I'm about ready to drive over a laptop...

I've been working on a desktop for the past couple years and I'm trying bring my son into post-processing with me. He has a new Dell laptop and when we calibrate the monitors they look completely different! I'm sure there is something I'm overlooking.

We've brought the same images into LR, and matched all the settings and his monitor produces a more blown out cooler picture.

We have Greta MacBeth Eye-One Match and I've been using that. I'm wondering if there is a better product.

How many of you work on a laptop and then a desktop and how do you move back and forth between them? Has anyone had major calibration issues between a desktop and laptop and how did you resolve them?

Thanks for any help!

I've got this Lenovo laptop... I've calibrated the screen with our Sypder2Pro, which helps. But it's a laptop monitor... It doesn't have the controls that an external monitor has. I'm looking forward to the day when I have enough space to hook this laptop up to a monitor.

Now the Viewsonic that my wife uses, that one you can dial in because things in the monitor's setup can be adjusted (brightness, different levels of red, green and blue, etc.)

Also, laptop screens tend to be set at a slightly different angle every time you open the lid, which can cause colors to look off.

If you can swing it, see if you can hook the laptop up to an external monitor, and calibrate that. Your two monitors should be much closer if you do that.

I gave up on calibrating a laptop screen. They simply cant be tweaked to a certain extend as refining RGB channels and the brightness in small increments is simply not possible. My calibrated colors on my laptop are always too warm and way off.

I only use it now to make my picks, DVD shows and reception slideshow.

Hook it up to a nifty TFT and you´re good to go. Everything else is not reliable for professional results.

I gave up trying to calibrate and work on a laptop a couple of years ago. My old HP's colors would shift as soon as I took the Spyder off the screen. Sersiously, I could calibrate, go to the bathroom, come back and the screen would have a blue cast to it again.

I finally got sick of it and bought an external monitor. I refuse to buy a desktop so I just hook the external up to the laptop and I'm good to go. My external is a Dell and hardly ever needs to be calibrated. Prints always match WHCC perfectly!

Anyone else?

What kind of laptop are you working with? Also try setting the brightness of the screen down a notch, that should help a bit. Also go to a room with white walls. I Once calibrated a monitor in my GREEN room (walls and celing.) And the effect was um.... not quite what I was looking for. I took it out to a room with white walls and then it went off without a hitch.

I've got a dell 1420. And Mine is spot on (in Windows Vista and Linux) using a Spyder 2 express.

It's a Dell running XP. We turned down the brightness and that helped, but I'm still not satisfied with the calibration.

I'm curious what everyone else is using for their monitor calibration?

What series and model? I'll check to see if it's an issue of it being an 8bit lcd panel. In which case there will only be so much you can do if it comes far out of calibration from the factory.

Inspiron 1520. Purchased earlier this year with XP.

Very strange, it must be a hit or miss sort of thing. I bought one for a friend and the colors are lining up pretty well. About all we have is that the 1520 is a bit too blue.

Sadly I don't have any more advice, but I do hope this works out for you! Maybe call dell and see if there's anything they can do? If you have the accidental damage you could try smashing the screen then sending it back. Probably would provide some sweet stress relief.

Spyder2Pro. I've used it on two laptops, my current Lenovo (running Vista) and an older Gateway (running XP) Both have discrete video--not that integrated stuff.

One of the issues with using the laptop screen is that my viewing angle changes every time I open the lid. I've thought of making some sort of stop or something to help me know when the lid's open to the sweet spot (sort of like hanging a tennis ball in your garage so you know when the car's in far enough that the back bumper doen't get smacked by the door).