Best settings for an ancient CRT?

[Quartz]

I have an ancient machine, connected to an ancient proprietary SCSI
scanner, using an equally ancient Viewsonic VGA CRT. When creating
profiles with argyll I'm seeing a lot of strange errors like "Inverting
Jacobian failed (3)" and such. I'm assuming this is due to the monitor's
response curves being terrible. What settings can I use to minimize the
amount of wackyness and produce something reasonable? (This machine's
sole purpose is to pull things off the scanner and then print them to a
large Epson, so think 'prepress' more so than 'home/office').

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it has a certain smooth-brained appeal

[Quartz]

Post by Quartz
I have an ancient machine, connected to an ancient proprietary SCSI
scanner, using an equally ancient Viewsonic VGA CRT.
What settings can I use to minimize the
amount of wackyness and produce something reasonable?

I should also point out that this is for a client with zero budget. I'm
well aware that buying a new monitor is the *correct* solution, but
there's not much I can do about it, unfortunately.

______________________________________
it has a certain smooth-brained appeal

[Michael Darling]

Buying a "newer" used CRT from craigslist could be cheaper than paying you
to figure it out. (I have no idea if the error you're having is monitor
related.)

Post by Quartz
I have an ancient machine, connected to an ancient proprietary SCSI

Post by Quartz
scanner, using an equally ancient Viewsonic VGA CRT.

What settings can I use to minimize the

Post by Quartz
amount of wackyness and produce something reasonable?

I should also point out that this is for a client with zero budget. I'm
well aware that buying a new monitor is the *correct* solution, but there's
not much I can do about it, unfortunately.
______________________________________
it has a certain smooth-brained appeal

[Quartz]

Post by Michael Darling
Buying a "newer" used CRT from craigslist could be cheaper than paying
you to figure it out.

Believe me, if I could force people to be sane I would. Working odd jobs
like this is one step above working retail sometimes I swear.

Post by Michael Darling
(I have no idea if the error you're having is
monitor related.)

From what I understand, 'Jacobian matrix' has something to do with
predicting the response curves so it can speed up measurement process. I
believe that the errors here mean the monitor is too far out of whack
and the predictions are failing. I don't want to just put the
calibration speed slider on super slow mode though without a better
understanding of what's going on.

______________________________________
it has a certain smooth-brained appeal

[Graeme Gill]

From what I understand, 'Jacobian matrix' has something to do with predicting the response
curves so it can speed up measurement process. I believe that the errors here mean the
monitor is too far out of whack and the predictions are failing. I don't want to just put
the calibration speed slider on super slow mode though without a better understanding of
what's going on.

It just means that dispcal is struggling with either the consistency, or quantization
behavior of the measurements. It shouldn't stop you getting a calibration. Rather
than focus on such warnings, does the calibration and profile look any good ?

Graeme Gill.

[Quartz]

Post by Graeme Gill
It just means that dispcal is struggling

Wait, dispcal is struggling, or argyll? I thought dispcal was just a
front end and that argyll did all the actual work.

Post by Graeme Gill
Rather
than focus on such warnings, does the calibration and profile look any good ?

I guess? Nothing looks seriously out of whack at first glance, but I
haven't done any real testing since I didn't want to waste time if my
settings were wrong from the get go.

I'm more wondering if there's any sort of general tips for this
situation (like LUT vs matrix, drift compensation or not, etc), or if
with such an old monitor it all ends up the same. I'm fine tweaking a
few things and letting it run overnight once or twice, but don't want to
blow a whole week trying to squeeze blood from a stone.


______________________________________
it has a certain smooth-brained appeal

[Graeme Gill]

Wait, dispcal is struggling, or argyll? I thought dispcal was just a front end and that
argyll did all the actual work.

Eh ? dispcal is one of the programs that make up ArgyllCMS.

I guess? Nothing looks seriously out of whack at first glance, but I haven't done any real
testing since I didn't want to waste time if my settings were wrong from the get go.

I think that DispcalGUI provides some sort of verify report if you ask it - how
about trying that ? (There are manual ways of checking the profile, but I'm
guessing that you don't know the tools well enough to figure out how to do it.)

Graeme Gill.

[Quartz]

Post by Graeme Gill
Eh ? dispcal is one of the programs that make up ArgyllCMS.

Oh ok, I for some reason I thought it was completely 3rd party.

Post by Graeme Gill
I think that DispcalGUI provides some sort of verify report if you
ask it - how about trying that ?

I've used that before, but never totally trust a tool to verify its own
work (no way to tell that it's not making the same mistake twice).

Either way, having it tell me the profile is "good enough" doesn't
really help when I'm not totally sure that "good enough" is actually
good enough.

Again, I fully understand what I'm dealing with here, I'm not expecting
to get something amazing out of this monitor. I'm just wondering if
there's a sort of best practices standard procedure for getting the
likely best results in cases like these.

Post by Graeme Gill
(There are manual ways of checking
the profile, but I'm guessing that you don't know the tools well
enough to figure out how to do it.)

To be honest I don't. I only happened across dispcal+argyll last week
after getting fed up with my previous tools. My typical way of manually
verifying profiles is very carefully inspecting a series of test images
I have.

______________________________________
it has a certain smooth-brained appeal

[Quartz]

Post by Quartz

Post by Graeme Gill
Eh ? dispcal is one of the programs that make up ArgyllCMS.

Oh ok, I for some reason I thought it was completely 3rd party.

I think I figured out my confusion here.

When I've been referring to 'dispcal' what I was actually talking about
was 'dispcalGUI' (http://dispcalgui.hoech.net). I didn't realize argyll
had its own 'dispcal' and got things mixed up when reading about how to
set everything up the first time.

(For reference, I started with argyll 1.6.3 which I downloaded myself,
and then threw dispcalGUI 2.1 on top of that later).

______________________________________
it has a certain smooth-brained appeal

[Graeme Gill]

When I've been referring to 'dispcal' what I was actually talking about was 'dispcalGUI'
(http://dispcalgui.hoech.net). I didn't realize argyll had its own 'dispcal' and got
things mixed up when reading about how to set everything up the first time.

DispcalGUI is a GUI front end for ArgyllCMS dipcal. Hence the name.

DispcalGUI was written by Florian_Hoch

I wrote ArgyllCMS.

Graeme Gill.

[Quartz]

Post by Graeme Gill
DispcalGUI is a GUI front end for ArgyllCMS dipcal. Hence the name.
DispcalGUI was written by Florian_Hoch
I wrote ArgyllCMS.

Right. I knew it was a front end and that you were different people,
which is why I thought it was strange when you said 'dispcal is part of
argyll'. I thought that when people said "dispcal" it was shorthand for
"dispcalGUI". I downloaded dispcalGUI because I wanted a fast way to get
a profile out to see if it was Xrite's software causing my MacBook issue
or not, so I hadn't really learned how argyll itself worked yet. (To be
honest, I'm probably going to stick with argyll in the future now that
I've seen it, it gives me a lot more control).


But anyway, name confusion aside, I'm still wondering if there's a set
of best practices when dealing with old monitors, or if I should just
pick something that looks good and call it a day.

______________________________________
it has a certain smooth-brained appeal