Every day we offer FREE licensed software you’d have to buy otherwise.

Atrise Lutcurve 1.3.1 Personal Giveaway
$39.99
EXPIRED

Giveaway of the day — Atrise Lutcurve 1.3.1 Personal

LCD and CRT Monitor Calibration Software
$39.99 EXPIRED
User rating: 459 59 comments

Atrise Lutcurve 1.3.1 Personal was available as a giveaway on April 14, 2009!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$36.00
free today
Download music from 1000+ sites anytime and anywhere!

This program will help you to calibrate your LCD or CRT displays without any hardware devices for 6500K gamma 2.2. All aspects of the critical areas are covered, such as viewing environment, colour temperature and gamma, along with fine tune capability. Reference images and real time graph displays provide for accurate adjustment at every stage.

Key Features:

  • Calibration without a Calibrator
  • Easy Steps to Calibrate
  • Precise Results
  • Unlimited Count of Calibration Points
  • Multiple Display Support

System Requirements:

Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, 32/64 bit; 32-bit color display mode; Video driver from manufacturer; Mouse or another pointing device.

Publisher:

Atrise.com

Homepage:

http://www.atrise.com/lutcurve/

File Size:

1.78 MB

Price:

$39.99

Comments on Atrise Lutcurve 1.3.1 Personal

Thank you for voting!
Please add a comment explaining the reason behind your vote.
#59

#40, mike, thanks for the install info. Things like caches, MRU, MUI, UserAssist, Discardable, Cryptography, etc., are just Windows housekeeping (they serve a purpose but aren't directly set by the application's installer) and can be ignored when monitoring installations.

I do have strong disagreements with several people's comments about stock settings on any device, various comments about other ways to set things, etc.

Contrary to what many have said, no mass-market consumer items have ever had any kind of decent calibration. Manufacturers don't want to bother, and most intentionally mis-calibrate devices. TV's and monitors have always had brightness set too high, and colors over-saturated. In a store, to an untrained eye, it makes them look better. Similarly, audio stores set the volume and bass too high on the products they want to push, because in the store to an untrained ear, it makes them sound better relative to other products. Too-high brightness is hard on the eyes, it shortens the life of CRT's and LCD backlights, it reduces the legibility of text, and wipes out details in photos and videos. I had to reduce the backlight on my LCD to zero (that's not off, just its minimum value), yet Lutcurve indicated that white levels were still too high, resulting in some loss of detail. As the instructions state, you should always adjust such things via hardware settings before resorting to software and video card settings. There are always interactions among hardware controls. While brightness can affect peak white, it primarily affects black level. Contrast can impact both white and black levels. It's not at all true that there aren't standards for gray-scale discrimination and colors. Windows has added increasingly sophisticated support for color-matching, which the more expensive high-quality devices will use, and the cheap mass-market ones won't bother with (sometimes, users with hardware calibration equipment will post color profiles for devices which don't come with them). Proper calibration cannot make things look worse, only improper calibration can do that. Lutcurve primarily affects gamma, it's not designed for color-matching. It's true that all devices are different and none have perfect color and gray-scale reproduction (in fact, even the most expensive displays and printers technically aren't very good), and there are numerous other aspects to display quality on monitors. Usually, you have to make compromises. The image I posted showing Vista color settings indicates how Windows allows different matching compromises to be made based on the task at hand. In most cases, you should go for correct gray-scale gamma over correct color gamma, when you can't achieve both, which you can't on most devices. As for technology, LCD's have a few advantages, but tons of disadvantages compared to CRT's, no matter how expensive the panel (i.e., they all suck). There are so many competing technologies and variations of each, that it's hard to tell which will eventually be the best. Long-term, I expect some form of OLED will be the best. At the present time, high-quality plasma displays are probably the best for most consumers, but that technology, like all flat-panel technology, is primarily targeted at televisions, not computer monitors. Used as a computer display, a plasma display would probably be susceptible to image burn-in, and they draw a lot of power (except maybe for expensive LED backlights, LCD backlights, typically fluorescent, also draw a lot of power because they're on in the black areas).

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)
#58

Downloaded it and installed with ease. No problems with the register. Played with it a bit and saw the instructions, "Read the manual before making any adjustments."

So I instantly opened the program and ran through it without reading the manual. Although I did not make any changes. Just ran through it.

Saw that the pages were quite intuitive. Had same complaint as Lost in Lodos (#54) that the text on each page was small. Other than that it is a great program. I'm glad to report that my swap meet monitor ($10 ... 21" ... NEC Multisync XP21) is near perfect and I did not have to make any permanent changes. I did play with the controls a bit but did not save any changes.

This is one heck of a program and is a must have for graphic artists and would be great for printing shops too.

Reply   |   Comment by prying1  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#57

Hi Burpee at post 49

You are wrong about gamma. PCs use gamma 2.2, whereas Macs used gamma 1.8

Reply   |   Comment by Photogeek  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#56

I installed Lutcurve on an Acer Aspire One running Windows XP and ran it with no problems. I had thought that the display on this netbook was unusually good, and this software confirmed it...no adjustments were needed. Still, this was a handy reference, since I sometimes use my netbook to show photos to others.

Those of you who may be calibrating LCDs, be sure that your angle of view remains constant and consistent with your usual angle of view, ideally, your angle of view should be 90 degrees to the screen. If you view an LCD at an angle while using Lutcurve, you may end up calibrating incorrectly.

Reply   |   Comment by Keter  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#55

To #22 (the developer): I am not sure if the other free tools referred to do not correct for non-linearity. Monitor Calibration Wizard (free) at least does, and is a much easier tool to use.

http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp

Only thing I see is that MCW does not tell what gamma and color temperature is it calibrating to.

Reply   |   Comment by Alok  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#54

@49: Nope, it's the opposite. Macs typically default to 1.8 gamma, but you want to calibrate for 2.2, regardless if you use a PC or Mac, unless you're an expert and know what you're doing. If you have to ask, you want 2.2.

Reply   |   Comment by Tom  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#53

I never bothered to calibrate my Lenovo T61p but just gave this a try. I have to say the result is very noticeable to my poor eyes. Other free alternatives may easily achieve the same outcome but this tiny free download did work for me. I will try this on my home desktop tonight.

Reply   |   Comment by sean  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#52

Installs and loads on
XP MCE 2005
XP x64
Vista x64

Surprisingly useful little tool. Does what it says it will.

Only 2 complaints:
The text notes on each page showed up VERY small on all 4 monitors I tested this on; LG 52LG50, BenQ G2200W, HP w2207h, and Sony HMD-a200. Tiny enough I had to nudge right up to the monitors to see the text. And the text contrast is terrible. There are far better colour choices they could have gone with.

Won't load under Wine.

As a side note, no Windows 9x support. To bad considering how many still use them.

You can't do better than this price, at FREE.

There are better hardware based units out there to chose from, but they start around $500 for anything that can do better than this. The $499.97 DavO Color Monitor Adjuster has been my preference, marketed as (or by) Avad. Something to check into to (was covered in CEP about a 18 months ago) if you're hardcore.

As for software alternatives, not sure. Others have posted their notes. So read through the other posts for ideas.

Reply   |   Comment by lostinlodos  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#51

#49: Burpee... I'd humbly suggest you rethink your strategy, though to answer your question IMHO you'd have to either use some other software, or go through the adjustment & as a last step tweak the gamma upwards -- you're trying to alter the response curve, & once altered in theory it could be raised more or less intact, though you'd want to leave a slight bit of room at the extreme.

My understanding of it is that any picture displayed should ideally be portable -- viewable anywhere while looking the same. A MAC displaying a tif file should look the same as that tif displayed on a PC. Resized it should look the same on your cell phone, or an HDTV for that matter.

At one time MACs used a fairly different display, & you altered things like your web site colors very slightly so they'd see the same thing roughly as using a PC. But that was for the MAC folks as consumers -- you didn't want to leave them out. Today, while you'd for example still want your site looking good in whatever MAC browser, If/When a MAC's used for production work, it's expected to stick to the same requirements as any PC, including displaying images accurately, which isn't too hard when they're using the same LCDs. Besides, AFAIK most big rendering facilities are on PCs anyway -- the MACs are odd man out, & should be matching them. ;-)

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#50

After much consideration, I've decided to pas on todays offer. It's my opinion that visual settings should be done in accordance to an individuals vision. A 20 year old college student is going to see better then a man going on 60 (at least in most cases).
Thus , I have my LCD's set for what best suits my vision wearing bi-focals . Their set to what best causes the least strain on my eyes & I believe I can decide that better then a piece of software that standardizes settings for everyone.
Thanks anyway but I don't think todays offer is for me.

Reply   |   Comment by Charles K  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-5)
#49

#49 Your message is technically incorrect.

The gamma value 1.8 had used on old mac computers and currently this standard is deprecated by Apple. Most of modern color space standards are 2.2-gamma based only (except of L*a*b - this standard uses no gamma correction at all). Windows gamma is always 2.2. You really have no reason to create images with gamma 1.8 - they will not be compatible with modern TV and computer standards.

Lutcurve supports any gamma value, but this feature is not available for public. If you really need this gamma, contact a support service to get a special build of the program (of course, this feature is not free).

Reply   |   Comment by Developer  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)
#48

Upon installing this, the first thing that impressed me was the nice detailed user manual. So many apps have scanty, often NO help or instructions with them (and often help at their websites is either scanty or nonexistent.

It was a pleasure to see a software that included such a nice manual.

Incidentally, I installed this on 3 pcs, a desktop with LCD (xp), a desktop with CRT monitor (xp) and Vista laptop and registered without problems.

Reply   |   Comment by Spiritwolf  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#47

What makes me hesitate to install this is that it wants to calibrate to a 2.2 gamma, which is a Mac setting. Most PCs should be calibrated to 1.8. That's my understanding after long conversations in other threads at 3D sites.

Does this software give you other gamma setting options besides 2.2?

Reply   |   Comment by Burpee  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#46

@43 Lu Hulu:
The developer, #22, said, "Also I know there is some old video cards those have no possible to download a LUT curve to the card. Also most of Microsoft drivers have no such feature. These users will see no any changes at all."

That should make it clear that you need it on each computer because the LUT data is saved on the video card. However, other users have reported that it is portable.

I hope this helps.

Reply   |   Comment by August  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-4)
#45

My monitor (26" Samsung) already came with all utilities needed to configure and calibrate it (But I did not use them as factory color settings looked good enough for me). I do not need any 3rd party utilities to do that.
But thanks anyway GAOTD.

@24, @26: GAOTD "Software Key Wrapper" (will call it SKW for short) does not use NSIS. Those NSIS errors are displayed by original setup program (which is extracted and run SKW). If SKW can't connect to internet, it will not run the actual installer at all because it will have no key to decrypt it.

Reply   |   Comment by DDS  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#44

Lu Hulu (Comment #42)

If you have a digital connection, you may copy program setting files from one PC to all others.

If you have analog connection, you should recalibrate your system, because analog connection may change signal, because a different DAC is used. But in most cases you will see no changes, especially you have the same video card model on your computers.

The program settings are located in *.lut files. You can find them on:

C:\Users\All Users\Atrise\Lutcurve (on Windows Vista and 7)
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Atrise\Lutcurve (on Windows XP)

Reply   |   Comment by Developer  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#43

Lu Hulu, what you want to do is with one monitor for 3 PCs, adjust the hardware as best possible so it looks best for any one PC, then run the software portion on all 3. The results will stay on each PC, & compensate for the individual hardware / drivers on that PC.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#42

Reading over the comments, & I'm sure there will be more in the stack waiting moderation, just wanted to add one thought...

Overall I've never seen a monitor that looked terrible out of the box... go to BestBuy or whatever & check it out yourself -- particularly in some of these stores I can't imagine anyone going through and calibrating anything, especially since customers would just de-tune them. Same goes for the average inkjet printer.

When/if someone reports that a monitor or printer works much better, or maybe has more vibrant colors after fooling with calibration, it means as much as anything else, that they've adjusted it to suit their eyes and preferences. That's Not Bad -- nothing wrong with it at all -- but neither does it mean that whatever hardware was broken to begin with. It's like going into PowerDVD & setting the display preferences to Vivid or normal or theater or whatever.

A more technical explanation:
A more vivid display does not necessarily mean more accuracy... Open a pic in image editing software & check the histogram -- ideally colors / levels will be uniformly distributed... if not, adjust as needed so they are, & the pic will be more or less technically correct. Now make it vivid using whatever filters &/or adjustments, & chances are the histogram is no longer evenly distributed. Again, there's nothing at all wrong with that, with making a photo more dramatic or striking, but please realize that's improving it artistically -- not technically. The same thing can happen when adjusting your monitor... you can adjust things so whatever output your monitor is capable of is distributed evenly across the gamut, or you can shift things around, for example making everything darker for the benefit of the shadows, but losing brightness in the midtones.

It's not right or wrong, but often just a matter of individual taste, just like the color & model of car you drive, or the clothes you wear and so on. When you don't share someone's taste, or they don't share yours, it doesn't mean either one of you are broken. ;-)

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#41

Correction: What I meant is that I have 1 LCD monitor for 3 computers.

Reply   |   Comment by Lu Hulu  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-10)
#40

I am using my LCD monitor for 3 computers.
If I calibrate my display for one of the computers, can I calibrate the monitor for the other two monitors?

What is needed? Do I have to install this software on all the 3 computers?

Reply   |   Comment by Lu Hulu  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-11)
#39

I never understood why this wasn't built in with Windows, maybe Windows 7 will change that. OS X FTW. Nothing is easier then it's built in calibration tool, it's amazing.

Here's a tip for if you're calibrating you're monitor (stolen from Leopard's color utility)

Squint your eyes and/or move your head back a little from the screen, you want to be able to match the colors not see the fine detail etc. I find it really helps.

Reply   |   Comment by Matt Martin  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#38

#11: @Fubar, "I wasn’t able to trace the installation"

In XP Pro SP3 32, besides program folder: 8 files added, 1 deleted, 12 updated -- added = shortcuts + 1 log -- deleted = same log -- updated = basic stuff like edb.chk, catdb, system.log etc along with ie8 cache.

Recorded 29 reg entries added -- HKLM = mainly uninstall & program keys -- HKCU / Users = MUICache & UserAssist...

Deleted = Discardable\PostSetup & MuiCache

41 updated = LastVisitedMRU, BagMRU, Cryptography\RNG etc.

SO really minimal effects from install.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+8)
#37

#22: @developer "...Adobe Gamma, Windows 7, Radeon and NVidia drivers have no feature to editing a monitor nonlinearity, so you will get much better image quality."

IMHO this is the best feature -- maybe could be emphasized a bit more for marketing?

In my humble opinion you might also do well to package your screens on DVD, maybe offer a downloadable iso? IMHO calibration of lcd HDTVs is a huge issue currently in the US. Of course the profile part wouldn't apply -- could just make hardware adjustments -- but I don't *think* there is much on the market currently.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#36

FWIW, dirty little secrets that make Lutcurve a good app to try...

Everyone's eyes see color differently -- they've been working on this for hundreds of years, it's why graphics software may have several color models available, it's why we use color swatches for everything from paint to printing inks, it's why the local TV station uses equipment that displays graphs of each color rather than relying on how it looks on their high end monitors. It's true that the only way to make sure a monitor's blue is really blue is to measure it with hardware, but it's even more true that unless your work is headed for the printing presses, ***Who Cares***? You want blue to look like blue to you. You want your eyes to be happy -- not some engineer at the factory. If Lutcurve can make your display look better to you, maybe that's all that matters?

In the real, non-pro world, Most methods of *Absolute* color calibration, well, [I'll be polite] stink... Corel invested a ton of money & resources into calibration, & while it's still there in their flagship products, it's no longer anything close to a prominent feature. It's the same story with all sorts of calibration technology that, well, just sort of faded away. Check your color printer, and it probably has the calibration profiles off by default -- any pictures you print will also probably look a lot worse if you turn that stuff on. In a nutshell, hardware manufacturers include what they need to include for Microsoft & Windows, but they more importantly make sure things just look right, or else they wouldn't sell much product. Believe your eyes, & those of anyone next to you, Before you trust any absolute calibration systems. Again, give Lutcurve a try to see if it can *enhance* your display to suit *you* & *your work*.

Finally, often the difference between a *Semi*-pro & a pro, is the pro thinks of the lowest common denominator. For audio this means making sure their tunes sound good on your mp3 player as well as sound systems costing thousands. For TV, it means your work doesn't look like crap on a huge big screen, or the cheapest portable TV. This also applies to the web... Most people have never touched the adjustments on their monitor -- they may not even know their monitor has adjustments! What good does it do you if your web site colors are perfect, according to some hardware calibration, but look terrible for 90% of your visitors? If Lutcurve helps you get it done, use it, & please disregard anyone telling you it's not exact enough. Exact only matters when you want the colors on your monitor to match the color swatches at the commercial printer.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+11)
#35

Lutcurve is a pretty cool & useful app that ***may*** help you get more from your display. Before you try it though, understanding some basic, related points about monitor calibration can make or break your results...

1) Most importantly, unless you have a pro display, &/or if you're using an LCD, your monitor is simply not capable of perfection. DO NOT try more than relatively minor adjustments -- be satisfied with getting things *close*. If after living with your adjustments for a couple of days you feel it could use a little more, then run through the calibration process again, going further this time. On most monitors, trying for perfect levels, including black & white points, will throw your display off so that everything looks wrong.

2) Most monitors cannot display true black, especially LCDs, & to compensate the manufacturer has developed & set what you can think of as a gray or brightness curve that is *in theory* wrong. However, it's what makes things look right. Correcting that curve to some textbook definition often makes everything look wrong.

3) For LCD monitors: An LCD is incapable of displaying all the colors possible with a traditional CRT [Picture Tube]. Manufacturers use a LOT of *Tricks* to make the displays look similar. Often you have special profiles built in, for example my LG has a mode to make text more readable. Adjusting an LCD monitor using the monitor's controls often turns off whatever profile you had set. Very often you cannot do better than the engineers who designed that profile, and you'll make the display look worse.

If you keep those 3 simple points in mind, & use Lutcurve to slightly enhance your display -- adjust it to suit both your eyes & the environment / lighting where you use it -- I think you'll be pretty happy.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#34

Thank you Mike (#15). It really is portable. Just copy the Lutcurve from C:\Program\Atrise to your portable, and then register again, which will create a lut_cm.ini file in that folder containing the license.

Reply   |   Comment by Andrew  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#33

I'd just as soon have these computers - televisions as well - return to black & white where the contrast was noteworthy. I know this obviously dates me and I know this is probably off-topic with a discussion of this program, yet just thought I'd put in my 2-cents' worth for what it's worth ;-)

Reply   |   Comment by anne-ology  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-9)
#32

Some monitors are hopeless and this software will probably help those with them to get better results. I'm happy with both of mine as they are top end and give excellent results.

My nephew has an LCD flat screen monitor which is quite the opposite. I cannot bear to use it for more than a few minutes. He would benefit from this but I doubt he could be bothered to try it and I'm not doing it for him!

In other words, seems an excellent offer for those who know something is lacking with their displays.

Reply   |   Comment by billae  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-6)
#31

#16 John, you are not paying anything for this already, it's free...

Reply   |   Comment by Karin  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#30

Installed and ran perfectly under Vista Home Premium, regestered without a hitch. Now, on to the software itself:

One of my pet peeves has always been the color balance of my laptop's monitor as compared to the home computer's CRT display - no surprise that there's a difference, but in any case I thought it was about time to try and do something about that. Today's giveaway worked very well - it did exactly what it said it would do, the manual is impressive, and the onscreen help in program is fantastic. It might be able to use a bit of simplification for some, as this never hurts, but as it is it seems easy enough to understand.
While there might be freeware alternatives, I haven't tried any of them, and so cannot comment on their quality. However, after less than 10 minutes with Lutcurve my LCD looks better than it ever has - my photos are vivid and colorful again!
On the whole, this is definitely a keeper for me. Thanks again, GOTD, for a fantastic giveaway, and thanks to the makers of this software for a job well done.

Reply   |   Comment by Xarathos  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+9)
#29

I agree with 11 that many people have their monitors out of adjust. The program installed well on Vista Ultimate. I tried it out on an Acer X221W LCD monitor. To be fair to Atrise, I may not be very good making adjusts with this program so I can't speak of my results as good or bad. I got my best picture using my monitors alto adjust.

Reply   |   Comment by jempetts  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#28

Hi

I've just discovered that this program appears to be PORTABLE !!!


Once registered - simply copy the installed program folder [Lutcurve] to a USB stick etc. & run it from there - it seems to work perfectly :o)

Cheers all :o)

- Mike -
(Macs-PC)

Reply   |   Comment by M@CS-PC  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+16)
#27

For comment #17. Lutcurve may be used for the AdobeRGB color space as fine as for sRGB or another color spaces. Basically it is a color space independent. Use a corresponding color profile to match your monitor actual color space settings. There is no any patents or similar things. Most of 2008-2009 monitors have AbobeRGB-like colors.

Reply   |   Comment by Developer  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#26

Does this work with dual monitors? Do you calibrate each one separately and does it save the calibrations? Thanks.

Reply   |   Comment by teebee  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-15)
#25

Forgot.

It supports WIN XP x64! (I get REALLY tired of running into programs which won't run on x64!)

Multiple monitors with each their own calibration!

Hurray!

And thanks to the developer for clearing some things up.

Reply   |   Comment by Charles Barnard  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)
#24

Continued From . . .
"Before U run Setup.exe - switch off Ur firewall - Run Setup - Then as soon as U see the GREY install box appear - switch Ur firewall back on again !

Ur Firewall should not be off for more than 20 seconds MAX !!!"

By The Way - just a quick continuation . . .

IF U are able to force Ur Firewall to allow the Setup.exe to penetrate WITHOUT switching off the Firewall completely - USE THIS OPTION INSTEAD !!!


This should prevent the ISIS error & leave Ur Firewall UP constantly as well - U get the best of both worlds :o)
____________________________________________________________________________
IF U require any other help - please e-mail me directly at

Advice@Macs-PC.Co.UK
& I’ll be happy to help whoever I can !

Cheers all :o)

- Mike -
(Macs-PC)

Reply   |   Comment by M@CS-PC  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#23

Factories seldom calibrate a monitor correctly, invariably the back light is set to it's brightest setting and contrast is set to it's highest setting. There are often color differences too. Factories do not adjust monitors for the "best" display, they adjust for "good enough." Assuming that the user will recalibrate and adjust for the working environment

Most people don't seem to know this, and since the human brain is capable of adjusting to all sorts of "off" colors, at least when you "know" what the color is supposed to be, it makes only marginal difference to most until it reaches the point that they cannot see the images at all. (Don't believe me? Adjust the color of your screen to be definitely too green and then use it for an hour. You will probably cease to notice that the color is "off" after only a few minutes.) For most purposes "close" is more than good enough.

The main purpose of calibration is for those of us working with color that is to be reproduced elsewhere: photography & other visual arts. For us, it is vital that what is displayed on the screen match what will be displayed on the TV or printed. Without that assurance you can go mad trying to get things to reproduce properly!

Unfortunately, most games seem to be written by programmers who ALSO don't understand this, thus games are often nearly impossible to see detail in when they are dark, unless you play in a pitch-black room. Forcing you to raise the brightness quite a bit just in order to see the image.

You cannot damage a monitor by adjusting it's color/brightness---at worst, you could hasten the death of the back light, but they're really cheap and easy to replace, and seldom fail anyway.

True calibration requires outside reference and/or measurement tools, and is not cheap & simple. You will note that most calibration tools also allow you to verify that things look the way you want them to using sample images.

The program itself does what it says it does, does it fairly easily. My one complaint is that like so many other programs, it wants to load every time the machine starts, and by it's nature, this seems excessive to me--though perhaps it is needed as the calibration is tweaked by the process?

Compared with Monitor Calibration Wizard, it is not as fully automated, which is perhaps not as good for the regular user, but for professionals who are used to dealing with specific colors, this is an advantage. Neither program is superior, which is "better" will depend upon the user.

Many visual artists can easily recognize color differences from one PMS color to another--differences which to many people are invisible. For these users, an improperly adjusted monitor is extremely annoying at best, and can waste lots of time.

If you deal with photography or visual arts, and you aren't happy with the differences between the way your images look on the monitor and how they print, then calibration is something you need, even if you are not a pro.

Reply   |   Comment by Charles Barnardc  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+30)
#22

John @ #7 "Tried to install it but get NSIS error. Downloaded it again but still the same on XP"

Hi
The reason for Ur ISIS Error is because Ur FIREWALL is blocking the Setup.exe from seeing the GAOTD website for key confirmaition.
The software is written to crash / fail if no connection is available - to prevent install after 24hrs is up !

Before U run Setup.exe - switch off Ur firewall - Run Setup - Then as soon as U see the GREY install box appear - switch Ur firewall back on again !

Ur Firewall should not be off for more than 20 seconds MAX !!!

I know this because I HAD THE EXACT SAME FAULT ... & CURED IT & I too am running good old XP PRO :o)

I hope this helps all those with the troublesome "ISIS Error"
- NOTE - This ISIS fault is likley to occur on MOST GAOTD setups
so just use the same procedure for each setup.exe !!!
____________________________________________________________________________
IF U require any other help - please e-mail me directly at

Advice@Macs-PC.Co.UK
& I'll be happy to help whoever I can !

Cheers all :o)

- Mike -
(Macs-PC)

Reply   |   Comment by M@CS-PC  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)
#21

To Phil:
"Tweaking" your monitor settings are not going to decrease the life of your monitor. Why should they? If your not suppose to change them cause it'll wreak your monitor, why does the manufacturer put them there so that they can be changed? If it was done at the factory, they would never have needed to add user controls. But the reason the controls are there is so you can adjust the screen for the conditions in your home or program. Also, for photographers, adjusting the screen is very important so the picture matches exactly what the print will be. I just wanted to put this here so nobody will think that adjusting the screen will screw it up or shorten the life. The only adjustment I can think of that would shorten the life of a screen is turning up the brightness on an old CRT. This will reduce the life somewhat, but not by very much. Hope this help people and sorry for rambling on.

Reply   |   Comment by Jonathan  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+49)
#20

I am a software developer. First of all, thank you, a GAOTD community, for comments. I found some questions and misunderstanding here, so here is my comments and answers.

1. Lutcurve is safe to replace Adobe Gamma, because Lutcurve can be used with any icc profile. Operation system will use a profile created with Adode Gamma, and also a precise curve will be downloaded to your video card hardware. You can also safe use it with a Window 7 calibration feature.

2. The recommended here freeware programs, Adobe Gamma, Windows 7, Radeon and NVidia drivers have no feature to editing a monitor nonlinearity, so you will get much better image quality. Please read the software manual for possible advantages. Also, the program uses special methods to improve a quality of the visual calibration as a program specific.

3. If you want to get precise results, it is strongly recommended to use the program with a icc profile from a monitor manufacturer. Just look at the monitor CD to install it. Or search it in a manufacturer web site. The result will be very similar to a hardware-based results. Also some our users have reported better results than low-cost hardware calibrators, because your eye has better sensibility. A non-linearity is more perceptible in compare with a color error.

4. Users may report here no visual changes. But most general users have no experience in calibration and correct color corrections. So they may see no noticeable changes. These details very important for
image editing, printing and correction.

Also I know there is some old video cards those have no possible to download a LUT curve to the card. Also most of Microsoft drivers have no such feature. These users will see no any changes at all.

5. It is very important to place the software images on the center of the screen and on the central horizontal line for TN and S-PVA/MVA based LCD screens and laptops. So if your monitor menu covers the screen center, just move it. See the monitor manual for details. Also most monitors have advanced menu that already placed on a corner.

6. Almost all LCD monitors today need to be calibrated. Even NEC pro-series displays with a factory-calibrated curves have small nonlinearity that may be fixed with the program. Gamer or office monitors always have a 5-10% nonlinearity. Your monitor size and cost is not a factor to be sure about the monitor quality.

7. All the software bugs must be fixed. So if you have a crash or similar case, just contact to the support service. But in general, the program is stable.

8. The term "calibration" is correct. Color-space correction is "characterization". Hardware devices made two these actions. The program - only calibration.

Reply   |   Comment by Developer  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+82)
#19

Supports multiple displays!

While it is true that a proper set of hardware reference tools are required for professional work (if you use a plotter or do official cartographic work you need professional calibration to ensure that your screen matches the fine colour resolutions that will be the output) this one seems fine for the amateur. For a test, I substituted a jpg of my family and renamed it lutcurve_sRGB.jpg (kept the original, of course), and used it to get the known skin tones just right on the screen. Now to see how close it is to the printed copy...

Reply   |   Comment by Cornflower  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#18

I think it can be util just for some technical pourposes, as maintenance.
I installed it and registered with my own name (not "giveawayoftheday").

Reply   |   Comment by Antonio Saverio  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-21)
#17

How do you calibrate the armature?

Reply   |   Comment by dog  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-23)
#16

My 20" LCD monitor works great as is, and I don't think "Tweaking"it will do anything more than cut short its life expectancy. All monitors are calibrated at the factory for a reason, and if you start messing with the settings you can ruin your monitor. Since everyone sees colors differently, what you may think is right to another is wrong. Brightness and contrast is all one should concern themselves with and stay within the factories options because they're there for a reason.
If you calibrate your monitor for one program, then you have to do it for any other program that is used in the work flow for color management. The monitor doesn't have the capability to adjust for every game or photo program you use.

Reply   |   Comment by Phil  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-80)
#15

I like this product. It is straight-forward and easy to use. Tips first, then review, lol!

To Register, click on the blue registration message in the top right corner of black box. This color combination is a little hard on my old eyes, lol. The loader is a separate program to set it up to run every time that you start up your user ID on your PC. Probably very cost effective.

I am a photographer, like Tina, comment #10. For me, calibration is essential to get the colors that I view as accurate as possible. I use a different program and tool that cost me a lot of money several years ago to do this for me. I use the Adobe RGB settings, which are a photographic standard. This program does not have them as an option, but that is probably because Apple requires royalty fees to use them. Most folks who would need the Apple RGB color scheme have the Apple program or something similar to my Colorvision software and hardware.

So what we have here is an excellent color adjustment system that is easy to use for "the rest of us". Viewing any pictures or museum paintings or B&W photos online will be improved by using this program.

Reply   |   Comment by Rick Siegert  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+27)
#14

There have been some truly crappy programs on GAOTD but none more so than this. Just about *every* monitor has a free utility to do this and if they don't, others are freely available.

As for this...notice it places all of the calibrations smack dab in the middle of the screen, which isn't bad EXCEPT that this is where my monitor control window appears; covering up the calibration. Might be a fault of my monitor and I might be able to change it if I cared enough to do so (which I don't) but it nonetheless is kind of a MAJOR design flaw in this sw, do you think? Note to developer: If you are going to try to sell something that others give away, you better make dam sure your product works better. Yours doesn't.

Bottom-line, skip this POS

Reply   |   Comment by Lickity Split  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-80)
#13

Dont need this. I use my 52 inch flat screen HD tv as my monitor.

Reply   |   Comment by Mike Rowe  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-150)
#12

If color accuracy and the ability to match prints to your monitor are important to you, or you simply want the best colors you can get, I think having a decent hardware calibration utility is justified. Now if you’re seriously into digital photography then stuff like this is essential.

Right after the install, I did a basic run thru and was impressed by those results, especially the blacks. Then I reopened the program and begin the fine-tuning. The changes are done in real time, so there’s no waiting for it to process whatever adjustments you make (that’s a nice feature). After going thru the entire process my screen was significantly improved, it’s vibrant. So based on that experience I would recommend checking out this program to anyone wanting accurate monitor calibration.

Other sites that may be useful:

- If anyone cares to see whether their monitors could use some calibrating:
http://epaperpress.com/monitorcal/

- Online Basic Monitor Calibration can be had at:
http://www.displaycalibration.com/

- A good learning site about calibration:
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration.htm

Reply   |   Comment by Renegade  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+57)
#11

I tried this out on a laptop that I like to use and the tweaks to the RGB makes a noticably improved display. The user manual is very well written; I've quoted a few important comments.

Software adjustments are made to the monitor “look up table” (LUT) which is the method used for computers to convey brightness and color information to display devices. The ability for precise adjustments of the red, green and blue values for up to 256 gradations from black to white, enable the generation of a linear gray scale, (brightness curve).

and....

Note for color professionals: The software calibration method cannot give you color precision, because it does not take into account monitor RGB color coordinates. It is impossible to create correct ICC profiles without a measurement device.


It may seem complicated to some, but I found the program was logically organized and I made my adjustments in about 10 minutes. An easier GUI is always appreciated, and this one could certainly benifit from dumbing down, but it is well done and professional.

I'll be recommending this software to my associates today.

Reply   |   Comment by MaKaiwen  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+42)
#10

Since most people's monitors are horribly out-of-adjustment, this is worth downloading for the manual alone. As I have a Media Center PC, I had already done a basic calibration of my monitors, so they didn't need much tweaking. Can this do what hardware calibration systems do? No, of course not. This is for basic adjustment. From the user manual:

Lutcurve is designed to provide optimal monitor display for these values:
Gamma:2.2, White Point:6500K, Luminance Level:80 cd/m2, Color Space:sRGB or native monitor color space.
The software is based on an article "Measurement of display transfer characteristic (gamma)" by A. Roberts. The calibration method is optimized for physiological sensibility of human eye to gray tones.

Note for color professionals: The software calibration method cannot give you color precision, because it does not take into account monitor RGB color coordinates. It is impossible to create correct ICC profiles without a measurement device.


PC display and color management are horribly complex. There are all sorts of issues with different devices and different applications. Here's a very small example of some of the settings: Vista color management settings (subset), refer to Windows Help and Support. NVIDIA color settings (subset), note also the options in the left panel.

Lutcurve doesn't address the full complexities of PC display and color management. It cannot be used with other gamma loaders, such as Adobe (standard restriction for this type of application). If you install it, you don't have to use it.

I wasn't able to trace the installation, because my installation tracing application crashes when comparing its snapshots. I doubt it clobbered files used by that application, as it was already open, and any DLL's, etc., that it uses would already have been loaded. Also, it didn't do anything bad to the registered DLL's. That utility has never crashed before, but the traces probably just exposed a bug; I'll use a file-sharing service and send them to the developer for analysis (after rebooting, in the unlikely event that that fixes things).

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  14 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+82)
Add a comment

iPhone app giveaways »

Tilterpillar Giveaway
Play this classic game of "snake" by tilting your device as a controller.
$1.99 ➞ free today
C.H.A.D. Giveaway
A collection of animated stickers about the pool season.
$0.99 ➞ free today
App Secret Giveaway
App Secret offers you a new way to protect your data and keep all the important information untouched.
$1.99 ➞ free today
Modern Ludo Giveaway
Use your bullet to destroy all enemies!
$4.99 ➞ free today
Calendar Widget - Date Widgets Giveaway
Calendar Widget is the app you need for customising your home screen with beautiful calendar.
$0.99 ➞ free today

Android app giveaways »

klocki Giveaway
A relaxing game, loaded with lots of different features.
$0.99 ➞ free today
3D EARTH PRO - local forecast Giveaway
Meet the wonderful 3D Earth. The most beautiful app, ever!
$9.99 ➞ free today
Heat Pump Calculator Giveaway
Installing heat pumps to meet your heating and cooling needs is becoming increasingly popular.
$1.49 ➞ free today
52 Card - Learn & Practice Card Counting Giveaway
52 card lets you learn to count cards in the simplest and easiest way possible.
$1.49 ➞ free today
Passport Photo: ID Photo Print Giveaway
Passport Photo - ID Photo Print is a powerful passport photo editor that will adjust your passport size photo properly.
$4.99 ➞ free today