Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 3/3/06 2:23:09 PM, joshrandall@... writes:


> 
> I have the opportunity to purchase a monitor calibration system for a good 
> price and am
> wondering if it is something that would be useful for b&w photography 
> purposes.  All I do
> is black and white so I am not so much interested in color calibration as I 
> am in
> brightness, contrast, and luminous calibration.  the one i am looking at 
> also monitors
> ambiant light and adjusts accordingly.  it can be found here:   http://
> bermangraphics.com/digital-jury-resources/huey.htm
> 

Interesting; someone just posted a note on this package on the 
Digital-FineArt list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digital-fineart/message/39584

Here's the body of that post:

Larry Berman wrote:

>
>The Huey is excellent for the artist who isn't doing any calibration
>yet and wants the device to make all the decisions.
>
>
>
Larry, with all due respect, I have to differ with you on this and say
that making product decisions based upon PMA peeks instead of an
extended on-hands review is not always a good idea. Here's why IMHO:

The Huey is "ok" for gamers, scrapbookers, and websurfers, but I would
NOT recommend it for anyone doing any kind of serious artwork -
especially not members of a digital fine art list. For my money, there
are FAR better products, one example would be one of the new lower price
point Spyder2 packages, in the same dollar ballpark.

Here's just a short list of issues with the Huey:

Hardware

Light Shielding: when calibrating/profiling an LCD you cant make
accurate readings, especially at darker tones, if you don't have a light
shield that's big enough to shield the sensors from ambient light (2
inch diameter shielding minimum in testing by some experts)... The
reason is that light reflects off the LCD. With the huey, its a quarter
of an inch (!!!) from the sensors to the edge of the shield. The fact
that the HUEY reads ambient light doesn't settle this issue, because
what is REFLECTED from the LCD is going to differ from the actual
ambient depending on the actual LCD not just the ambient light.

Screen attachment: It takes something more viscous than spit to keep the
huey on some screen surfaces. To see the sensor falling off the screen
of one reviewer while he is photographing it for his review (oops!) head
to: http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/pantone_huey.html

Pantone includes screen cleaners as part of the package for exactly that
reason. You need a near perfect seal to get it to stay... DUMB design.
I've suggested they include a tube of super glue and nail polish remover
to attach and remove it.

General durability: the extra fine USB cable is not too sturdy, and if
you try to pull the huey out of its blister pack by the cord, you won't
be happy. It's also too short IMHO. The stand is not sturdy enough to
live full time in the middle of my work area either... and it has to do
that if you are planning on using it to to adjust to ambient light in
"real time."

Software

I'll ignore the interface from Mars (after all this is consumer
software, we don't need to treat them like adults - you can see it
though at the Northlight site I mentioned above - but suffice it to say
it reminds me of KPT tools or The weirdo skin Panopticum Lens Pro II
offered - at least I could turn it off in Panopticum's product) and go
on to the functions.

The software does not specify any calibration standard by name... you
have to choose from a verbal list that doesn't clue you in to which
graphic standards it's choosing.

But it hardly matters what gamma it uses anyway, as its going to change
it constantly as the light falling on the huey shifts. Arm in front of
light source = significant change in gamma. Midgrays may be lighter or
darker on screen at any time. Too interactive for serious color work,
more for gaming.

Reads only one red, one green, and one blue patch, plus a ramp of grays
to calibrate. Makes assumptions from these readings as to the actual
output of your display. If your display is quite linear and well
mannered, this isn't too bad. If its not... well, that's what
calibration is for isn't it? Fixing the problems, not just assuming they
don't exist?

There's more, but that's a fair start...

Keith Krebs


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