If you are over 65 and have impaired color vision due to cataract yellowing you may want to... - Page 2

I don;t get the above post.

First, the OP is ISF certified and has multitudes of meters ,calibration programs, and trainings. i don't want the calibrator (me) to do anything he doesn't want to.

I do consult with calibrators and those in the calibration program business.

And I don't need your sympathy but I really really appreciate you trying to give it to me. Really.

I did talk to my cataract surgon today and he informed me that while such data was not on the info and record card I got with the new lens he inserted in my eye, it does have a slight yellow tint to it to filter out some blue. So that makes my bad eye even further off the correct value of white I am seeking. Obviously, the reference white I see from the new lens eye will be slightly towards yellow and not what the GD colorist wanted and the display calibrated produces. The surgeon said he had no data on the degree of the yellow tint but that it was very slight.

Qualified opthomalogists can employ certain tests to determine how far each of my eyes are off. I got a quote from one of the leading experts in this area who happens to reside within one hour of me, and the total cost including glasses with the right filters would be a paltry $8900. Kind of silly considering that sooner or later my left eye cataract will deteriorate enough so that the surgeon will feel the risks associated with cataract surgery become justified.But the point is don't post about getting the data is impossible in my case. it can be measured but it would be expensive.

Meanwhile I will self choose a blue lens which makes whites look the same as my new lensed eye. Pretty simple, assuming the where I go has a wider and granular range of bluefilters as i need to get an approximate match. Now my new lens eye is off a bit because of its yellow tint to the lens. I won't try and compensate. I'll tell the customer (me) that here are the des I got for calibrating his (my) set and look at the pretty graphs. I won't tell the ahole that the des he actually sees are bigger. He is too big an idiot to let that bother him much.

Oh yea, I hope the bue filter on top of my yellow catarac doesn't cut the light so much as the picture becomes too dime. by brain, as feeble as it is, should be able to balance out the brightness differences between the eyes' And as most old farts are, i was a FPO CRT guy for many years and can live with the whopping 7 ft lamberts i lived with in those FP days. Yea Yea. I used the Phillips meter with the lens bra caps to calibrate. The same model Joe Kasne used when he started calibrating 7 inch 3 tube CRTs.

OK I will try in spell it out more simply.


The calibration of displays assumes a created standard observer.

Recently, there has been been an addendum to the CIE standard but I think that doesn't go far enough. How calibrators have taken this into account I haven't a clue but Spectralcal is providing for this to some extent and more may be in the future providing for the age of the customer because of a yellow bias and others that become prevalent after the age of 60 in males. Gets a lot worse after 70. I won't cite the literature but I trust you can google.

But the display calibration is flawed. Because for HT use, the customer want's to see the colors as the colorist intended. There is a perception that what the display shows is what one sees. That isn't the case and what is needed is a way to calibrate for the specific observer and not a standardized observer.The title is really not imflamatory. For many, you will see the colors wrong desoite the wonderfull graphs and chart printouts the calibrator gives you to show you how well he did id job.

My recent cateract operation, now with one eye eseentially clear and one eye heavily yellowed, how much my perception of correct color was off in both my eyes prior to the operation. This yellowing occurs gradually and one simply does not notice it happening. But wow it does happen and at 67 (aided by my diabeties) my eyes have really yellowed filter wise. For the elder population over say 60, a color calibration going full CMS etc may be a waste of money. You will not see the colors as the artist professionals intended. But with a calibration you will see them constent with the way you see them under outside 6500K conditions, Its really freeking great to be able to see them always consistently wrong.

Assuming no catarac replacement, it would appear that if the degree of color filtraton was known as well as I suppose cone responses etc in the customer, a set offset could be calibrated into the the display. Pumping in a whole bunch of blue gain for example. Amount unknown but the eyes can be measured by medical professionals and somehow the color wiz kids like Sotti could come up with specific offsets.

If one cataract has been replaced, then the problem increases. First, whether you like it or not, you will see how badly your color vision has deteriorated. You may like the shift toward yellow. But you won't see the colors as the industry and our beloved base of humantarian calibrators, I know onw who seriously had to undergo years of treatment because he became obsessed with fighting Washington DC in order to try and legislate everything Joe Kane pontificated for video wise. I like Joe. I also liked Ike.

The problem of the yellow eye seeing incorrectly compared to the corrected lens eye, the one operated on, would be to add the right value of filter to the uncorrected eye by a tinted eye glass lens. I assume this would be some degree of blue and I suspect quite a lot. Perhaps a 50% blue tint but I don't know yet.


The other solution would be to do nothing except crank in more blue so that both eyes together as processed by one's brain see what ione remebers the operated eye alone.


I hope this is a fair summary but I will correct it in response to comments.


I haven't been tested by anybody yet. No cards. Where did you get that from?

Now why this thread and the title that got you here..

All this wasn't obvious to me. I needed help from others to think it through. I wanted participation and the best way to attract calibrators is to err attack their art. And yes their art and science is flawed especially when used for older people It appears steps in the right direction are being taken but I guarantee over 99% of calibrator don't know.

I myself never was aware of any of this before my cataract operation. And I suspect most people here were unaware also. Bringing a problem up brings brains to the forum table and often solutions arise. The trick is getting the right brains to the table. And putting up a nude picture of a beautiful woman, I didn't do that of course, or waiving a red flag title, which is true I believe, gets the brains to the table. Unfortunately it can attract some not in that category.

BTW What was the point of your first post and your disrespect comments? The process is flawed. That is not the same as disrespecting it. Though frankly I do not respect many calibrators, I do respect the real pros but getting an ISF certification is akin to graduating elementary school at best.posts in this thread?

If you don't understand any of this or the intent of this thread and how the posts by other have helped me think this through, PM me. I think most will understand and will correct me if necessary,
Edited by mark haflich - 2/8/13 at 6:36am

Yes and no. I doubt the accuracy would not very very much except at the very low end. A good calibrator would not only set the baisc parameters and the color controls but will be able to understand and use a variety of other controls and settings. a pro calibrator will understand the proper way of setting up a projector including mounting it correctly and minimizing the use of lens shift. The differences associated with choosing an appropriate throw differences. there are lots of things.

a pro calibrator will also take into account what the customer wants. If the customer wants a brighter picture for example. Also a pro will have some inkling that what the customers sees may not be the colors measured off the screen. a pro calibrator will consider the customer rather than just the theoretical results. and a prowill make the customer happy. Its more like a doctor patient relationship than just a scientist setting the display to a set standard. the calibrator will educate the customer. a pro just won't impose a set 2.2 gamma and tell a customer that's the standard when it isn't.. This post should be somewhat controversial. But calibration for the end user in a HT is a combination of art and science and not just science as many here would perhaps advocate.

in the old days, we had few calibration controls. CMS? It didn't exist. We set gray scale at two pints. We could chose the stimulus points, 20, 80, 20, 100 and try and get the straightest temperature line. We could defocus the blue om 3 beam projectors to improve gray scale tracking. Art, not science. We could modify color decoders and correct for decoding errors caused by misdesigned decoders. A famous resistor change. we even modified blue drive cards to compensade for the pecularities of the blue tube compared to the red and the grean. We now can do multipoint calibrations. We can add a processor to make things a lot more accurate too.

Some of my best friends calibrators are just science oriented. They lose sight of the non standardized observer. Science doesn't take that into account, at least not fully yet and most calibrators have no clue. Its simplier to just see, it measures right now and I have finished my job. For some, in reality that will be the start and not the finish.



Its amazing how we collectively have progressed in the science of calibration. And it started with the great Joe Kane who the manufacturers laughed at in the early and mid 80s.

An example suppose you have a JVC from a few years back.. Working around a CMS that was defective. Or today some models not having a green primart of the required saturation. Having to use part of the THX setting but not all of it. Knowing tricks of the trade. Knowing where and what compromoses to make to give the best results. And deviating from the rec 709 display standard to ,,, so that while the display may be not correct, what the customer's eyes see is closer the the volorists and director's intent. What is the purpose of a calibration. To make a display right if your eyes need an offset?. Or what to to do doing an xyY calibration and running out of enoug Y somewhere.

Sorry. A car can be made to perform bettter by changing somethings from the way the factory sets it. Changing the timing a bit, leaning the fuel mixture. Tuning a car so that it performs best for the intended use.

Let's take the Sony 1000ES. Use the white bars and setting the contrast to 100 tests OK. But you simply can't calibrate it best from a variety of standpomts unless you crank the contrast down to 90. A pro calibrator will reach that conclusion quickly. An ISF certied Jow won't. He goes by the numbers.

The pluge pattern the ISF guy may use shows perfect brightness setting. But there may be better pluge patterns to use in a specific situation especially considering the contrast setting.


You can end up with measuring everything correctly amd have it look like eh. You can customize a gamma increase the contrast a bit higher and make a happy customer. You are stuck with the idiotic screen size and gain a customer chosed before you got there. But damn with a little deviation you can make the set up sing even though you make things brighter then they should.
Edited by mark haflich - 2/8/13 at 5:28pm

Well I tried a blue lens on my yellow filter eye and it really cut down the light too much. Nest on my metered calibration where the blue gain on my 1000ES was set to minus 26, I raised it ti minus 8. Using both eyes white looks the same on the metered setting minus 26. White looks white. The art of calibrating for a handicapped viewer.

You are entitled to your opinion.

No customer who pays for a calibration in his HT does it because he wants the colors to be different than whoever in the movie production chain wanted them to lo to the ewatcher of a movie.

For a normal viewer calibrating to the mastering standard will do that. Some of the colors will have been moved by the colorist from their true location to one within rec 709. Hopefully, within a few years we will have much wider color spaces and longer bit lengths yada yada,

No my scientific calibrator friends. I want to see the colors as the movie production team intended. That was probably in their right location within the DCI space but will let it go ad say the miserable limited rec 709 space. Yea. Your color God sucks. But a new day is coming slowly.

Now the customers should say, I want to se it as they intended me to see it. Duh. that's why the 3D customer says, calibrate through the glasses PLEASE, offset those filters in the glasses.
WTF does it make that th customer has filters in his eye instead of in his 3D glasses. Not the NORMAL assumed filters of the standardized observerer.I can't do that. i use a meter not your eyes. Imposssible Good bye.
I am here to make it consistently wrong for you, Consistent as you would see it wrong on the set assuming it was shot under d65 light, yea right, or as you would see them under d 65 light. I am Fing Holy and I calibrate to make your display look like all other calibrated displays within your and their display limitations.There is no objectively rigght color for your eyes. Just for displays and then displayes viewed under ideal conditions.h

I've done my job and I am freekin great. Pay me. Goodbye.

Everyone thinks I will get used to the color inbalance. I never said I wasn't used to it. I have no problem seeing with it. My brain, to the extent I have one, melds the two different call them data streams coming from each eye and I see a color spectrum halfway or so between the two.

My problem here is knowing that what I see is not what was intended and how that can be fixed.

Years ago i and those at FP projector factories actually used our eyes to calibrate. WTF. No. Tell me no. No meter. What would you do. Go home?

No. We hade 6500 degree comparators. Joe Kane sold one. I once had a box with a 6500K flurescent bulb, through holes drilled on a board pannel to stimulate varies stimulus levels, 20, 80 etc, I don't rember the three exactly and then through a piece of diffuse glass or plastic. Every technician that calibrated at the factory used that box as his gray scale calibration tool, that and his eyes.

Don't tell me about calibration and solutions , idiotic solutions, to maintain the error I see. I guess some of you are so stuck, you are meter and standard guys and that's the goal.

It may be when a display job is to exactly be the sme as another display.but you guys should not be allowed in a customer's HT. And you shouldn't be brain washing consumers. I want the calibrator who understands his job is to make the HT produce the best picture it can for the customer. The most accurate through the eyes, not before it. Who knows when to put his meter away and make it look it better to the viewer. The calibrator who makes it the best looking despite it not meeting all standards, because of display limitations, a primary color not having enough saturation, a screen being too big, the lighting or ewalls not being ideal..You know the fecal an expert calibrator of HTs, who has enough business to list it as his primary occupation deals with every day.


What this thread was about was the filtering in the eyes of old people, something I was unaware off. How much my eyes had yellowed and how to deal with one clear eye and one yellow now. How to make the colors i se right and not how to make them consistentl wrong. Can you grasp the concept. And we are dealing with two different filters. Finding the yellow one that matches my bad eye and putting it on the meter won't help.

i appreciate the posting but you I am afraid can't get around the system to find a workable solution. Just say its normal and there is no actual standard for what you see. BS. The standard is the display standard unde ideal viewing conditiions and by niormal eyes. Its absolute. Its what I want. The concept is devising offsets to calibrate for the last step, not where the meter measures, before the eyes, but through the eyes. If it could be done by some sort of meter, you guys would do and shout to the customer probably making him deaf that you did it. But no. Your tools are limited, you can't do it with a meter, a chart, a ptrogram, so belittle trying to do it. I think I will call you it is what it is guys

I have raised a real world problem Calibrating for the eyes the customer has..

That's all true. displays age too. Very quickly sometimes.

But there could standardized offsets based on such things as sex, not how much you get, but gender and age. And thingsquickly change post 60 years. No the calibrator won't have the training and instrumentation to do it by measurements. That's where listening to the customer and art comes in. Ask the customer how does the white look for example. Its not impossible. I just made it a lot better for me by deviating from the meter readings. Clearly it is better and I am seeing the colors closer to what the sopurce makers intended.r

I think Sotti mentioned about providing differently for men and women And I am not talking about an official standard bt some standard setting bodies. There are several studies of color vision in age groups 60 and beyond and it is safe to say ay 65 just about would have some cataracts and yellowing.

I understand about calibrating for all likely to be in a home theater but I would bet most would not meet the definition of the standard observer based on the definition of same for the 1931 chart.even as amended.

Most projectors have several memories for gray scales and even digfferent CMS settings. So the crackerjack calibrator could provide several set ups including one for when the optically handicapped viewer is watching alone.

Nne of this is brain science.

You ask your customer after going by the book and setting all des to vanishing small numbers. What do you see?.

Duh, it looks kinda yellow to me.

Maybe I can help, just don't t tell Joel Silver, he might take my certification away. Let me crank in some more blue to the gray scale at the gain end. Try this, try that. Stop. It looks white to me know just like I remember white refrigerators looking and black and white tile patterns and Santy's beard. Peter Wabbit. Whatever.

I f you asked a 1000 HT owners what they wanted calibration for, they would largely say I want to see the colors the way the Director intended. Well Mr. Senior, Ii can calibrate the display to the exact standards but you won't be seeing the colors as the Director and colorist intended. Your eyes because of your age have yellow filters in them toi some degree. Me? Yea look at this white screen, does it look pure snow white white to you. Err no. Its a little beige. OK. We have no standards but I think by playing a little bit with my paint brush. What? Nevermind, with the gray scale I can make it look to you closer to correct than if the display is set to and produces right to the specifications. What do you think the customer would say? He might even give you a tip. You are not only a great calibrsator, after all you passed the ISF test and have calibrated X number of sets, but you is an ARTEIST. Make your Mammy proudr

The problem is the brain accepts the color change or you do. your brain can't change the color from a yellow white to a white white or a blue white. You just give in and accept it. The yellowing of both eyes is gradual, you may not even noice it unless les I bitch slap you and say, come on you old fart, how does that white look to you. Is it the pure white of your wife before you married here

I agree that the problem of one good color eye and the other heavily filtered is rather unique. But two eyes yellowed, very common especially in the senior category, a growing segment. Calibrators are losing the younger segment of customers. Many are willing to buy the programs and meters and do it themselves. There is less and less custom calibration business out there.

Now I don't need to hire anybody. I am certified 6 ways to Sunday. I have programs and meters up the wazoo.


And I don't give a damn that you hope I never made it so the customer was happy instead of sticking my head up his whatever and telling him to like it. You calibrate it to the spec. You save it. Then you make one by listening to the customer. There are problems no matter what you do. Our system is indeed broken because it essentialkly ignores the viewer. It is based on a standard viewer that doesn't exist. That's a fact.

So we bury our heads in the sand. We calibrate our displays to a standard. You say that;s your job. Too many problems doing anything else. Why should any customer pay to get sopmething wrong. You guys just don't get it because you lose your validity if you pretend to get it. The customers wants to see it correctly. Over and over he wants to see it as the various artists intend him to see it. Not consistently wrong.

things might be different when a display must be the same as other displays but that is not the case in a single display HT. Can you get that.
You say I will make it perfectly consistently wrong for you. I would say no thanks, please go away if I were a customer.You say but its wrong now. I'll majke it right but you will still see it wrong. Thanks but no thanks. I'll save my money.

Tell the customer the truth and you will liose customers. Most will think their eyes are fine and by making the display perfect they will see the correct colors. That's what I thought into the new lens bitch slapped me into reality.

thanks for all the posts. UMR and SJSCHAFF, you guys get my point. and UMR recognize that in many imstances the color calibrator can make things beter by deviating from the standard.

My eyes and brain are summing together and are giving me a balance between the correct clear eye color and tghe yellow eye. but the eyes can not change the color to what the standard through the defined standard viewer would see. If the brain could correct like that, there would be no need to color calibrate for the home viewer.

UMR let me know when you are coming through the DC area. I just don't have the expertise to adjust the colors for the required offsets. Thanks. And to those that are arguing with me, I appreciate the viewpoints and the time you are investing for me in your posts. Thank you all very much.

You got it. I have no clue how to change a thread title. Does anybody know how to do it?