4 Replies Latest reply: Nov 24, 2011 3:28 PM by CSS Simon RSS

    Windows 7 Colour management

    coinup001 Community Member

      Hi all,

       

      I have a question about the color managment in windows 7.

       

      I have a Eizo Cg243w hardware calibrated with a i1 display pro, and wondered how things get affected when combining this with the built in color managment in windows 7.

       

      Also i am noticing when viewing thumbnails in windows explorer, these thumbnails are definetly not color managed.

       

      Many thanks

        • 1. Re: Windows 7 Colour management
          Chris Cox Adobe Employee

          WIndows 7 doesn't really have automatic color correction - it just provides information and calculations for applications to use.

           

          When you calibrated, Windows set the video card LUT to correct the white point and gamma curve to your desired settings.  And the calibration program saved a profile describing that calibration and how your display produces color.  Then applications can use that profile to correct document colors to your display colorspace (but not all do).

          • 2. Re: Windows 7 Colour management
            coinup001 Community Member

            with the eizo though when calibrated the actual lut of the monitor is changed not the video cards lut

            • 3. Re: Windows 7 Colour management
              twenty_one Community Member

              Same principle. It seems to me everything is working as it should.

               

              "Monitor calibration" is actually two things: calibration and profiling. Calibration is just a basic correction to bring the monitor in compliance with a few parameters such as temperature, gamma, neutral color balance. But it doesn't do anything about how the monitor actually reproduces color - it cannot change the position of the RGB primaries in three-dimensional color space for instance. This is particularly visible with a wide gamut monitor such as the Eizo.

               

              In short, calibration is not color management.

               

              Color management comes with the second part, profiling. The calibration software makes a monitor profile describing how the monitor behaves, in detail, in its calibrated state. Whether the calibration is achieved via video LUT or monitor LUT doesn't matter (but monitor LUT is usually more accurate).

               

              A color managed application such as Photoshop then converts on the fly to that monitor profile, taking into account gamut and everything else. But Explorer is not color managed, so it just sends the RGB data straight to the (calibrated) monitor unchanged. But it doesn't compensate for the full profile.

               

              Put it another way: Calibration takes you some of the way, and the profile fills in the rest.

              • 4. Re: Windows 7 Colour management
                CSS Simon Community Member

                But don't use Windows 7 calibration.  The i1 software does calibration (and profiling also), and it does the calibration much better than W7 calibration (which is done by eye, rather than by colorimeter).  Once you've calibrated and profiled with the i1, don't do W7 calibration as well, which will nullify the i1 calibration.