RTINGS.com ICC Profiles don't seem to work?

ChrisUlrich

Weaksauce
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Aug 4, 2015
Messages
117
Rtings.com has an ICC profile for my G7 and LG.

I loaded both of them into the appropriate monitor profiles. Hit "set as default" and then apply.

But there's no visible difference. Is there another step I am missing?
 
Maybe your current settings were already close enough to those offered in the ICC?
 
Honestly, do not use ICC profiles that were not made with your TV. Even someone elses settings are a suspect. Every TV is unique and someone elses profile and settings can make them more inaccurate. Hell calibration values even drift over time and have to be recalibrated, so an ICC profile that you have made now may no longer be as accurate year later.
That said high end TV's usually have quite accurate factory calibrations in their cinema profiles. Very little adjustment is needed unless you are a cinemaphile like me.

And only color managed applications make full use of ICC profile. The rest like Windows desktop and some games (Borderless mode only, fullscreen overrides it) only use color temperature and gamma fix portion of the profile. Unfortunately many games even reset the profile (because of their in-game brightness/gamma sliders are implemented) unless you lock it down with 3rd party application.

Unless you know that you need an ICC profile for some application OR you absolutely cannot get satisfyingly accurate color temperature and gamma with TV settings alone then do not bother with them.
 
Honestly, do not use ICC profiles that were not made with your TV. Even someone elses settings are a suspect. Every TV is unique and someone elses profile and settings can make them more inaccurate. Hell calibration values even drift over time and have to be recalibrated, so an ICC profile that you have made now may no longer be as accurate year later.
That said high end TV's usually have quite accurate factory calibrations in their cinema profiles. Very little adjustment is needed unless you are a cinemaphile like me.

And only color managed applications make full use of ICC profile. The rest like Windows desktop and some games (Borderless mode only, fullscreen overrides it) only use color temperature and gamma fix portion of the profile. Unfortunately many games even reset the profile (because of their in-game brightness/gamma sliders are implemented) unless you lock it down with 3rd party application.

Unless you know that you need an ICC profile for some application OR you absolutely cannot get satisfyingly accurate color temperature and gamma with TV settings alone then do not bother with them.

I know what you mean by everything being different. But my brain just tells me if out of the box is 75% accurate. Post calibration is 95% accurate. Then even if it's off cuz of the setting/panel being totally different... it's still an improvement.

I didn't know that only certain applications use this profile though. That's upsetting. But it explains why I see no changes.
 
I know what you mean by everything being different. But my brain just tells me if out of the box is 75% accurate. Post calibration is 95% accurate. Then even if it's off cuz of the setting/panel being totally different... it's still an improvement.
What if it becomes 50% accurate tho...
 
I've never had success with ICC profiles created by others on my monitors. I've had results that were worse than stock.

I use Rtings or TFT Central menu calibration settings as a start point and spend a bit of my own time so the image is reasonable and then leave it.

If you really need a real calibration you can buy the equipment to do it and learn to use it or pay someone to do it for you.
 
Color Management in Windows is a farse. System does absolutely nothing other than set registry key to indicate used color profiles and application are supposed to take advantage of it.
In Win10 they apparently implemented some kind of LUT loader (which should correct gamma ramps using this part of profile) but when I tried to use it did not work and apparently it is 8-bit only anyway which would guarantee banding so completely useless.
For owners of calibration hardware there is useful free calibration solution https://displaycal.net/ and it has nice loader with 16-bit precision and ability to re-apply profiles when they are changed by application. It might however not work in all games.

BTW. Profiles contain two parts:
- measurements of monitor primaries - to correct gamut in CMS aware application
- gamma correction - to correct gamma ramps by modifying video card LUT's

Measurement of monitor primaries (gamut) can be used by applications supporting CMS (Color Management System) to correct gamut so in some instances can help give more accurate colors. Profiles from monitor manufacturer only contain this part of profile and since gamut does not change over time these can be used as is. Though it is only useful in some cases in native gamut modes so for example for "native" sRGB monitors to correct over/under coverage of some primaries or to have proper color in native gamut modes. In modern wide gamut monitors with sRGB emulation it is better to just use sRGB mode to correct colors to sRGB everywhere and not use CMS at all. Note: Setting profiles will trigger CMS aware application to correct colors so it might happen that if you set profile for native gamut and switch to sRGB mode then some application will correct colors giving even narrower gamut than sRGB. Better to avoid CMS at all.

For professional uses it is expected you get your own calibration device and some painkillers to deal with Windows CMS bullshit
 
Bear in mind ICC barely affects anything. Thats why sRGB modes or at the very least good factory calibration are important.

Yup! Hardware level calibration is the most important. ICC is just icing on the cake, final fine tuning on things that hardware cannot adjust or reach. Ideally it should not be needed at all.
 
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