Matthew: When you are on site you should use the laptop as a way to dump the photos while shooting, colour calibrating a laptop is arduous at best, maybe you want to use it as a reference, but you really shouldn’t be using it for editing or colour correction. Work on a photo should be done on the colour corrected workstation, then sent to the client: Do they have a properly calibrated system (or anything closely resembling one)? That is the ten million dollar question.
I did colour corrections for an agency for a very large client, the process went on a longer time than usual until the photog went to the agency to discuss why I was ‘that bad’ at photo re-touching. Gee… couldn’t have been the computer they were using could it.
Matthew,
I agree with ID.Awe laptop color correction is extremely difficult. Color calibration software is definately the way to go. The other variable that comes into play is the viewing enviornment. Not only for you but your client. To be really picky about color you need to be in an area that has little or no external light sources that would cause a color shift on your screen. Then make sure the clients screen is calibrated to yours. The next question I would have is what is the final output the client is using your images for , web, print, photo’s this opens up another can of worms.
sticks
