I have a W520 and I am really not satisfied with the bundled X-Rite calibrator software's performance. I believe it's not the actual calibrator's fault, but of the software's.

The amazing news is that the Thinkpad's Huey sensor works out of the box with dispcalGUI / Argyll CMS (the best calibrator software out there, other than EIZO/NEC bundled calibrators)! The bad news is that the moment I would start the calibration, by closing the lid the display turns off. Somehow the X-Rite software has access to the Thinkpad's lid function and stops it from turning off.

The question is that how can we do the same? Is there any windows application or a setting in Power Manager what would make the Thinkpad keep its LCD turned on? Or are there any windows utilities which would make the Thinkpad's LCD turned on by purpose or accidentally? AFAIK there is no option for this in the BIOS.

Any ideas?

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/15621123.jpg/

Lid close action.

I know, that's the first thing I tried (ok, I used the window's control panel). The problem is that it does switch off the display, even if it doesn't go to sleep. BTW, I was able to calibrate my screen usin dispcalGUI and the result is amazing!!! I made the calibration target full screen, switched off all the lights at night, put the laptop under a duvet and let it run for 10+ minutes. This program is amazing, it could calibrate the screen even using the mediocre Huey sensor!

I just downloaded the software...looks very "pro"...

Let me try to disable some power management service and unload some lenovo drivers...see if that will stop the LCD from turning off...

Will get back to you shortly. Thank you for pointing out this software....I think I'm going to love it...

Got some extremely good news for you. I got it working with the lid fully closed.

Here's how:
1. Download Process Explorer: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... s/bb896653
2. Run Process Explorer, also run the bundled Pantone Colour Calibrator
3. Click next on the Pantone Colour Calibrator until you reached the "Measure" page (the page just before you need to close the lid).
4. At this point, head over to Process Explorer. Right click on the Colour Calibrator exe process.
5. Choose Suspend from the popup menu.

At this point, what has happened are:
1. The calibrator has already sent instructions to the laptop so that the LCD will stay on and will not suspend even when lid is shut.
2. You have also suspended the Colour Calibrator program so that it will NOT run the calibration when you shut the lid.

Now, while the Calibrator is suspended, you can execute dispcalGUI as you normally would.

Have fun!

P.S. What I've also worked out today is how to make it all work with an after market (non-LENOVO) LCD panel...with some minor binary patching.

I may also post instructions on how the patch works as well.

So, two things have been accomplished today:
1. Use dispcalGUI with the W5xx builtin calibrator with the lid fully shut.
2. Use a non-LENOVO part (any 15.6inch LCD panel) with the calibrator and software.

Hi, thanks for the info! I didn't think about suspending X-Rite! I think an important note is that if you have the X-Rite software installed then uncheck the autorun entries in Autoruns, otherwise it manipulates the video LUT.

Also, by totally closing the lid, it's quite hard to click start the best I can imageine is an external mouse what you should try not to move, as you cannot see where you are clicking. OK, with an external display it's not a problem.

Also, if you have an external display, can you run RW Everything when starting X-Rite and try to catch a possible value change in the EC? I'm sure it must be communicated with the EC, and if we can catch it then we can write a program to keep TP's display on.

What do you mean by non-Lenovo panel? Is there any protection built into the X-Rite software which stops it from working with non-Lenovo screens? I've just ordered a B156HW01 v4 to swap my HD+ screen, do you think that there will be a problem? What screen are you using?

BTW, this dispcalGUI + Argyll is one of the most professional monitor calibrator software out there no matter free or commercial.

I agree on the points you've made, and plan to look into it more when I have the time (hopefully sooner rather than later).

Hope to improve:
1. dispcalGUI calibration window default to full screen.
2. Auto start calibration on lid close after clicking on "calibrate"
3. Hope to make use of the calibration LED on the lid as indicators for progress & completion.
4. Hope to get the Pantone software out of the flow. Will need to find out what calls or changes it made to the system.

As to the LCD panel:
1. Yes, the Pantone software is locked to LCD panels with Manufacturer ID of LEN (first 3 characters of the Hardware ID).
2. I'm using LGD02D9 (MC6JN-156WF1), FullHD, 94% sRGB, matte, contrast ratio about 600:1, around 300-310 nit.

Good ideas! I think if we can find out the EC calls than the developer of the program can implement them. Can you tell me more about your screen (how do you know about it and where did you buy it)? I googled it and all I found is that it's the non-IPS screen in the M4600. Is it better then the B156HW01 v4? I have just ordered the AUO but I'm a bit afraid, as I will be working with non-color managed OpenGL applications too, so the wide-gamut could be quite a bit of a problem for me.

Some more progress. I just created a dummy POC to test the function call to the XRLaptopIFSDK.dll



XRCalibrationLidTurnOnNotification is to resume normal behaviour
XRCalibrationLidTurnOffNotification is to force LCD to stay on

The DLL (every W laptop should have it, installed by X-Rite) is 32bit, so the VB compile option has to be for x86.
(DLL's Date modified: 15/12/2010 10:22PM, 110,592bytes)

A bit more info about the LCD panel, after calibration.

But how did you get it? The only way I see you can get it is to take it out from a Dell E6520 or an M4600 non-IPS.

You can buy it from almost any LCD reseller panel...

I live in Sydney, so I got mine from this place: http://www.laptoplcdscreen.com.au/ (quite overprice compare to some US sites), but the best thing about this reseller is that they have a Zero Pixel Defect guarantee.

Your local reseller will probably have these in stock if you look around.

I'd be interested in knowing how accurate your new panel will be. Also wondering if 95% gamut means 95% sRGB AND 95% Adobe RGB.

My panel falls short on the Adobe RGB measurements. But honestly though, I don't exactly know the technical details and differences, but I do like the calibrated colours better.

How do you like the new display compared to the original stock display?

Sager offers a no-dead-pixel guarantee as well, for a meager fee. Well worth it.

The W530 reportedly just got PTCRB certification, which is for GSM/UMTS equipped wireless devices, so it's coming.

My stock panel from Lenovo is the HD+, instead of the now FHD. The HD+ was only rated at 60% gamut, IIRC. Technical rating aside, I'm don't exactly have trained eyes, nor skills to tell the differences. Having said that, original Lenovo HD+ looked alright to me after the Pantone calibration. Without the calibration, the HD+ panel looked a bit on the blue side (cold is the term, I think).

I originally did purchase an AUO B156HW01 v4 for my previously system (the W510), from eBay. It had a LENOVO FRU and hardware ID. But it looked red when viewing the panel from an elevated point. Not sure if it was because it's an eBay item (i.e. used part, defective, or didn't pass QC), or whether all B156WH01 v4 are like that (I doubt this). Anyway, so I decided to try another FHD panel, and ended up coming across this one from LG.

Good thing about this "experiment" is that, thanks to zsero, we can now use a better calibration software, together with other FHD panels, without having to pay for the Lenovo premium (just like buying aftermarket memory and SSD). Original Pantone software is "locked" to the Lenovo panels (it will consider anything else as non-internal display...and then tell you to buy external hardware). The X-Rite calibrator (the hardware) driver does not have this "lock", so, if you don't plan on using the Pantone software, then using any aftermarket panel should not be a concern at all.

Things for me to try out in the next week or so:
1. Get the exterior calibration LED indicator working.
2. Modify the dispcalGUI code so it has a ThinkPad W-series mode.

Good work.

Progress update:

I noticed that when running the dispcalGUI frontend, dispcal.exe (from the Argyll CMS package, currently at 1.3.7) in the backend would actually flashes the LED on our W-series laptop (yay), but only when it was setting up/initializing the Huey instrument. (Ran it with -D9 gave me a lot more info on the flow of things)

So, I went digging a through the code a bit more (thanks to Graeme Gill for open source this awesome work). In the huey.c file, that's where the LED magic happens. (Got to love the comment)





So, looks like I just need to modify this file so that the LED will flash while calibrating...and compile it.

Maybe I'll write to Graeme Gill and get some input from him to see if the mod can be incorporated to his source tree.

Also, Argyll already knows about the W series...

Argyll CMS built. (Used MinGW as suggested by Argyll's doc)

"dispcal.exe" will now flashes the LED every time it does a sample read from the Huey instrument on a Lenovo Thinkpad W laptop.

Next:
Need to make it auto start the calibration process upon lid close, instead of waiting for a key press to continue.


Additional info:
Since dispcal.exe is a console application, I ran into the same issue that's discussed here: http://www.zachburlingame.com/2011/04/c ... plication/
Looks like hidden window is the way to go, or, use the grey window that's already created by dispcal.exe.

Chatbox, you are making amazing progress! Thanks for all your work!

Here is the profile from the stock HD+ screen.

A gamut represents the range of colors that a device can express, versus the full range of colors that the human eye can see. Gamuts are represented in a three-dimensional space, so volume measurements are more relevant than area measurements. An area measurement of gamuts is akin to trying to measure a person's height and volume, by measuring the area of their shadow on the ground at noon.

The sRGB color space was created by Microsoft and HP in 1994 to provide a reference frame in which all the different imaging peripherals connected to a PC could interact. Adobe created the Adobe RGB color space about four years later, to represent the larger color gamut used in printing for publishing. Many other such color spaces or gamuts exist.

The gamut coverage advertised by display manufacturers is subject to hype. Does the percentage they state refer to the obsolete NTSC gamut (typical, but abandoned 40 years ago), the sRGB gamut, Adobe RGB, is it an area measurement, a volume measurement? Unless the manufacturer specifies these things, you don't know for sure. Plus the numbers are typically inaccurate. Mainly it's a way to get consumers to pay more money for a display, even though they don't really know what the numbers mean, or how those numbers will affect their use of the display.

The beginning of the following article does a good job of explaining what's going on behind the scenes, when a wide-gamut display is suddenly thrust in front of you and you start seeing images in abnormal neon-type colors. It describes ways to avoid that, and describes what calibration of your display will and will not do for you:

http://www.artstorm.net/journal/2009/07 ... dell-2408/

So wide-gamut displays entail more than what many consumers want to deal with. But if you're into photography or are working in publishing, for example, then it can be a different story.

Thanks QFoam, that was very informative.

So, in short, people should look for a panel with high Adobe RGB rating as that would indirectly imply a high sRGB rating as well. And that the Adobe RGB has a wider colour rage. Is that right? I haven't gone through the entire article yet.

Still coding away...trying to figure out what's the best way to implement the auto start upon lid close behaviour. I'm thinking a command line switch to indicate the user is intended to use the lid close action as the starting trigger, instead of the default "press any key" trigger. Using the example from Zach Burlingame, I'm able to modify the example's code to look out for lid close action. Just need to make the two parts work together (dispcal.exe and this lid close action trigger).

Update:
Looks like I took a wrong turn somewhere along the way.
The Xrite API call to prevent the LCD from turning off actually seem to turn off all LID related notification.
...which then resulted in me not able to detect lid close (doh!). The Pantone software, however, seem to have its way of detecting lid state even AFTER the lid notifications are switched off. (Go figure).

Looks like the easiest way to get myself out of this (waaay above me) tech issue is just modify the dispcal code with an additional flag, for delay purpose. e.g. Delay/wait 10 seconds (parameter) before calibrating / profiling. And assume that the user (us) will close the lid within that time.

Progress update:
In my code, dispcal.exe will now take a "-l[n]" (lowercase L) flag/switch with a number n (between 1 and 60 inclusive) as the number of seconds of delay before it starts the calibration/profiling.

dispcal, by default, has interactive and not_interactive modes http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/Environment.html
dispcalGUI uses the non-interactive mode, where dispcal would go straight into calibration once initiated.

In the case of ThinkPad W series users, we are somewhat "rushed" to close the lid:
Immediately start the calibration. You need to close the lid quickly.

So, with a delay, you can take your sweet time to close the lid, and knowing that you haven't missed anymore sample readings.

Not a big thing...just a minor usability thing I think.

Now I need to update the dispcalGUI so it can slider (between Immediate start, 10, 20...60).
...Can't be bothered right now, I'll just type "-l5" in the additional argument box in dispcalGUI.

So now, the following are archived:
1. Can shut the lid without LCD going off.
2. LED indicator is working during sample read.
3. dispcal now has a delayed start, so user can close the lid.

Not exactly ideal...but does the job to a similar usage experience as the Pantone software.

Chatbox, again, it's amazing what you have done! Have you submitted pull requests for the original code and/or emailed the developer about your work?

Not yet. There's still something flaky about keeping the LCD on (it would go off for some reason), and I'm not sure what it is.

I've also dug a little bit further, about the sensing of lid status. It seems that "XRLaptopIFSDK.dll" talks to IBMPMDRV to get lid state via IOCTL (DeviceIoControl)...but I don't know how to talk to IBMPMDRV to get that information. Work in progress...

I think it depends on your application, and that people shouldn't pay for more capability than they'll use.

So if you're a web designer whose target output is non-color-managed web browsers, then you'll be focused on sRGB. If your target is offset-printing for publishing, then Adobe RGB may be best. If you're a fine art photographer having the latest high-end cameras, and your target is high-end inkjet prints, then you may be interested in the ProPhoto RGB color space.

But better display capability is no good if the rest of your workflow will never support that same level of quality. So, in addition to the display, you have to look at quality of your source imagery, the capability of your video card, editing software, printer, and printer driver.

And whatever color space you choose, you may need to rely on independent tests by third parties to find the true specs of candidate displays.

Right now, wide-gamut displays seem to be ahead of OS support for them. Michael Bourgoin, then Program Manager of Microsoft's Windows Experience Color & Imaging Team, described a "High Color" technology originally slated for introduction in Windows 7, which supposedly would have solved the abnormal colors users currently experience on wide-gamut displays in non-color-managed applications. But that technology didn't make it into Windows 7, and I see no mention of anything like it in Windows 8. So expect the same problems to continue in Windows 8. But this shouldn't be a problem in your work, as long as all of the applications in your workflow are color-managed, and support your required color space.

I'm just beginning to lay the research foundation for my next laptop purchase, so I'm still trying to figure all of this out myself.

Thanks QFoam. I don't actually do any pro-photography. Don't really have a need for any high-end colour management equipment. Just happened to be one of those people who like high rating (even though I don't need them...LoL...guilty as charged).

Now, I have some AWESOME news:
1. I am now able to fully stop the LCD from going off.
2. I am now able to detect lid status.

The answer was always there staring at me in the "XRLaptopIFSDK.dll". I just didn't pay enough attention to it.

The DLL has a logging function, and logs to C:\LidTrace.txt by default. I was able to log the events and replicate the steps outside of the Pantone software.

Now, I'll just need modify dispcal's code and make it work together.

dispalGUI 0.9.9.1 just got released: http://dispcalgui.hoech.net/

How's all of this going, Chatbox? Last I recall, you were going to test different calibration durations?

Thanks!

Anyone interested in this thread will probably be interested in the following. A user in the lenovo.com forums has used an external calibrator, in conjunction with dispcalGUI, to provide some profiles that you can install yourself on the W5XX machines that have wide-gamut displays.

Because these are RGB-LED-backlit displays, they probably don't need to be recalibrated very often. However, most manufacturers dual-source their displays, so I don't know how many different display models Lenovo has used in those machines for wide-gamut. If your display manufacturer/model is different from the one used to create a profile, then the results it provides with your display may vary. Also, there can be a certain amount of variability between different production units of even the same make/model, although those differences are probably minimal.

Still, if the built-in calibrator can be used with dispcalGUI to provide good periodic calibrations of your display, that could be even better.

Anyway, there may be some more developments coming up, such as Lenovo integrating the above results into their software releases, more information for those of you trying to modify dispcalGUI to work with the built-in calibrator, etc. So we'll see what happens with all of that.

Good luck!

Thanks for the link!