Monitor Color Profiles

[Lilyo]

Has anyone else had problems with color profiles when working on two different computers? I work off an iMac with a really good display monitor and then a sony vaio laptop with a pretty good monitor, but the two displays, even with calibrated correctly still look different form one another. I find it really frustrating to work on detailed color stuff such as pixel art and have the visual difference between the two monitors be so big (at least to me). They both use sRGB, the only real difference I assume is the gamma (1.8 vs 2.2 on mac). Does anyone have any tips?

[tim]

The gamma is now 2.2 on mac too, since Mac OS X 10.6.

Unfortunately, your issue is really common knowledge : there is no way to ensure how your work will be viewed.
I have a Mac Pro and I know iMacs are really far from perfect, even calibrated. They are too contrasted and their color space is really limited. I would recommand to buy a good monitor precalibrated with a better sRGB or Adobe coverage, it really helps.

[Ai]

I understand that if you're really serious about this stuff, you buy a colorimeter and do a precise* recalibration of your monitors every few months.

* As opposed to the rather 'approximate' calibration tool (lagom.nl/lcd-test/) I like to recommend. A proper full calibration takes 1-2 hours and involves pointing the colorimeter one by one at many,many color patches that the calibration software displays onscreen.

There are, however, a few other issues that could be contributing:
* Have you checked that the color temperature settings for the monitors match? (6500K is what I expect, but not always what I have gotten.)
* Mac has better color management. It's possible that color is being managed differently on your laptop. According to how your software is setup, it may be possible to detect differences in 'actual displayed' RGB values for a given 'input' color using an external colorpicker tool; particularly if your software does it's own color management (eg Photoshop, GIMP. ) rather than leaving color management to the OS.

* As a last resort you could try reconfiguring the display gamma correction (This is definitely an option on Mac and Linux. Can't comment on Windows.) to get a closer match. Or adjusting the monitor's own gamma setting.

Color management is still a big quirky mess.

[yrizoud]

My thought on this topic is that if you're drawing graphics that are going to be displayed on everybody's average monitor, draw them on everybody's average monitor.  WYSIWG.

[ptoing]

This stuff does not matter that much unless you are doing work for print. You still want a decently calibrated monitor though and one that has a good colour range (some laptops and gaming monitors are not really great for artwork at all) If you are doing things for games and work for a target machine, make sure it looks good on that if you can. (Stuff like DS, PSP and so on). If you work for home computers, does not matter what OS really, just make sure you got enough contrast and it looks generally pleasant to you.

I doubt there are many gamers who are not also serious artists calibrates their monitors or has a monitor that is made for doing art on (the highend EIZO monitors are really good btw). So yeah, your stuff will look somewhat different on every monitor anyway, you have to live with that and there is nothing you can do about it.

When it comes to print, yes, you want to have your monitor be calibrated as well as possible, do it every few months, and make sure that whoever you are working with calibrates their shit too, otherwise it is pointless.

[Ai]

My thought on this topic is that if you're drawing graphics that are going to be displayed on everybody's average monitor, draw them on everybody's average monitor.  WYSIWG.

This is exactly like saying 'if you want to test someone, test an average person'. Such a person (and such a monitor) doesn't exist. Color management is a much more sticky problem than that -- every single display is individual, and also changes over time.

(Now, if you were saying to -target- the average display(ie. convert to a fixed color profile as part of your final export process), that's slightly less problematic. Targeting standard sRGB (gamma 2.2, 6500K color temperature) is about as close to 'accurate' as you can get assuming the viewer has no clue about color management.)

[yrizoud]

I mean average as in middle price range.

[Lilyo]

I also found out that if you have Flux installed it will overwrite any color profile or display calibration that you try to save. At least thats what was happening for my laptop.