Slightly OT: – Recommendations for calibration equipment and/or software

MP
Posted By
Miss Perspicacia Tick
May 15, 2005
Views
157
Replies
3
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Closed
I have three printers (don’t ask!)

Canon i9950 and iP8500
Epson R800

My monitor is an aging Sony F520, I have a Perfection 4990 scanner and a 350D camera.

Could someone please recommend something that won’t break the bank that would allow me to easily calibrate this motley crew? At the moment my output (photos) is rather insipid – if you have any suggestions, I’d really be interested in hearing them. I want the bright vivid prints I feel I should be getting – I’ve just finished printing a picture of the particularly fine tulip display we had this spring – the photos look as though they’ve spent the last few weeks in the full sun – and they’ve only just been printed! I am on benefits (most of the hardware was given to me), so I don’t have

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B
birdman
May 15, 2005
If you are not calibrating at all then almost any monitor calibrating device and software will improve results. The Spyder 2 is a very good buy. You have to learn the basics of color management but there are good tutorial demos on the web. The Epson print academy for $29 has good Adobe/Epson demos. www.russellbrown.com has very good free download demos, if the site is still up (it wasn’t yesterday). Search the web and I am sure there are others. The eyeball Adobe gamma type methods of profiling a monitor are ineffective and inaccurate.
In the US for about $350 (I got it at B&H) you can get the entry level Monaco colorimeter and EZ color software. In addition to monitor calibration it allows you to create individual printer/paper profiles using your flatbed scanner, actually a unique color space for that particular combination. There is a learning curve to using the Monaco system. I thought I understood Adobe color management options and how they interact with Epson printer drivers but I had to relearn a few things to use this system compared to monitor-only calibration.
I too have Epson and Canon printers.
Using solely a calibrated monitor the color profiles that are packaged with Epson printers for their papers are actually pretty good. However my experience with Canon printers is that the profiles Canon provides for their measly three papers are pretty much useless and their color management procedures unreliable (IMHOP bad software programming hampers many Canon products, unless it is a marketing tool to keep customers in the endless Canon upgrade cycles).
Using the Monaco system for profiling my Canon printer with both Canon and Epson papers has dramatically improved results from my Canon printer so that the prints are a reasonable match to the monitor, but still not as good as the Epson.
Your message suggests that your prints are fading very rapidly ("the photos look as though they’ve spent the last few weeks in the full sun") which should not happen with OEM inks and good papers. If you are describing off color, unsaturated, poor contrast prints then, given the quality of your printers, it is well worth your while to invest the time and effort to implement color management.
H
Hecate
May 15, 2005
On Sun, 15 May 2005 04:30:59 +0100, "Miss Perspicacia Tick" wrote:

I have three printers (don’t ask!)

Canon i9950 and iP8500
Epson R800

My monitor is an aging Sony F520, I have a Perfection 4990 scanner and a 350D camera.
Hi Ms T 🙂

The most important piece of calibration equipment, other than your eyes <g>, is a monitor calibrator. And the best one, as far as I’m concerned, is the Gretag MacBeth Eye One. Which is now the new improved Eye2 😉

Use that and you give yourself a great chance as long as you use proper colour management throughout you workflow.



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PeeVee_Herman
May 16, 2005
On Sun, 15 May 2005 16:49:29 GMT, "birdman"
wrote:

In the US for about $350 (I got it at B&H) you can get the entry level Monaco colorimeter and EZ color software. In addition to monitor calibration it allows you to create individual printer/paper profiles using your flatbed scanner, actually a unique color space for that particular combination.

I used that and got a very good calibration for my monitor, nice neutral gray where it is supposed to be neutral.

However.

Getting a god printer profile was another matter. I read in the book, Real World Color Management, that good calibration software for a printer, should never involve your scanner anywhere in the process.

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