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This will be a thread detailing my ventures into calibrating LG's C7 OLED. If you have any experience with this display and the calibration of it, feel free to add to it! 
I am currently up to date on two video calibration software packages - ChromaPure and CalMAN. The other options that I am aware of are Lightspace, HCFR (free) and ArgyllCMS/DisplayCal (free as well I believe). Since I upgraded my laptop to a Surface Pro 4 I have had issues getting ChromaPure to work properly. For some reason it has issues with the connectivity of the meters and image generator. So CalMAN it is! CalMAN also just released a new version - CalMAN 2017 - so it will give me a chance to get my feet wet with that.
After doing some research online, I determined that the approach I was going to take was to calibrate 3 of the picture modes available on the C7 - Cinema, ISF Expert (Bright Room) and ISF Expert (Dark Room). This also afforded me the opportunity to test meter selection as well. I currently own these meters - i1pro1 rev. D, i1display3, and a Chroma 5. Since I haven't used the Chroma 5 in quite some time I decided to use these three options - i1d3 profiled to i1pro (Cinema), i1d3 no profile (ISF Expert BR) and the i1pro (ISF Expert DR).
Before starting calibration I let the C7 warm up for approximately 2 hours. I also setup all of my gear for calibration and let that accommodate as well.
The first run was Cinema Mode which I used the i1d3 profiled to the i1pro. I ran through several profile runs just to check them for consistency. I've read that this can be an issue for others but my numbers seemed to me to be consistent. Here is the Pre-Calibration Readings from CalMAN 2017 ISF Calibration:
You can clearly see why people are recommending this mode out of the box! The highest dE (Delta Error) on grayscale is 1.707 on 90 and the highest on gamut was Yellow at 2.281. The general consensus among the calibration community is that any dE less than 3 is acceptable. So out of the box the C7 is acceptable! But I did break out all of the tools from the toolbox, so I kept going!
Next up was to check the various picture modes available to find the one that gets us closets to our goal - 6500K. I didn't need to do this as I already knew that Cinema mode is it. It measured at 6608K OOTB with a Gamma of 2.19. Then I proceeded to verify that the 'Warm2' setting was the closest to our target as well - it was. CalMAN then tells you to shut off all of the Noise Reduction and any other picture "enhancement" settings from the display. I had already shut all of these off when I first used the display. You then go through setting color, tint and sharpness. I left color (50) and tint (0) alone. Sharpness was set to 0 as well. Finally, we get to grayscale. Here is the screen grab of my finished grayscale calibration:
After Grayscale you then adjust your gamut:
Gamut also consisted of some saturation sweeps:
After I adjusted gamut, I then went back and checked everything done previously and fixed anything that may have fell out of line. Here is the final readings from Cinema mode:
Now on to the other modes. This is ISF Expert (Bright Room) using the i1d3 unprofiled and the ISF calibration workflow in CalMAN.
Pre-calibration readings:
Grayscale adjustment:
Post calibration readings:
The final calibration run was for ISF Expert (Dark Room) using an i1pro rev. D and the SI (System Integrator) Professional Workflow.
Pre-calibration:
Gamut:
Post calibration results:
I have to admit that it has been a very long time since I've seen a display with these results. I did a calibration on a Kuro many, many moons ago for a friend but that friend moved out of state. And I don't have the charts for those runs any more but I think that the C7 (as well as the G7, W7, E7 and B7) would give it a run for the money!
I am currently up to date on two video calibration software packages - ChromaPure and CalMAN. The other options that I am aware of are Lightspace, HCFR (free) and ArgyllCMS/DisplayCal (free as well I believe). Since I upgraded my laptop to a Surface Pro 4 I have had issues getting ChromaPure to work properly. For some reason it has issues with the connectivity of the meters and image generator. So CalMAN it is! CalMAN also just released a new version - CalMAN 2017 - so it will give me a chance to get my feet wet with that.
After doing some research online, I determined that the approach I was going to take was to calibrate 3 of the picture modes available on the C7 - Cinema, ISF Expert (Bright Room) and ISF Expert (Dark Room). This also afforded me the opportunity to test meter selection as well. I currently own these meters - i1pro1 rev. D, i1display3, and a Chroma 5. Since I haven't used the Chroma 5 in quite some time I decided to use these three options - i1d3 profiled to i1pro (Cinema), i1d3 no profile (ISF Expert BR) and the i1pro (ISF Expert DR).
Before starting calibration I let the C7 warm up for approximately 2 hours. I also setup all of my gear for calibration and let that accommodate as well.
The first run was Cinema Mode which I used the i1d3 profiled to the i1pro. I ran through several profile runs just to check them for consistency. I've read that this can be an issue for others but my numbers seemed to me to be consistent. Here is the Pre-Calibration Readings from CalMAN 2017 ISF Calibration:
You can clearly see why people are recommending this mode out of the box! The highest dE (Delta Error) on grayscale is 1.707 on 90 and the highest on gamut was Yellow at 2.281. The general consensus among the calibration community is that any dE less than 3 is acceptable. So out of the box the C7 is acceptable! But I did break out all of the tools from the toolbox, so I kept going!
Next up was to check the various picture modes available to find the one that gets us closets to our goal - 6500K. I didn't need to do this as I already knew that Cinema mode is it. It measured at 6608K OOTB with a Gamma of 2.19. Then I proceeded to verify that the 'Warm2' setting was the closest to our target as well - it was. CalMAN then tells you to shut off all of the Noise Reduction and any other picture "enhancement" settings from the display. I had already shut all of these off when I first used the display. You then go through setting color, tint and sharpness. I left color (50) and tint (0) alone. Sharpness was set to 0 as well. Finally, we get to grayscale. Here is the screen grab of my finished grayscale calibration:
After Grayscale you then adjust your gamut:
Gamut also consisted of some saturation sweeps:
After I adjusted gamut, I then went back and checked everything done previously and fixed anything that may have fell out of line. Here is the final readings from Cinema mode:
Now on to the other modes. This is ISF Expert (Bright Room) using the i1d3 unprofiled and the ISF calibration workflow in CalMAN.
Pre-calibration readings:
Grayscale adjustment:
Post calibration readings:
The final calibration run was for ISF Expert (Dark Room) using an i1pro rev. D and the SI (System Integrator) Professional Workflow.
Pre-calibration:
Gamut:
Post calibration results:
I have to admit that it has been a very long time since I've seen a display with these results. I did a calibration on a Kuro many, many moons ago for a friend but that friend moved out of state. And I don't have the charts for those runs any more but I think that the C7 (as well as the G7, W7, E7 and B7) would give it a run for the money!
Last edited:
