wide gamut is basically useless for most photographic needs. As I understand it, it can be nice for printing (IF the lab accepts files in Adobe RGB). Aside from that, I'm failing to see the advantage.

I first calibrated to D6500, 2.2 gamma and the monitor's native color space (which covers almost all of Adobe RGB). Things looked great, but I now know that Windows 10 isn't full color managed, so things like my desktop wallpaper now looked grossly oversaturated. Same goes for other aspects of the GUI. Icons, thumbnails, etc all have neon-like colors in some cases.

I use LR for my editing, and I know it forces us to use their Pro Photo color space. I've always exported in sRGB since I share most of my work online, although I do occasionally print. Personally, I'd rather not edit in Pro Photo because it may lead me to do things I would or wouldn't do in sRGB. For example, the photo may look saturated enough in LR, so I won't tweak color. However, when I export in sRGB, it might look a bit weak. To me, it makes sense to just view everything in sRGB.

I ran a second cal on my Eizo, this time telling it to stick with the sRGB color space. Windows now looks normal (as compared to my other screen which is a cheap Dell). I'm happy, but I feel like I wasted a lot of extra money for a wider gamut when I'm not even going to use it. Just interested in other opinions on this.

I know there are other aspects to a monitor besides color space coverage like uniformity, color accuracy, etc, and in that regard, the Eizo is wonderful. I just feel like I'm "wasting" it by only using it in sRGB. Kinda like buying a Ferrari and never going over 35 mph. OTOH, it seems to make the most sense to be consistent and stick with sRGB for everything.

May 10, 2020 at 02:13 PM

dmcphoto
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p.1 #2 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

I'm using a NEC wide gamut monitor so I am not familiar with the exact features on the Eizo, but you should be able to calibrate for D6500, 2.2 gamma and the monitor's native color space and save that profile with a unique name AND calibrate for simulated sRGB and save that profile under a different name. Then you can load one profile or the other to the internal LUT whenever you like, and use the appropriate one for what you're doing at the time. You can have many different profiles with different luminance levels, gamuts, etc., each saved under its own name.

For best results matching color on a good printer you should edit in a large color space (wide gamut) and soft proof the image with the intended paper profile and gamut warning turned on. The color gamut of most printers is similar to Adobe RGB, but editing in an even larger color space helps prevent internal color calculations from overflowing and therefore clipping when multiple curves and/or other adjustments are made. In other words, parts of the image may exceed Adobe RGB when one adjustment is applied, but be brought back into Adobe RGB by another adjustment if the editing color space is significantly larger than Adobe RGB (like Pro Photo). If you're also using Adobe RGB as the editing color space there's nothing to "pull back". The color detail is gone as soon as you exceed the Adobe RGB color space.

The gamut warning doesn't mean much if only small areas are out of gamut, but it makes a big difference if you see large areas out of gamut. The solution can range anywhere from choosing a paper and profile that will accommodate the gamut to desaturating the image and using the same media. Large out of gamut areas will tend to look "blocked up" because the whole area is mapped to one, or a few, colors at the extreme edge of the gamut.

May 10, 2020 at 02:41 PM

EB-1
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p.1 #3 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

dmcphoto wrote:
I'm using a NEC wide gamut monitor so I am not familiar with the exact features on the Eizo, but you should be able to calibrate for D6500, 2.2 gamma and the monitor's native color space and save that profile with a unique name AND calibrate for simulated sRGB and save that profile under a different name. Then you can load one profile or the other to the internal LUT whenever you like, and use the appropriate one for what you're doing at the time. You can have many different profiles with different luminance levels, gamuts, etc., each saved under...Show more →

Yes you can do that with the Eizo calibrator or several others that are compatible with their software. I have used the similar GS2730 with the Eizo (rebranded i1) calibrator and it works just fine for photos. It's not as nice of a display as the CG series, but half the price (in the 27"). I don't know the limit, but I created 4 different profiles for various color temperatures and brightness. When a profle is selected it loads into the LUT for the specific input. The last profile selected stays even when connected to a different computer. For example I ran sRGB to my work laptop through one port, but could use aRGB for the other system.

EBH

Edited on May 10, 2020 at 07:03 PM · View previous versions

May 10, 2020 at 06:55 PM

apertur3
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p.1 #4 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

Thanks! Yeah, the Eizo has a few custom slots to save internal cals. I did just like you said, and made one in native color space, and the other in sRGB. I have a feeling I'll be using the sRGB most of the time, but I guess it's nice to have the option to flip over to a wider gamut if needed. I probably could've just saved some money and bought a nice screen that just does 100% of sRGB since the extra wide gamut on this isn't very useful to me, but overall, it's still a very nice display.

May 10, 2020 at 06:57 PM

apertur3
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p.1 #5 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

One more question: I'm noticing a small (very small) amount of banding when looking at a grayscale gradient ramp. I don't believe I was seeing this before I calibrated the monitor (when there was no ICC profile being applied in windows). It's barely noticeable when viewing the test pattern, but I do see it. Any ideas why?

May 11, 2020 at 07:40 AM

Alan321
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p.1 #6 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

Are you looking at an 8-bit greyscale ramp, or a 16-bit one ? Either way, the output is only 8-bit but the Eizo can do a better job of representing the smooth gradation if it has 16-bit input data to work with. Make sure that the Eizo is doing the work, and not your graphics card. Normally the Eizo will use its own internal lookup tables to read and modify the input into a suitable output, and the graphics card will be left in pass-through mode. If the source is not colour managed then the graphics card may do the work and turn that smooth grey ramp into a chunky 8-bit (256 levels) one with no attempt to make sure the output is correct.

Sometimes, I suspected that the Eizo (or NEC, etc.) monitor and the graphics card were double-handling the colour management, which could mess things up. I never got on top of that before I was separated from my Eizo :-(

May 16, 2020 at 10:18 AM

Alan321
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p.1 #7 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

I reckon there's something wrong if you can never see a difference between sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces. A photo of a park on a sunny day should be full of greens that sRGB cannot display.

However, a separate but related problem is that the software may be interpreting the image colours so that everything looks plausible even when it is incorrect, and that can make it hard to recognise the limitations of sRGB. I think Ps can display out-of-gammut alerts. If not, there'll be other software that can do it.

I've been doing document processing for so long that I'm out of touch with the photo editing, but I was never trying to settle for 8-bit internet graphics.

May 16, 2020 at 10:29 AM

Ho1972
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p.1 #8 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

Alan321 wrote:
I reckon there's something wrong if you can never see a difference between sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces. A photo of a park on a sunny day should be full of greens that sRGB cannot display.

There will also be more abrupt color transitions (even in 16 bit files). This is especially noticeable in the blue to purple circled below.

https://i.ibb.co/Ms75CDw/chart-2.jpg

May 16, 2020 at 11:14 AM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #9 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

"I just got an Eizo CS2420, but I'm quickly learning that the wide gamut is basically useless for most photographic needs. As I understand it, it can be nice for printing (IF the lab accepts files in Adobe RGB). Aside from that, I'm failing to see the advantage."

This is not true. Having a wide gamut screen is NO disadvantage at all and does allow you to see some colors outside of sRGB. And once you convert a file to sRGB in Ps or export one in sRGB from Lr that's what you'll see even when you've got your brand new Eizo calibrated to "native" gamut. The file itself is already limited to the color space it's in.

"I first calibrated to D6500, 2.2 gamma and the monitor's native color space (which covers almost all of Adobe RGB). Things looked great, but I now know that Windows 10 isn't full color managed, so things like my desktop wallpaper now looked grossly oversaturated. Same goes for other aspects of the GUI. Icons, thumbnails, etc all have neon-like colors in some cases."

Get rid of your "wallpaper" and load a mid to dark neutral gray for your desktop. That's all you should ever be using for image editing anyway and as far as icons and thumbnails being off, who cares. Even on a Mac they're off a bit but they're so small that it's not distracting.

"I use LR for my editing, and I know it forces us to use their Pro Photo color space. I've always exported in sRGB since I share most of my work online, although I do occasionally print. Personally, I'd rather not edit in Pro Photo because it may lead me to do things I would or wouldn't do in sRGB. For example, the photo may look saturated enough in LR, so I won't tweak color. However, when I export in sRGB, it might look a bit weak. To me, it makes sense to just view everything in sRGB."

You can always turn on soft proofing to preview what you final file, converted will look like. It's not that Lr "forces" you to use Melissa RGB - not ProPhoto, it's that what it uses internally as an internal edit space and you need not concern yourself with it. All that matters is your monitor space and your output space. Photoshop uses L*a*b internally and no one gives a crap about that because it doesn't affect anything you do when you edit, not even when you convert to L*a*b color mode to use the "a" and "b" curves.

"I ran a second cal on my Eizo, this time telling it to stick with the sRGB color space. Windows now looks normal (as compared to my other screen which is a cheap Dell). I'm happy, but I feel like I wasted a lot of extra money for a wider gamut when I'm not even going to use it. Just interested in other opinions on this."

Why dumb down your screen when you don't have to. There are many times when a wide gamut screen is an advantage and darned few when it's not. And if you ever do video editing having those presets is a godsend. At least Ps and Lr are color managed. Video output is not - well, sort of in Resolve but not really.

"I know there are other aspects to a monitor besides color space coverage like uniformity, color accuracy, etc, and in that regard, the Eizo is wonderful. I just feel like I'm "wasting" it by only using it in sRGB. Kinda like buying a Ferrari and never going over 35 mph. OTOH, it seems to make the most sense to be consistent and stick with sRGB for everything."

A Ferrari will still go around corners at 35 mph much better than an F150, but you're only "wasting" the gamut because you don't fully understand yet how to use the software to its full potential. That's okay. You'll get there and you've got a great screen and your needs may change before you realize it. And yes, it's a good idea to get in there and set all the calibration parameters in Color Navigator - like white point and especially black point and click the "Advanced" option when making a new target and choose ICC v2 and turn OFF the Reflect tone curve in black option if that's still possible. They may have changed that horrible default going from CN6 to CN7 and I'm still on v6. You really don't want you monitor doing Black Point Compensation on your. Really.

May 16, 2020 at 11:26 AM

apertur3
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p.1 #10 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

Alan321 wrote:
Are you looking at an 8-bit greyscale ramp, or a 16-bit one ? Either way, the output is only 8-bit but the Eizo can do a better job of representing the smooth gradation if it has 16-bit input data to work with. Make sure that the Eizo is doing the work, and not your graphics card. Normally the Eizo will use its own internal lookup tables to read and modify the input into a suitable output, and the graphics card will be left in pass-through mode. If the source is not colour managed then the graphics card may do the...Show more →

I've viewed in various apps, but the ramp seems about the same. Here's a small pattern:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php

and this is another good one:
https://www.eizo.be/monitor-test/

Both look about the same. I see slight banding in the darker end. Nothing major, but it's definitely there. What you mention about the Eizo doing the work vs the graphics card is a good point. I was wondering about that myself, but not sure how to check. When I calibrated with Color Navigator, it created an ICC profile that windows using (I'm assuming that's normal). It also has the LUT saved internally.

I just find it odd that I see banding on this expensive monitor, then I can pull up the same pattern on my cheap laptop, and the gradient is smooth as a baby's bottom.

I have an nVidia RTX2070, and in the control panel, there is an option to set bit depth. It defaults to 8, but I can change it to 10. However, that didn't seem to make any visible difference.

May 16, 2020 at 12:06 PM

apertur3
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p.1 #11 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

Alan321 wrote:
I reckon there's something wrong if you can never see a difference between sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces. A photo of a park on a sunny day should be full of greens that sRGB cannot display.

However, a separate but related problem is that the software may be interpreting the image colours so that everything looks plausible even when it is incorrect, and that can make it hard to recognise the limitations of sRGB. I think Ps can display out-of-gammut alerts. If not, there'll be other software that can do it.

I've been doing document processing for so long that I'm out...Show more →

I think I've finally seen the difference. I took a shot yesterday, and in LR, the green print on a box was very vivid. However, when I exported in sRGB, it was dull (by comparison). I exported it in Adobe RGB, and the pop was back. I think my issue earlier was that Fastone wasn't showing the image correctly. It's color managed,but both images looked the same. When I open them in Windows Live photo viewer, the aRGB version is more vivid (like what I see in LR).

Now my problem is, if I'm exporting in sRGB, I'd rather not even see the wider gamut version in LR while editing because that look can't be achieved in sRGB. I've decided to use my monitor's sRGB calibration while editing, so I only see sRGB colors. It also plays better with windows this way (no saturated backgrounds, icons, etc). I also have a cal saved so the monitor shows its full gamut, but I don't really need it at this time since no one else will be seeing my shots in aRGB.

May 16, 2020 at 12:12 PM

apertur3
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p.1 #12 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

Peter Figen wrote:
"I just got an Eizo CS2420, but I'm quickly learning that the wide gamut is basically useless for most photographic needs. As I understand it, it can be nice for printing (IF the lab accepts files in Adobe RGB). Aside from that, I'm failing to see the advantage."

This is not true. Having a wide gamut screen is NO disadvantage at all and does allow you to see some colors outside of sRGB. And once you convert a file to sRGB in Ps or export one in sRGB from Lr that's what you'll see even when you've got your brand new Eizo calibrated to "native" gamut. The file itself is already limited to the color space it's in.

"I first calibrated to D6500, 2.2 gamma and the monitor's native color space (which covers almost all of Adobe RGB). Things looked great, but I now know that Windows 10 isn't full color managed, so things like my desktop wallpaper now looked grossly oversaturated. Same goes for other aspects of the GUI. Icons, thumbnails, etc all have neon-like colors in some cases."

Get rid of your "wallpaper" and load a mid to dark neutral gray for your desktop. That's all you should ever be using for image editing anyway and as far as icons and thumbnails being off, who cares. Even on a Mac they're off a bit but they're so small that it's not distracting.

"I use LR for my editing, and I know it forces us to use their Pro Photo color space. I've always exported in sRGB since I share most of my work online, although I do occasionally print. Personally, I'd rather not edit in Pro Photo because it may lead me to do things I would or wouldn't do in sRGB. For example, the photo may look saturated enough in LR, so I won't tweak color. However, when I export in sRGB, it might look a bit weak. To me, it makes sense to just view everything in sRGB."

You can always turn on soft proofing to preview what you final file, converted will look like. It's not that Lr "forces" you to use Melissa RGB - not ProPhoto, it's that what it uses internally as an internal edit space and you need not concern yourself with it. All that matters is your monitor space and your output space. Photoshop uses L*a*b internally and no one gives a crap about that because it doesn't affect anything you do when you edit, not even when you convert to L*a*b color mode to use the "a" and "b" curves.

"I ran a second cal on my Eizo, this time telling it to stick with the sRGB color space. Windows now looks normal (as compared to my other screen which is a cheap Dell). I'm happy, but I feel like I wasted a lot of extra money for a wider gamut when I'm not even going to use it. Just interested in other opinions on this."

Why dumb down your screen when you don't have to. There are many times when a wide gamut screen is an advantage and darned few when it's not. And if you ever do video editing having those presets is a godsend. At least Ps and Lr are color managed. Video output is not - well, sort of in Resolve but not really.

"I know there are other aspects to a monitor besides color space coverage like uniformity, color accuracy, etc, and in that regard, the Eizo is wonderful. I just feel like I'm "wasting" it by only using it in sRGB. Kinda like buying a Ferrari and never going over 35 mph. OTOH, it seems to make the most sense to be consistent and stick with sRGB for everything."

A Ferrari will still go around corners at 35 mph much better than an F150, but you're only "wasting" the gamut because you don't fully understand yet how to use the software to its full potential. That's okay. You'll get there and you've got a great screen and your needs may change before you realize it. And yes, it's a good idea to get in there and set all the calibration parameters in Color Navigator - like white point and especially black point and click the "Advanced" option when making a new target and choose ICC v2 and turn OFF the Reflect tone curve in black option if that's still possible. They may have changed that horrible default going from CN6 to CN7 and I'm still on v6. You really don't want you monitor doing Black Point Compensation on your. Really. ...Show more →

Thanks for the tips. That all makes sense. I now have two custom calibrations saved to my screen's internal slots. One is in the monitor's native color space, and the other is in sRGB. Flipping between them just takes a second. Actually a very useful feature.

I did stumble upon the ICC version setting in Navigator 7. It still defaults to v4, but I set it to v2. I don't think it was doing any black comp, but I will take a look.

Really enjoying this screen so far =)

May 16, 2020 at 12:54 PM

Alan321
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p.1 #13 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

When assessing sRGB vs AdobeRGB, be sure to use image files that have been created with the appropriate colourspace in mind. Otherwise you'll get an exaggerated impression of the differences. e.g. an sRGB image will always look oversaturated on a screen/graphics card combo that is set up for AdobeRGB because the numeric values in the file correspond to less colour in sRGB than in AdobeRGB. Conversely, an AdobeRGB picture of the same scene on an sRGB monitor will look desaturated. However, these errors cannot be overcome just by cranking the saturation down or up because it is more complex than that - not all hues are affected the same way. Rendering intents also mix things up a bit when you are applying colourspaces.

Try to picture an sRGB version on the sRGB monitor, and compare that with the AdobeRGB version on the AdobeRGB monitor. If you have things set up correctly then both images will look mostly right (plausible and realistic) but you'll see more detail (tonal separation) in the rich greens and blues of the AdobeRGB.

May 21, 2020 at 11:23 AM

apertur3
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p.1 #14 · Should I calibrate my wide-gamut monitor in native or sRGB color space?

Thanks, Alan. When I was comparing one of my image in LR to the exported shot in sRGB, I saw a huge difference in green saturation. I'm now thinking that maybe I didn't close LR when I switched my monitor into the other color space, so what I was seeing in LR was incorrect.

This is actually quite a PITA. Some programs are color managed, some aren't, including parts of windows. I am just running my screen in sRGB mode now, and everything works fine. Everything I share is online, so the possibility of being able to see a bit more color on my screen only isn't worth all the trouble. If I print, my lab accepts Adobe RGB, so I can give that a shot, but for most other things, getting the wide gamut to "behave" across multiple apps and platforms isn't worth it for me.

May 21, 2020 at 12:18 PM


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