Macbook/Pro/Air screen calibration thread.

Hey guys I was incidentally looking for some calibration tips for my Unibody Macbook Pro (late 2008) and I figured, why not set up a thread in which we can actually share our calibration profiles...

I've got the 9C84 which is the LG/Philips LP154WP3-TLA1 as far as Google says.

You can check your display manufacturer in System Preferences click Displays, go to Color tab and "Open Profile". In this list scroll down to number 17 which is "Apple display make and model information".

This is what Google says:
9C84 = LG/Philips LP154WP3-TLA1 (15" MacBook Pro)
9C85 = Chi Mei N154C6-L04 (15" MacBook Pro)
9C89 = LG/Philips LP133WX2 (MacBook UniBody)

Don't know about the Air, sorry.

There are quite a few people sharing their calibrations on Macrumors and other forums, I've tried some of them and frankly, they're either too blue or too bright.

My point with this thread is that if we actually do share our profiles, we should share them for people with the same displays, not just some random file. Like using a Macbook profile for a Pro, etc.

The profile I'm using right now is attached to this post. Other people with the same display can try it out and maybe we can edit it to our liking.

Cheers!

 

Here is a profile that I downloaded off the net and prefer to my own calibration.

Old uMB owners should try this because it is an appreciable improvement over the default setting:

 

So how do you create a profile?

 

System Preferences>Display>Color Tab>Calibrate button and follow the instructions.

The .icc profile will be saved in User>Library>ColorSync>Profiles

 

Thought I would post my 9C85 profile. I've been having weird results with my Spyder 3 Pro but this one ended up pretty good. 2.2 gamma 6500K Spyder 3 Pro icc.

 

neat thread idea!

 

Anyone got any for the 9C89 = LG/Philips LP133WX2 (MacBook UniBody)?

 

I've said this before and I'll say it again. It does NOT matter if everyone has the same panel type. There's a thing called panel variance, which means that my 9C89 will not be the same as another person's 9C89. There's a reason calibration tools exist! It's like getting your car tuned. If we say that calibrating your screen is the same thing as getting more performance out of your car, then follow this analogy:

A map created for your car will not work on someone else's car, even if they're an identical model. Each car needs to be custom tuned to eke out the extra performance. This is known to be true by all car enthusiasts.

My wife and I both have 24" LED Apple Cinema Displays. I calibrated my display using a Spyder2 Pro colorimeter. My color profile looks utterly crap on her display, and vice versa.

Get my point?

So again, share profiles if you want, but please don't kid yourself that you're hitting 2.2 65k color accuracy without calibrating your own personal screen first.

 

I have to agree with William. Sharing profiles are not going to get you perfect results, you can try if they look better than the standard colors ofcourse. If color is important to you eyeballing your calibration isn't going to get you anywhere. You'll maybe get somewhat better contrast and such but for good calibration you'll need a hardware solution.
The Spyder2 that William mentioned is a great tool but might be on the expensive side. Check out the Pantone Huey Pro, gets good results and it should be around $70

 

I am very aware that you will not be perfectly in spec. But for people who have had little to no success with calibrating laptop LED Macbook screens anything can be a boon. And if someone gets closer to a great "looking" screen, who cares. If you are doing color work on a laptop you obviously do not care about quality. I have done profiles with Spyder 3, Eye-one 2. Both suck in their own ways. The Spyder just much more. Best I could muster was with the i1. Macbook pro 9c85 Average delta E of 1.68. Not too bad but my contrast dropped to like 200:1 from default reading of 958:1. CSS transparencies were all pink not white and most spectrums were clipped. It looked more washed out than the default 1.8 gamma. I just can't get a good profile. At this point I am leaning towards Uncalibratable status on the LED screens. The same i1 produced rich color and dE Avg. 0.42 with my AS-IPS NEC screen. I expected that though.

 

I have checked as in the instructions below , but item 17 only says colour profile, there are 3 profiles , adobe rgb, generic and sRGB and i have checked them all.

"You can check your display manufacturer in System Preferences click Displays, go to Color tab and "Open Profile". In this list scroll down to number 17 which is "Apple display make and model information".

 

Do you actually think that fairly mediocre (compared to the best) TN laptop panels really warrant the kind of investment of time and money poured into it to perfect it?

I, like most other people, could care less if we are not experiencing 100% color accuracy on our dithered 6-bit panels.

 

You've got a point there i think. You're never going to achieve 100% accuracy anyway. Still, a better picture IS a better picture, whether it's that accurate or not it should at least look right to the one using the screen

 

@ Applebook.

You are correct.

 

So how do i tell which panel i have , i have followed post 1 and cannot tell.

 

I'm having no issues printing to match my 17" MacBook Pro, having calibrated using my Spyder2. 6-bit, crappy panels or otherwise. An issue so blown out of proportion it kills me. And I shoot a 5D MKII, not a point-and-shoot.