Calibrating my screen

[thany]

The first thing that I need to do, is to calibrate the color temperature of my (horrible) laptop screen. But I can't find how to do that. First it says I need to install "gnome color management" and I did that. Now all I seem to be allowed to do is add two color profiles, "Wide Gamur RGB" and "sRGB linear". Whether I install those or not, and which one I check after installing both, makes absolutely no difference. And I still can't find where or how to *calibrate* the screen.

Any help?

[claydoh]

A google search does not bring up many easy to use programs for linux, and some of the tools you find may be old and no longer available, but there are a number of how-to's out there. I have never used any of these, and I do not recall too much discussion on it over the years, so I will assume that doing this in Linux is still way behind, or not many people do this, or a bit of both.

[thany]

Thanks for the reply, but you're missing the point. The calibration is built into Kubuntu. There's even a button for it. In fact, I can use it to calibrate my webcam perfectly fine (not sure why I'd want that, though). So how do I use the built-in calibration for my screen? Or, why is it grayed out even after having done what it asked me to do?

[SteveRiley]

First it says I need to install "gnome color management"

What is the "it" to which you refer?

The tool you installed is for GNOME desktops, not KDE. KDE has a rather old tool that you might try. It isn't installed by default because it hasn't received any maintenance for a while, but perhaps it will work for you. The package is called kgamma, and after you install it, you'll find a control panel in System Settings | Display and Monitor | Gamma.

Another option is KolorManager.

[claydoh]

I do not see where, button or otherwise, one actually calibrates a device in Kubuntu, just where to install and manage icc profiles. As far as I can find, at least.

Where did you get instruction to ' install "gnome color management" '? This should have been my first question, I think. That is not something a KDE or Kubuntu application would normally ask.

[thany]

The "Calibrate" button shows a tooltip instructing me to install "gnome color management". So I did. After that, it stays grayed out.
What I can't understand, is why that Calibrate button is grayed out. Graying out buttons is dangerous (UxD-wise) since it has to be crystal clear why it's grayed out. In this case, it's not clear at all.

Like I said, Calibrate does work for my webcam, but I'd rather do the same for my screen - which it won't.

[SteveRiley]

Thany, we don't know what "Calibrate" button you mean. Can you describe exactly where you're finding it?

[oshunluvr]

I have colord-kde installed on my system and it also has Calibrate greyed out. Another oddity - "Add Profile" work but "Remove Profile" does not. Seems like it's a bit buggy.

[SteveRiley]

Hm...looks like that package has had it's share of troubles...

http://www.google.com/search?as_epq=...u.com&safe=off

[thany]

Thany, we don't know what "Calibrate" button you mean. Can you describe exactly where you're finding it?

I'm talking about System Settings -> Hardware -> Color. Then, select a monitor in the left pane and there will be a Calibrate button on the right pane.

[claydoh]

http://dantti.wordpress.com/2012/04/...-0-2-released/

looking at this seems to indicate "calibrate" means that quite literally, as in using a screen calibrating device.

[bweinel]

I think claydoh is correct that the author is refering to a physical calibration device.

See www.freedesktop.org/software/colord/faq.htm under 'native device' for a explaination of the types of devices this application expects.

cheers,
Bill

[oshunluvr]

That makes sense. I know those devices exist, although I've never seen one.

[thany]

Okay, I get it now... It may need some reworking the GUI, since it's totally unclear what the button is suposed to trigger when it's not grayed out, or how to make it not grayed out in the first place.

To get back to my original question. My screen still needs a little bit of calibration. A device is overkill, since all I need to do is adjust the color temperature a little bit (and it being a laptop, there are no hardware controls for that). I know Windows 7 can do this (although very buggy - not surprizing) so I kind of expected a feature-rich system like KDE has it as well

[thany]

Well, my laptop has an Intel GPU... And gamma is really not what I need, that's a totally different adjustment.