I have a question regarding the calibration of a low/mid-end LCD screen from a friend of mine.

To get my desired target of 130cdm, I have to set brightness and contrast to zero (lowest setting) and limit the RGB channels to 75%. It seems a bit extreme.

Is this the correct method?

(btw, I use MonacoOptix XR Pro)

Hard to say when some of these consumer grade babys are over 200 cd/m2 right out of the box.

Go here:

http://www.digitaldog.net/tips/index.shtml

Download the file "Printer Test File"

I use this as my standard for viewing prints and monitors. If you have your friend's monitor next to yours, view the image side by side and see if his is separating the grey scale bars in the image in a similar fashion as your monitor is. If you cannot place both monitors together, make a print (I know your printer is very finely profiled- I'm from Fred Miranda), and see if his monitor makes the test image look similar to the print.

I iknow it is a crude method open to subjective interpretation, but at least you will know if you have his monitor in the ballpark.

I did the Monitor Black Point Check on http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibra...nitor_black.htm and it seems ok. Even the Monitor Grayscale Test Image on the next page looks reasonable with a table based profile. There is banding, but I don't think I can expect too much on this screen.

I wonder if its wise not too limit these settings, creating unnecessary banding because of that.

This is why I still don't like LCD screens. CRT's give me great results for a fraction of the money (and effort).

Btw, my printer is not finely profiled. I use the canned profiles on my R2400. The results are good enough and I don't think I got much better results with a custom-made profile. Maybe I shall try it once.