This is from another thread. I thought i'd ask a wider audience, i've printed some stuff and it came out darker than what it's being displayed on my monitor at home (mind you the printer was Harvey Norman so it might be them).

What sort of monitors and/or calibration devices do you guys use?? worth the money?

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Member of the 18-35 club and proud of it! (For another 5 years...getting old)

New toy has arrived, 1/4 mile in 11.2 sec and only 114hp!

Dad uses the spyder 2 and reckons it is a good thing.

brendon

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Losing is worse than death. You have to live with losing....

Prints always come out darker than they look on screen. Having said that a well calibrated monitor should give a good indication of how things will print, especially in the mid tones.

I know this is a super backyard way of looking at your monitor calibration but its amazing how many screens cant tell the difference between A + B or Y + Z on this simple scale. All the letters represent a different shade and you should be able to tell the difference between each letter and its neighbor.

http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php

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betty banger

a typical cheap lcd is never going to match your prints even with calibration. they cant even represent all 8bits only 6.

i use a spyder 2 as well - spyder 3's are out now however.

slappy's link is good to setting basic contrast but its not going to help correct colour levels.

Haha true but you cant beat the price.

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betty banger

If you want a tru colour image from your monitor buying a 8 bit Monitor is also the way and then get that calibrated. as 8 bit over 6 bit the colours are just 100% different.

I have a 27inch Dell which is HD 8 Bit , and then on either side are 19inch normal monitors, If i drag a image from centre monitor (dell) to each of the other monitors the colours are just dull and not very good. on the dell they are deep rich , and sharp, amazing what difference the monitor makes. very important when editting images.

So depends how serious u are in images. if you just want to make the images print closer to what u see just get a calibration tool, if you do serious editting and touch ups and want tru colour then get a good monitor too.

agree...unfortunately quality means money, why does this have to cost so much?

can you throw me some monitor brands/prices. If there is anything $300-$400 i'll get it, if not i might leave it till later

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Member of the 18-35 club and proud of it! (For another 5 years...getting old)

New toy has arrived, 1/4 mile in 11.2 sec and only 114hp!

when your looking at monitors make sure they say they can do 16.7m colours 16.2m is marketing speak for 256 :P Generally if your wondering why a monitor costs twice the price of a similar one, its probably because its not shit.

any TN type panel is to be rejected.

try samsung, and about 1/3rd of the dells range is in the 'not shit' category.

and when you narrow it down to a few post here and we can check that its okay for you.

also id run firefox icc profiles so your seeing calibrated pictures in firefox

http://spyder.datacolor.com/learn_expert.php#0209

Best way to see between 6bit and 8 bit if they dont tell u is the viewing angle.
178/178 is 8bit, generally anything Less than that viewing angle is not 8bit.
if you see somthing like 160/160 then that is 6 bit.

yeah the shits expencive just like cars i guess lol.

But using the calibration tool will defiently help you get a better match for now anyway

Dell has a 24inch 8bit monitor at the momment for $839 and they currently have a $160 cash back deal.

Also look second hand mate, and when you find a unit second hand just research the model number on the net or post the model in here and we can check it for u to be sure. You be supprised what you can find around the place somtimes.