Frequently Asked Questions; Calibration - NEC SpectraView 2190 User Manual

SPECTRAVIEW II - USER'S GUIDE | 1
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Frequently Asked Questions

Calibration

Question: How often do I need to calibrate my monitor?
Answer: The answer will depend on how critical a color accuracy is necessary, how long the monitor is used per
day, environmental conditions and the characteristics of each individual monitor. Some users working in highly
critical color applications may calibrate their displays every couple of days. Others may only need to do it once a
month. The recommended and default re-calibration period is every 2 weeks. The Validate Calibration feature
can always be used to verify the display's white point and Intensity and determine if the monitor needs to be re-
calibrated. Always remember to allow the monitor sufficient time to warm up and reach optimum color performance
before performing any color critical work or calibrating the display.
Question: ( Mac OS only) Why can't I use the ColorSync control panel to switch between different display
calibrations like I can do with other monitors?
Answer: When used with the SpectraView software, NEC display monitors store all of the necessary color
adjustments internally, including the 10 or 12 bit Look Up Tables. The ColorSync utility switches the display color
settings by changing the Look Up Tables in the video graphics adapter. The ColorSync profiles generated by
SpectraView contain linear Look Up Tables for the video graphics adapter. Therefore the SpectraView software
must be used to update the display monitor.
Question: ( Mac OS only) I'm using a wide color gamut display together with the standard gamut screen on my
MacBook. Colors in Safari look oversaturated when the window is on the wide gamut display. What is wrong?
Answer: The color management in Safari and some other Mac applications will only apply color correction for the
primary display (the display with the menu bar). When a window is moved to the secondary display, the correct
color correction for that display is not applied. This causes the images to be oversaturated on the secondary display.
To display colors correctly on the wide color gamut display it must be made the primary display. Use the Mac OS
System Preferences - Displays to configure the display as the primary.
Question: I'm using two different displays and calibrating both to the same target, however the white points do not
match exactly. What can I do to improve this?
Answer: This issue can be caused by the different spectral outputs of the two displays causing the human eye
to see color differences differently than the color sensor used to calibrate the displays. In this case the numerical
measurements from the color sensor are identical on both displays, but they do not visually match. Manually visually
matching one display to another can usually avoid this issue. The basic steps to take are as follows:
1. Calibrate both displays.
2. Pick one of the displays to be a reference. Call this display #1.
3. Select display #2 in SpectraView and open the Custom White Point dialog. Use the Visual Match tool to adjust
the white color so it visually matches white shown on display #1.
4. When a visual match is achieved, put the sensor over the measurement area and click Measure. This will enter
the value that the sensor perceives into the White Point. Save this as a new Target.
5. Recalibrate display #2 with this new Target. From now on always use the respective Target to calibrate each
display.