[sketch]

Hello,
This is my first post. I've been lurking for awhile since I'm looking (saving up oodles of money) to buy a Powerbook. Yes, I'm a fed-up PC user!

I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum. My question regards using the Powerbook for graphic design (web design, mostly). For a long time now, I've always been told that laptops cannot reporduce colour as well as CRT screens.

I'm wondering if the same still stands today. Does the screen of the powerbook show the colours properly? If not, how would I go about making sure they are? I don't fully understand the concept of colour calibration. Does it work on LCD screens? I understand the powerbook screens are lcd.

I hope to meet lots of fellow artists here!

[himself]

The primary issue with LCD color accuracy when compared to CRTs has to do with viewing angle. Colors on an LCD can shift depending on the angle at which your looking at the display. For example, if you have an LCD display, and made the screen a single solid color, it would appear to be one color at the top of the display, and another color at the bottom, like a gradient. The color will be similar overall, just not consistent throughout. This is a characteristic of all LCDs, regardless of which computer or OS they are attached to. The best way to remedy this is to determine a comfortable viewing position and angle, and try to stick to that as accurately as you can.

While the color shifting effect is noticeable, it really is not that much of a problem. It isn't hard to learn how to work around it. Color calibration helps to ensure that the colors on your screen are as accurate as they can be, even while the LCD isn't capable of even, consistent display.

As far as how to calibrate your display, it's easy. Once you get your PowerBook (or whatever model you decide upon), just run the display calibrator from the display preferences and it take you through all of the necessary steps.

[nsxpower]

Here are a couple of ideas that may help you.

In Photoshop color preferces set grey point to 2.2 gamma (which is what Windows PCs use). This should help you avoid "unrealistically underexposed look" when people view your photos from Windows PCs. This, of course, assumes you use Photoshop to edit your photos, otherwise check help files for you image editing application, most mid/high-end programs have this feature. You could also create a new display profile with 2.2 gamme for your PowerBook (Color Panel in Display Preference Pane on OS X), but this will affect the whole OS instead of just images in Photoshop ... thankfully you can switch back forth fairly easily.

Also, check whether your camera embeds its own color profile into images. Internet Explorer is not profile aware and will display everything as sRGB and that may be the cause of the problem. I am not sure how iPhoto deals with embedded camera profiles, but I know that Image Capture.app lets you embed sRGB (or a profile of your choice) instead of a camera profile.

Best of luck.

[sketch]

Thanks for your replies himself and nsxpower. So I'll have to find the right angle and make sure I calibrate the monitor (screen) correctly. Is there a book or reference where I can read up on how to design for both PC and Mac display? I had a job back in 1999 where I had to work on both the Mac and PC and make sure the colours showed the same on both. Which was pretty much impossible. One showed blue while the other showed purple.

edit: I just read a thread where this was written; The simplest way to deal with this if you are using Panther you can go to System Preferences under Displays and click on Color. Select PC Calibration to approximate the gamma for a PC monitor.

I guess it's pretty much solved with this method?

[himself]

Originally posted by sketch:
Thanks for your replies himself and nsxpower. So I'll have to find the right angle and make sure I calibrate the monitor (screen) correctly. Is there a book or reference where I can read up on how to design for both PC and Mac display? I had a job back in 1999 where I had to work on both the Mac and PC and make sure the colours showed the same on both. Which was pretty much impossible. One showed blue while the other showed purple.

edit: I just read a thread where this was written; The simplest way to deal with this if you are using Panther you can go to System Preferences under Displays and click on Color. Select PC Calibration to approximate the gamma for a PC monitor.

I guess it's pretty much solved with this method?

The main difference between Mac and PC displays are the gamma settings (as nsxpower explained), which can be adjusted on either platform to be consistent. Other than that, an image should look roughly the same on any platform as long as the displays are properly calibrated. If one of the monitors you view an image on isn't calibrated, it doesn't matter how accurate the image is, it won't look right on that display.

[nsxpower]

I feel a little more info is in order:

For a long time now, I've always been told that laptops cannot reporduce colour as well as CRT screens.
Does the screen of the powerbook show the colours properly?

LCDs have come a long way since the early days and can reproduce color very well and PowerBook screen is no exception. There are only a couple of weak points about LCDs that you should keep in mind (repeating some things already mentioned by himself here):

- LCDs have lower contrast ratios. I am not sure what contrast ratios PowerBook LCDs have (Apple does not publish this information), but Apple's standalone LCDs have to make due with 350:1. For comparison the best LCDs can go as high as 450:1 and CRTs as high as 700:1. What this means is that darker shades are displayed as black and any detail that depended on these subtle color graduations is essetially lost.

- LCDs suffer from a narrower dynamic range (sort of a continuation of the above problem). In other words claimed 24-bit on LCD is less because LCDs can not reproduce all graduations of every color.

The best analogy I can think of is film vs. digital photos. With digital you may get blown out highlights and less details in shadows because CCD/CMOS censors have narrower dynamic range then some professional films. This hasn't stopped professionals from using digital cameras and it should not stop you (as it does not stop a lot of professionals) from using LCDs for production work.

- LCDs also have slower refresh rates that does not stop gamers and movies play just fine on LCDs. In fact I never noticed any artifats (due to a lower refresh rate) while watching movies on my PowerBook.

So, yes LCDs fair worse when CRTs when it comes to color reproduction. However, for a lot of applications they are just as good as CRTs. I am not sure what kind of web deveopment you do, but you should not be affected by LCD's shorcomings at all. If you were in DP, color proofing etc. then professional grade CRT would be the only way to go.

If not, how would I go about making sure they are?

Web development is a cross platform affair, so making sure that your site/images/photos look the same on PCs and Macs is important. Gamma is the main difference (as mentioned before, although a little out of context) and should be dealt with first and that should address most of your issues. If you are really serious about color reproduction on your screen then you may want to consider a hardware calibration solution such as Pantone/Colorvision Spyder (about $170). I tried various software based calibration solutions with very limited success (I actually had much better luck with Adobe Gamme on Windows) and I am seriously considering Pantone/Colorvision Spyder for my personal needs (I just need to find where they sell them in Spain).

Before you depress yourself, keep in mind that 90% of people out there are using uncalibrated monitors, can't tell the difference between Purple/Magenta and have no idea what colour space etc. So just do you best and don't worry about it.

[sketch]

Originally posted by nsxpower:

Before you depress yourself, keep in mind that 90% of people out there are using uncalibrated monitors, can't tell the difference between Purple/Magenta and have no idea what colour space etc. So just do you best and don't worry about it. [/B]

That's a very good point. I tend to concentrate on what potential employers would see. The type of web development I do is design. I don't do the programming (well, some scripting but it's pretty basic). But I'm open to learning desktop publishing (for job security) and you mentioned the Pantone/Colorvision Spyder.

I have a crt monitor for my PC, maybe I can hook that up to the PowerBook if I need a CRT? I'll be pretty much bankrupt when I buy the powerbook (and Adobe software). I can't go buying the cinema display now!

[nsxpower]

I have a crt monitor for my PC, maybe I can hook that up to the PowerBook if I need a CRT?

15"/17" PowerBooks come with a DVI port and a VGA adaptor, so you can connect it to any CRT/LCD out there. PowerBooks can also "span" images to more then one screen ... so you should be able to use your PowerBook LCD and you CRT at the same time (keep you pallets on PowerBook LCD and your work on the CRT)