Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Is this screen calibration rubbish for real  how many of the winners actually used calibrated screens...or is this a Phil Hart fed ruse to trick non-Hart's 
Mike |
I'm worried that you're just poking fun, but I'll provide a serious answer in case it helps others!
I have not calibrated my monitor with any of the hardware calibration tools, although it is a decent quality monitor that comes with a number of predefined calibration settings. My previous cheaper monitor was pretty much the same colour wise (my images didn't look much different after changing monitor), but the old monitor did suck from a viewing angle point of view.. images were brighter at the bottom than at the top which was getting really annoying.
The hardware calibration tools can be worth the money in a professional environment where you have a workflow from monitor to print (and large print runs, multiple clients etc you don't want to screw up). I have a set of adjustment curves I use for correcting images before sending them to the Pro photo lab to be printed, but I developed them by trial and error (not that hard) rather than using a $500 piece of hardware. Works fine when you're always using the same monitor and the same printer. But I would be interested to try hardware calibration one day.. maybe somebody can share their experiences?
As long as people can see all 256 different brightness levels on the charts (like those on
Peter Ward's gallery) then you'll be pretty close. And once you've seen your own images on other monitors, I think any discerning astrophotographer will know whether their colour balance is significantly out at home.
But seriously Mike, if you produced that Centaurus A image on the monitor you're using now (and all of your other top notch images), you don't need to do any more calibration!!
You are the last person that needs to worry about this.. your images look perfectly balanced to me!
When we see the full set of results we'll be able to identify images where calibration has been a problem. David Malin may also have been generous in describing it as a calibration issue.. it's quite possible some people have been black clipping their images which we'll be able to identify and provide feedback on shortly. Mike Sidonio's images (a la Centaurus A from previous years with what.. 21? mag/arc second interstellar dust) will not be in that category!!
Phil
...I feel pissed (as in drunk) just looking at them 
