Visual/Graphics Modders - Do you calibrate your displays?

[Guest 3841499]

Visual/Graphics Modders - Do you calibrate your displays?

From what I gather, only a few graphics/visual modders out there actually calibrate their displays. I am curious if its true. I became a strong enthusiast in display calibrate and if any modder wants to deliver the best image quality possible, PM me and I can guide you through it. I've done this on other forums and even got donations (not asking for any!). It does take quite a bit of back-and-forth PM'ing to explain it all and get it done properly.

You'd at least have to get ColorMunki Display colorimeter ($175 retail - I don't sell them or work for the company that sells them) or i1Display Pro ($250 - same accuracy as ColorMunki Display, but faster and supposedly works better on monitors with high refresh rate / LightBoost / ULMB). Spyder-series are too inaccurate and unreliable. You can't calibrate a display without a colorimeter... Lagom.nl is mostly used to verify black/white level crush/clipping, but the rest of the tests won't provide accurate information.

Downloadable ICC profiles are not a solution either because each and every display unit requires its own calibration and there's a good chance a downloaded ICC profile will actually make your image less accurate than factory defaults... Pre-calibrated displays are also BS. They may have a single white point pre-calibrated, but the other 254 grayscale levels and colorspace / color gamut can be WAY off.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Only a few gamers do it. Almost no one seems to realize how crucial accurate colors are for video games. It's why their games look like shit and they always complain about weird colors and bad image quality. There's nothing prettier than The Witcher 3 on a calibrated monitor. All those reshades are not just unnecessary, they often time distort the colors further and mess up black and white levels etc.

 

[Asmodean778]

My display is actually hardware calibrated. (LG ColorPrime 27MB85R).

I've often thought of the ridiculous nature of things in PC gaming where people can spend thousands on their hardware (inside the case) for GPU/CPU/Drives/MEM, etc. They then skimp out on their display. Their primary, sensory interface with the system.

This is excluding the "benchers, overclockers, etc" who spend crazy amounts on their hardware, to simply view bigger numbers in a benchmark...but that's not a debate I'm getting into here ; p

So yes, I'm a big advocate of a good display which is properly calibrated.

 

[thibaudv]

Only a few gamers do it. Almost no one seems to realize how crucial accurate colors are for video games. It's why their games look like shit and they always complain about weird colors and bad image quality. There's nothing prettier than The Witcher 3 on a calibrated monitor. All those reshades are not just unnecessary, they often time distort the colors further and mess up black and white levels etc.

I completely agree. Especially Toussaint, anyone even thinking about touching colours there is either crazy or has a bad monitor.

 

[BialyWilkk]

My display is actually hardware calibrated. (LG ColorPrime 27MB85R).

I've often thought of the ridiculous nature of things in PC gaming where people can spend thousands on their hardware (inside the case) for GPU/CPU/Drives/MEM, etc. They then skimp out on their display. Their primary, sensory interface with the system.

This is excluding the "benchers, overclockers, etc" who spend crazy amounts on their hardware, to simply view bigger numbers in a benchmark...but that's not a debate I'm getting into here ; p

So yes, I'm a big advocate of a good display which is properly calibrated.

What debate is there to be had? Overclocking is a hobby, it's like a kind of a sport, a competition, some people enjoy it.

---------- Updated at 10:13 PM ----------

I completely agree. Especially Toussaint, anyone even thinking about touching colours there is either crazy or has a bad monitor.

Toussaint has an orange/yellow tonemap filter in order to look warmer. You're crazy if you're going to deny that.

 

[WalteriusMaximus]

I have a well set up monitor, but I haven't calibrated it in the full sense of the word.

For me, it is fairly easy to tell if the texture modding I am doing looks as it should in the game. If it "looks right" in my game setting, it should in theory look right in any setup.

 

[Mezziaz]

Since photo editing is a big interested of mine I make sure to have my monitors calibrated. I also want to see witness every game the way the developers intended it to be seen.

Some might doubt me on this since I created a Reshade preset for this game. Just because I see the devs vision of the visuals more accurately doesn't mean I have to 100% agree with vision. How you want your colours to look is also a very subjective thing but of course I give every game a chance first before I decide if I want to tinker with it for my own personal liking.

Blood and Wine has so far satisfied me more in this regard than the base game though, it is actually not THAT crazyily vibrant in-game as Youtube videos made it seem and I love what they did to the lighting. It's mostly just that yellow tint/filter that irks me a bit.

 

[BialyWilkk]

Since photo editing is a big interested of mine I make sure to have my monitors calibrated. I also want to see witness every game the way the developers intended it to be seen.

Some might doubt me on this since I created a Reshade preset for this game. Just because I see the devs vision of the visuals more accurately doesn't mean I have to 100% agree with vision. How you want your colours to look is also a very subjective thing but of course I give every game a chance first before I decide if I want to tinker with it for my own personal liking.

Blood and Wine has so far satisfied me more in this regard than the base game though, it is actually not THAT crazyily vibrant in-game as Youtube videos made it seem and I love what they did to the lighting. It's mostly just that yellow tint/filter that irks me a bit.

It looks perfect with Essenthy's colorgrade removal.
I decreased the saturation ever so slightly, it looks incredibly natural.

https://arma3.com/news/top-10-arma-3-update-160 I kind of used some of what the ArmA 3 devs did in their new lighting and tonemapping overhaul, they completely based it around real world photo and light data references. I reckon Toussaint probably has a Mediterranean climate like Greece, which is the basis of ArmA 3.

 

[vesemas228]

Yeap i certainly tried when i first got them.

Unfortunately the value in calibration soon hits a wall of the overall color reproduction quality of the panel itself.. if its too warm/cold/uneven theres only so much a new icc profile can do, and fixing one color range may make other colors sad.

If you're using windows 7 and nvidia make sure you edit the system defaults to use the external profile, if you don't have that set in the system defaults as well as the main color setting the new calibrated profile doesn't have any effect.

Also there's a website out there that does or used to provide hardware calibrated profiles for download.. google for a calibrated profile for your monitor if you're not happy with the windows results and there may be another profile to try.

 

[thibaudv]

What debate is there to be had? Overclocking is a hobby, it's like a kind of a sport, a competition, some people enjoy it.

---------- Updated at 10:13 PM ----------


Toussaint has an orange/yellow tonemap filter in order to look warmer. You're crazy if you're going to deny that.

That's the whole point, it's supposed to look like Italy and other mediterranean countries.

 

[Mezziaz]

It looks perfect with Essenthy's colorgrade removal.
I decreased the saturation ever so slightly, it looks incredibly natural.

IMO, it goes a bit too far of muting all the colours of Toussaint, I appreciate the extra AO on the vegetation though.

Something in between STLM 2.2 and vanilla colours for Touissant would probably be the sweet spot for me. I personally imagine the climate to be more like the south of France (like Provence) rather than Greece

Spoiler

But that's just me.

 

[Valas991]

But that's just me.

nope, thats me, too

I like the colors of vanilla toissant, but that amount of yellow is hurting my eye, while STLM removes too much..

 

[BialyWilkk]

IMO, it goes a bit too far of muting all the colours of Toussaint, I appreciate the extra AO on the vegetation though.

Something in between STLM 2.2 and vanilla colours for Touissant would probably be the sweet spot for me. I personally imagine the climate to be more like the south of France (like Provence) rather than Greece

Spoiler

But that's just me.

Those pictures are edited.

---------- Updated at 01:36 PM ----------

That's the whole point, it's supposed to look like Italy and other mediterranean countries.

I've lived in Mediterranean climate, I've been to Italy and Greece, and I'm sad to tell you there wasn't an orange filter on everything.

 

[Mezziaz]

Those pictures are edited.

1st and 3rd obviously are, second image is debatable. Anyway the purpose was to mainly show the kind of climate of southern France. The only way I could make sure the colours is 100% accurate is to go there and shoot photos myself (just like the Arma devs did). What is clear however is that is portrayed outwards to the public as a very colourful place and here is a full on Google image search for Provence.

 

[thibaudv]

I've lived in Mediterranean climate, I've been to Italy and Greece, and I'm sad to tell you there wasn't an orange filter on everything.

Yea good for you I guess. Colors are subjective, but the Toussaint lighting is pretty spot on to me. It might be the warmth that those colors represent that does it for me, but I've yet to see any mods that improve the Toussaint area lighting.

 

[BialyWilkk]

Yea good for you I guess. Colors are subjective, but the Toussaint lighting is pretty spot on to me. It might be the warmth that those colors represent that does it for me, but I've yet to see any mods that improve the Toussaint area lighting.

Image tint and tonemapping has nothing to do with lighting.

Essenthy's mod merely removes the yellow/orange tint so you're left with real blues and greens. It still looks warm when it's the sun itself lighting the world, it looks warm already, the tint was completely unnecessary, it muted the true beauty. The overall picture also isn't as dimmed.

vanilla

mod

 

[Valas991]

could you please show/explain me where those pictures are made? ( i mean, on the in-game map)
Because so far, it doesn't look like that. Yeah, should myb calibrate, but im not sure how to do it on laptop.
(and yeah, playing on medium-high doesn't seem to help a lot either)

 

[Mezziaz]

Image tint and tonemapping has nothing to do with lighting.

Essenthy's mod merely removes the yellow/orange tint so you're left with real blues and greens. It still looks warm when it's the sun itself lighting the world, it looks warm already, the tint was completely unnecessary, it muted the true beauty. The overall picture also isn't as dimmed.

You are correct about the tone mapping, the actual lighting in Touissant is perfectly fine. I actually prefer this image though, where you with your Reshade only removed the tint, keeping the foliage green and the clouds being more white as they should

 

[thibaudv]

As I said, colors are subjective. I prefer the vanilla image of the two images you posted, but the one by Mezziaz looks pretty good too.

 

[BialyWilkk]

You are correct about the tone mapping, the actual lighting in Touissant is perfectly fine. I actually prefer this image though, where you with your Reshade only removed the tint, keeping the foliage green and the clouds being more white as they should

The problem is that it didn't look good everywhere, and it caused a lot of oversaturated blues, since that's the nature of removing a color tint with Reshade. The clouds look the same but I can make them whiter by adjusting the exposure.