Calibration and Ubuntu (Linux)

[wogster]

Anyone know of a calibration tool that works well with Ubuntu or Linux in General?

 

[donbga]

Anyone know of a calibration tool that works well with Ubuntu or Linux in General?

What kind of calibration tool?

Don Bryant

 

[donbga]

Anyone know of a calibration tool that works well with Ubuntu or Linux in General?

Try out these links:

http://jcornuz.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/color-managed-monitor-i/

http://www.argyllcms.com/

http://freshmeat.net/projects/displaycalibrator/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_color_management

they should get you started.

Don

 

[MVNelson]

the Argyll system works well . You have to be pretty versed on Linux/BSD to get it installed and even better if you like command line work ...

 

[wogster]

What kind of calibration tool?

Don Bryant

You know the hardware colour meter type devices, is there one with native drivers?

 

[donbga]

You know the hardware colour meter type devices, is there one with native drivers?

I would say Google is your friend in this regard. This is one of the reasons I don't use Linux as a desktop OS.

Don

 

[wogster]

I would say Google is your friend in this regard. This is one of the reasons I don't use Linux as a desktop OS.

Don

Why because hardware makers are still worshipping that sorry excuse that Microsoft tries to pawn off as an operating system?

 

[donbga]

Why because hardware makers are still worshipping that sorry excuse that Microsoft tries to pawn off as an operating system?

Paul,

Take your complaint to Bill Gates or who ever else you are angry with. If Linux had a large segment of the desktop market then software and hardware vendors would support it more widely.

I use Linux but not as a desktop OS.

You could start a Windows session to generate an ICC profile for your display using what ever hardware and software that runs under Windows, but I'm not sure what Linux program you could use to load the profile. Check out the Argyle web page, they may have a loader and other software you can compile for color management tools and port to Ubuntu. Or you may need to use a different Linux distro to do what you need.

Isn't Linux wonderful?

Good luck,

Don

 

[wogster]

Paul,

Take your complaint to Bill Gates or who ever else you are angry with. If Linux had a large segment of the desktop market then software and hardware vendors would support it more widely.

I use Linux but not as a desktop OS.

You could start a Windows session to generate an ICC profile for your display using what ever hardware and software that runs under Windows, but I'm not sure what Linux program you could use to load the profile. Check out the Argyle web page, they may have a loader and other software you can compile for color management tools and port to Ubuntu. Or you may need to use a different Linux distro to do what you need.

Isn't Linux wonderful?

Good luck,

Don

Okay here is the issue, when I built this computer, I decided that paying a $500 tax to a corporation for a product I wasn't going to use, was not an option. So starting a Windows session is not an option, because the Windows software isn't on here.... Everything else works fine, the Digital camera, the scanner, the printer, use The Gimp for photo editing, it's just calibration which is the next step.

 

[donbga]

Okay here is the issue, when I built this computer, I decided that paying a $500 tax to a corporation for a product I wasn't going to use, was not an option. So starting a Windows session is not an option, because the Windows software isn't on here.... Everything else works fine, the Digital camera, the scanner, the printer, use The Gimp for photo editing, it's just calibration which is the next step.

Paul,

Perhaps someone else here on Hybrid has an answer for you. FWIW, I have a Linux server running CentOS that is used to support an Oracle database server, so I'm not anti-Linux. I've used Unix/Linux for many years in the IT world.

There are tools out there for Linux that support some of the older Datacolor Spyder colorimeters. These may work well enough for your needs. As I said you will have to google around for information on how to port these tools over to Ubuntu.

Good luck,

Don Bryant

 

[pierods]

Since usually Linux users are very vehement about their choice, i''ll start by saying that IT'S ONLY MY OPINION, you don't have to agree with it.

I am writing this message from a Linux Fedora installation, on which I recompiled the kernel, but that's for work.

Photos, a whole different story.

You have to:

1. generate a profile for your monitor
2 load that profile

To generate a profile for your monitor you have two choices:

- compile from source some arcane utility called Monaco or something of the kind, that only supports an old color meter that you have to buy on ebay

- or, generate an ICC profile on Windows and then copy it to your Linux installation.

To load the profile, you auto-run xcalib with that profile.

But the problem is that you are looking at much more than calibration when dealing with photos.

[Remember: don't flame me! It's only my opinion! You can disagree!]

If you are doing serious photography, consider the following:

- say you generated your profile in Linux with Monaco. How accurate is that old color meter you bought used on Ebay?

- say you generated your profile in windows. Is the linux video card driver going to interpret that profile the same way the windows driver interprets it?

- great, now you have a "calibrated screen". Cool. What about the printer? How you gonna calibrate it?

-talking about the printer: that fancy printer you wanna buy, does it have a linux driver?

- one more: you wanna go 64 bits so you can edit your photos faster. You want to find the 64 bit linux driver of your fancy printer. Water in the desert, hell freezing etc are all more likely finds.

- let's keep going. now you have 4000 photos and you want to organize them. lightroom does it in a snap. in Linux you do...what?

- You edit your photo in your RAW application and wanna pass it on to Gimp. You'd better do that in 8 bits - Gimp does not do more than that (it will "in the future")

- you wanna do some fancy editing in Gimp. You wanna learn Gimp. No classes. You "ask the community" [I ask the community all the time, but it takes time and Gimp is big and complex].

- your friend comes to your places to edit some photos together. He exported the photos as a Lightroom catalog. You open that catalog with...?

In general, Linux is at priority zero for camera makers, printer makers, software makers.

My two cents.

 

[RLYPhoto]

I agree with your assessment.

I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit, moving away from Windows XP. I have found great replacements for everything I need except professional photo editing software. My cameras record 14-bit color channel raw files. Why would I want to downstep my master images to 8-bit in Gimp? Nope.

For this reason alone, I keep Windows XP around to run Adobe CS3 and to catalog my image library. Actually, I run Windows XP as a task under Ubuntu using Sun's Virtual Box. I see both OS applications on the same desktop, running at the same time, and I use the same harddisk directories to store my photo files. It's been very stable with no data loss or conflicts.

I figure in a couple of years, I'll reassess the photo editing software picture then. If I need to find an OS solution because Windows XP breathed it's last breath, then I would probably move to Apple OSX. with the Adobe products on that platform.

 

[P C Headland]

If you want a reasonable image editor that you can run on Linux, and can cope with it not being free, you could try LightZone.

 

[RLYPhoto]

If you want a reasonable image editor that you can run on Linux, and can cope with it not being free, you could try LightZone.

Thanks for the lead, I had not heard of LightZone. It might prove to be a candidate for my future needs on Linux for a photo editing software. I did notice it states it does not have things like healing brushes like Adobe Photoshop. For portrait photography, this sometimes is essential.

 

[pierods]

Thanks for the lead, I had not heard of LightZone. It might prove to be a candidate for my future needs on Linux for a photo editing software. I did notice it states it does not have things like healing brushes like Adobe Photoshop. For portrait photography, this sometimes is essential.

Bibble has the brushes and it runs on linux.

BUT

as soon you will want to print with that delicious special ink that needs that special Windows-only software...SOL

I love Linux but for my personal sanity, for my photos, I launch Windoze.

 

[ablyth]

Try out these links:

http://jcornuz.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/color-managed-monitor-i/

http://www.argyllcms.com/

http://freshmeat.net/projects/displaycalibrator/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_color_management

they should get you started.

Don

I've been looking for such a list of options. Thanks. I have tried IProf, which is available on Ubuntu Software Centre, but it has never worked.

 

[donbga]

I've been looking for such a list of options. Thanks. I have tried IProf, which is available on Ubuntu Software Centre, but it has never worked.

Thanks for the update.

Don

 

[Ulrich Drolshagen]

I suggest using argyllcms. It's not that hard to install and it provides everything you will need to profile your screen and scanner. It supports quite some calibration tools. I use eyeone. AFAIK to profile your printer you will need a colorimeter which works with reflected light. Nothing an amateur usually will have handy. But for instance epson has standard profiles for its printers and supplies drivers for linux.
Argyll supplies the commandline tool dispwin to load the monitor profile automatically at login. The profile is stored in /usr/share/color/icc. Besides gimp showfoto is profile aware, there may be others. It's a pity gimp indeed does not support 16-bit tiffs but showfoto does. It has no retouching function though. As a very capable scanning software you can use vuescan for very little money.

Ulrich

 

[Loris Medici]

Wogster, see this for color management (if you're using the Gnome desktop):
Gnome Color Manager
See the FAQ/manual here. (The link on the project page is dead! Anyway, this document contains a list of supported calibration tools.)
This program can be installed from the Ubuntu Software Center.

As for image editing / cataloguing; I had noticed Bibble some time ago, but haven't tried it yet; it seems like a GREAT program. (And the PRO licence is cross-platform, just as I would like it - similar to Vuescan!) If I were in your place, I would use a combination of Bibble and Gimp. BTW, Gimp is going to support 16/48 bit editing soon, and I'm going to leave Windows right that moment! (I have Windows 7 ultimate - which I find very usable / good; it successfully replaced my Hackintosh setup. What I don't like with it is: those damn viruses / malware and - much better than old times but still very silly compared to Linux and OSX - bad memory management...)

Regards,
Loris.

 

[Loris Medici]

Dear pierods,

Absolutely no flaming, just few notes below...

...
- compile from source some arcane utility called Monaco or something of the kind, that only supports an old color meter that you have to buy on ebay
...

Gnome Color Manager supports modern calibration hardware...

...
- great, now you have a "calibrated screen". Cool. What about the printer? How you gonna calibrate it?
...

Gnome Color Manager does that too. In any case, for those who can afford, it's best to use a self-calibrating / self-profiling printer anyway...

...
-talking about the printer: that fancy printer you wanna buy, does it have a linux driver?
...

Now you got a point! I have the HP B9180, which (I have just learnt that) isn't supported by both Gimp Print or HPLIP. (And won't be supported in HPLIP forever!) :crying: Still, the printer's old, and Epsons are supported...

...
- one more: you wanna go 64 bits so you can edit your photos faster. You want to find the 64 bit linux driver of your fancy printer. Water in the desert, hell freezing etc are all more likely finds.
...

Is 64 bit faster, really? I would stay on the 32bit kernel with PAE support... That's the default for desktop-class machines no?

...
In general, Linux is at priority zero for camera makers, printer makers, software makers.
...

Agree. I'm sure that will change in a couple of years, though...

Regards,
Loris.

 

[Loris Medici]

Oops! Just noticed that the thread is almost two years old. :blush:

 

[Ulrich Drolshagen]

Oops! Just noticed that the thread is almost two years old. :blush:

Me too, yesterday. OTOH it's never too late to provide information which may come in handy for somebody.

Ulrich

 

[dslater]

Paul,

Take your complaint to Bill Gates or who ever else you are angry with. If Linux had a large segment of the desktop market then software and hardware vendors would support it more widely.

I use Linux but not as a desktop OS.

You could start a Windows session to generate an ICC profile for your display using what ever hardware and software that runs under Windows, but I'm not sure what Linux program you could use to load the profile. Check out the Argyle web page, they may have a loader and other software you can compile for color management tools and port to Ubuntu. Or you may need to use a different Linux distro to do what you need.

Isn't Linux wonderful?

Good luck,

Don

Don,
The ICC profile shouldn't be a problem loading on Linux as these files adhere to a public standard. However, I'm not sure that you'll get a good profile for Linux this way since there is no guarantee that the Windows video drivers will drive the video card the same way as the Linux drivers.

Paul, the Argyll CMS software builds and runs on both Windows and Linux. They even have a set of pre-built binaries which they claim run on Ubuntu 7.10, although personally - given how old Ubuntu 7.1 is, I'd grab the source and attempt building it myself before resorting to the pre-built binaries.

 

[Lee L]

See a review/description I just posted today in this forum about the ColorHug monitor calibration colorimeter, which works under a live Fedora Linux CD to produce a monitor profile for any OS.

Lee

 

[Loris Medici]

Don,
The ICC profile shouldn't be a problem loading on Linux as these files adhere to a public standard. However, I'm not sure that you'll get a good profile for Linux this way since there is no guarantee that the Windows video drivers will drive the video card the same way as the Linux drivers.

The simplest way of loading *.icc / *.icm profiles under Linux is "xcalib". (Search it in the package repository of your distro first...)

And, it's very true that you have to generate the profile under the exact conditions (OS / monitor setup / lighting ...) you're going to use it. So, don't try use a profile generated using Windows under Linux, odds are the calibration will be off significantly!

Paul, the Argyll CMS software builds and runs on both Windows and Linux. They even have a set of pre-built binaries which they claim run on Ubuntu 7.10, although personally - given how old Ubuntu 7.1 is, I'd grab the source and attempt building it myself before resorting to the pre-built binaries.

Ubuntu included Color Management / Monitor-Printer calibration (as an interface to Argyll) as standard under their latest distribution. Try Ubuntu 12.04...

Regards,
Loris.