Setting Monitor Amber for Darkroom

craigclu · Jul 23, 2005

I recall seeing something, somewhere for tuning a monitor to the correct amber for darkroom use with B&W materials. I can't seem to find anything when looking just now. Is there a definition of the RGB settings to hit the right color or close to a starting point?

inthedark · Jul 23, 2005

I would think that you would simply want to aim to a color similar to your safelight filters and/or lower the brightness of your screen. If I was to guess, I would try something around 105/77/0 RGB respectively. Personally I don't keep a puter in the darkroom, just in case the mouse got bumped at the wrong time or whatever might happen to brighten the screen unexpectedly. Remember that your screen will display the above mentioned color differently than mine or anyone else's screen. So adjust and test.

panchromatic · Jul 23, 2005

i was wondering myself, that maybe there was a program that used a transparent "filter" within the computer to give it the safelight effect. I am also looking for something like this... though if nothing is found you can just buy a big safelight filter and put it in front of the screen.

Bob F. · Jul 23, 2005

I use my notebook with two layers of red film on a mountboard frame that slips over the screen - works fine.

Bob.

David A. Goldfarb · Jul 23, 2005

This sounds like Eugene Smith watching TV with a red filter in the darkroom. Today would he be browsing APUG?

Anyone up for designing the "Windows Safelight" color scheme?

inthedark · Jul 23, 2005

You all don't need a "thing" to set your desktop background OR the screensaver to a single color. Don't waste any $$

inthedark · Jul 23, 2005

David A. Goldfarb said:
This sounds like Eugene Smith watching TV with a red filter in the darkroom. Today would he be browsing APUG?

Anyone up for designing the "Windows Safelight" color scheme?

Becareful with this idea, because monitors are not the same, unless you can predetermine lightness, contrast, color scheme, driver quirks, etc. . .It might not be safe on all puters.

inthedark · Jul 23, 2005

inthedark said:
You all don't need a "thing" to set your desktop background OR the screensaver to a single color. Don't waste any $$

Neber mind this, I just figured out, you want to be able to be on th puter at the same time as it is safelight. . . I was thinking you were going to walk away and use it as a safelight.

inthedark · Jul 23, 2005

I just went into my monitor's color adjustment and removed (set to zero) both the green and blue, this took the brightness out, made everything including this white page, red; but everything was easy to read and see.

dancqu · Jul 23, 2005

inthedark said:
I just went into my monitor's color adjustment...

I think the screen color might be set from ' paint '. I've not
tried it but, perhaps, PAINT the screen any color. Dan

blaze-on · Jul 23, 2005

Why would you want to?
Safelights are cheap.

glbeas · Jul 23, 2005

blaze-on said:
Why would you want to?
Safelights are cheap.

Missed the point, the object is to be able to leave the monitor on while handling ortho or blue sensitive materials.

inthedark · Jul 23, 2005

dancqu said:
I think the screen color might be set from ' paint '. I've not
tried it but, perhaps, PAINT the screen any color. Dan

No, what you are suggesting would be similar to my background or screensaver idea, a blank unicolor screen.

If you go into the properties for your monitor, under SETTINGS>ADVANCED, you should have some type of color adjustment tab. . .OR just use the adjustment buttons found in the monitor menu, . . . the buttons for these are usually on the monitor near the base. Then reduce green and blue to zero and you can actually work, read, NOT have to have a blank screen. I could see putting this in the shop afterall, I could see some use to having it IF it doesn't have to be a blank screen, not getting on APUG necessarily, but maybe. I'm excited and intend to try it tonight, wherein I have some halftones and some BW continuous to print. Should be a reasonable test.

Donald Qualls · Jul 23, 2005

No, Dan. With a CRT monitor, the controls on the monitor itself are what you want -- as inthedark suggested, simply turn the blue and green intensity to zero and you have a nice red screen (which might or might not be "safe" but is the best chance available). On mine, these controls are under "User" along with two factory "color temperature" settings for 9300 K and 6500 K, presumably daylight and tungsten/halogen emulations.

Unfortunately, most laptop/notebook computers don't have similar controls for their built-in LCD monitors, and only some notebook video drivers have a similar control in software. Rubylith, OTOH, works with anything (though with the wrong screen colors, it would make the screen very hard to read).

dancqu · Jul 24, 2005

I thought Craig was interested in having a one
color no text screen. I suppose he could work
that with a text screen; two screens and
joggle twixt the two. Dan

craigclu · Jul 24, 2005

I have some software that runs a timer system and in laying out a new darkroom floorplan, I was thinking of getting this sorted a bit and allowing for the space/location if I was apt to put it to any use. The software is especially nice for film (in tanks) developing (where the glow wouldn't matter anyway) as I've got some agitation schemes worked out that are not easily done while manually timing. As I've become more dependent on this timing, I thought it might be nice to have right in the darkroom. I currently go in the next room where an old computer (Win95) sits to use the software.

I also have all of my chemical recipes in spreadsheets so I think having a computer right in the darkroom would be handy for me. Having a safe screen color that would be safe for papers would just be a bonus for me and add some flexibility for potential chores in the future.

127 · Jul 24, 2005

inthedark said:
I would think that you would simply want to aim to a color similar to your safelight filters and/or lower the brightness of your screen.

Matching the visual colour of a safelight aint gonna work - You need to think of the spectra...

A light bulb puts out a near continuous spectra while a monitor is made up of three seperate light sources. The results might look the same to the human eye but they're very different. To get something which looks like the orange/red of (some) safelights you might be putting out a lot of green to trick the eye into seeing orange (whereas REAL orange may contain little green).

The red gun is (probably) putting out the least energy in the bands that are affacting orthochromatic materials, so I'd set up a colour scheme which just uses shades of read (or cut the wires in the monitor lead for green and blue). After that it's just a question of intensity - adjust the brightness and do a safelight test.

Ian

Lee L · Jul 24, 2005

127 said:
Matching the visual colour of a safelight aint gonna work - You need to think of the spectra...

A light bulb puts out a near continuous spectra while a monitor is made up of three seperate light sources. The results might look the same to the human eye but they're very different. To get something which looks like the orange/red of (some) safelights you might be putting out a lot of green to trick the eye into seeing orange (whereas REAL orange may contain little green).

The red gun is (probably) putting out the least energy in the bands that are affacting orthochromatic materials, so I'd set up a colour scheme which just uses shades of read (or cut the wires in the monitor lead for green and blue). After that it's just a question of intensity - adjust the brightness and do a safelight test.

Ian

I'd agree that you don't want any green or blue content, but the programs you run would have to take that into account and run in a monochrome red scheme, or perhaps monochrome B&W with the blue and green channels off.

I work in an observatory, and a coworker bent the red pin on our monitor cable plugging it in in the dark. That gave us a monitor with no red signal, which is the inverse of what we need in an observatory. This brings to mind a possible solution for any color monitor without permanently cutting wires. Make a short extension cable to go on the monitor cable, but leave off the blue and green connections, or put an inline switch to toggle them on/off as needed. Standard pinouts for monitor cables should be easy to find on the internet.

You'll still need to adopt a color scheme that's readable, and keep the maximum brightness on any given screen display that you use below fogging levels.

In Xwindows under linux, you could try:
xgamma -ggamma 0.1 -bgamma 0.1
at the command prompt. You can't go below 0.1 on the gamma, and the screen runs from black through red to white, so you'd still need a red filter over the screen to knock down the full spectrum highlights.

Lee

craigclu · Jul 24, 2005

Are there other spectrum emissions from a monitor that could also get some reaction on papers?

dancqu · Jul 24, 2005

craigclu said:
Are there other spectrum emissions from a monitor
that could also get some reaction on papers?

What papers do you have in mind? I use only Graded
papers with quite bright yellow-orange lighting. Graded
papers reach zero sensitivity at 500nm +/- a bit.

Many years ago I was exposed to the nearly unbelievable
high level of light used in a Graded paper darkroom. I wadded
back into darkroom work a few years ago and stocked up on
a dichroic enlarger and VC paper. I soon tired of the dim
amber-red light and shelved the enlarger and VC paper.

Not many Graded Paper users speak up but there must be
quite a few. Many Graded papers are available. I think if
there are any last print paper survivors, it will be the
Graded papers. Dan

Thomassauerwein · Jul 24, 2005

David A. Goldfarb said:
This sounds like Eugene Smith watching TV with a red filter in the darkroom. Today would he be browsing APUG?

Anyone up for designing the "Windows Safelight" color scheme?

It is really easy to do with a small B/W. Just unscrew the back push the tube into the casing and slip a red (aprox #25) filter over the screen and under the frame then pull the tube back into place sandwiching the filter into place. Then screw it back together. Never had a problem with fogging. Had to pull mine out because I needed the room but it was nice while it was there.

Bob F. · Jul 24, 2005

David A. Goldfarb said:
This sounds like Eugene Smith watching TV with a red filter in the darkroom. Today would he be browsing APUG? <snip>

I do... and use the notebook to stream BBC radio comedy shows from the Beeb web site and play MP3s as well as the more prosaic use of LeLab software for timing and f-stop printing calculations etc...

Cheers, Bob.

127 · Jul 25, 2005

Thomassauerwein said:
It is really easy to do with a small B/W. Just unscrew the back push the tube into the casing and slip a red (aprox #25) filter over the screen and under the frame

Just to add the usual safety warning - treat monitors/tv sets with the same respect you would a flash powerpack. They use similar high tension(voltage) circuits that can hurt you pretty badly, even when unplugged and (aparently) discharged.

A small b&w tv is probably not too bad, but can still cause you to practise your anglo-saxon vocabulary. Also (am I stating the obvious here!), but crt's are made out of glass - they're toughened at the front for safety, but once you start dismantling them you have access to some more fragile parts - when a tube breaks it implodes, and fires shards of glass at you...

I'm sure you all know this, and thomas' sugguestion is a good one which can be done safely provided reasonable care is taken, but I wouldn't want anyone (for example) to try disabling the guns internally - that would be a VERY dumb thing to do...

just be carefull if you fool around with monitors

Ian

127 · Jul 25, 2005

David A. Goldfarb said:
Anyone up for designing the "Windows Safelight" color scheme?

On a Mac you can press apple-alt-cltrl-8, and it switches the whole display into b&w negative. Being negative, the large areas of white background go black, and the overall brightness is reduced. It's part of the universal access settings, so it's very readable.

With a suitable filter/monitor lead this would work nicely.

Ian

Setting Monitor Amber for Darkroom

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency