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Digital
Photography
Monitor Calibration & Raw Processing Software
- Monitor Calibration
If you want to have some confidence that what you see on your screen
will resemble your printed photos then monitor calibration is
essential. Previously this would have meant purchasing some expensive
hardware and doing some reading up on the subject to understand what's
going on. Well, the reading up part is still recommended but the
expensive hardware is now optional as a new device has recently become
available which brings monitor calibration within the price range of
any digital photography enthusiast. The device in question is the
Pantone Huey, full details of which can be found in the
Products, Color Control section of the Pantone
website.
The Huey does a great job for a sensible price - it's currently (Dec
2007) approximately 90 US Dollars or 75 GB Pounds. It not only allows you to
calibrate your monitor but it also can be set to compensate for changes
in your room lighting. I do however have a few suggestions as regards
setting it up as the Huey instructions were originally rather brief.
- Make sure any other monitor profiling/calibration
software you may have previously been using eg. Adobe Gamma or PowerStrip is disabled.
- Adjust your monitor's colour temperature, brightness
and contrast first.
Set the colour temperature to 6500K and display the SMPTE test card
(see below) at full size.
Adjust the brightness and contrast so all the greyscale
steps and the 5% plus 95% squares can be
distinguished.
Alternatively use the excellent Photo Friday
calibration tool to adjust your brightness and contrast.
- Make sure you have the latest version
of
the Huey software which can be downloaded from the Huey section of the Pantone website.
- Install the software, reboot your computer and then
connect
your Huey. If using Windows, once the new hardware wizard has finished
registering the Huey, run the software and follow the on-screen
instructions. Make sure the Huey is stable on your monitor's face
before starting the measurement phase. At the end of the calibration,
choose the Web Browsing and Photo Editing setting which will give you a
calibrated 6500K colour temperature with a 2.20 gamma curve. More
information on the Huey settings can be found on the Pantone Support website.
- Raw Photo Processing Software
If you are looking for a quick and simple raw to JPEG or TIFF converter
that runs on Windows PCs and makes an excellent job of the conversion using it's auto
white balance and default sharpening settings you should try the batch
mode of the Stepok Raw Importer.
It is currently a free download and supports raw files from a wide
range of digital cameras. Mac OS X users are recommended to initially
try iPhoto which is included with the operating system and provides
the basic tools needed for raw file conversion.
For a more comprehensive raw conversion program that runs on both
Windows and Mac OS X I've recently downloaded the trial version of
Capture One 4 and find it to be way ahead of any other raw processing
programs I've used both in terms of final image quality and ease of
use. You can download a trial copy and view some excellent tutorials on
the Capture One 4 website.
For those shots taken at higher ISO settings where noise is prevalent
in your shots Noise Ninja provides a useful reduction in the noise
present without destroying all the fine details. Noise Ninja runs on
both Windows and Mac OS X. More details can be found on the Picture Code website.
Picture Code provide ready made noise profiles for many cameras
alternatively the software gives you the option of producing a profile
for your own camera.
The SMPTE Test Card