"Mike Russell" wrote in message
Past a certain point, money and time spent calibrating a small operation
is
simply a waste of time and money.
I absolutely agree. If the poster never intends to go out his internal workflow, and is willing to accept "close enough", in the knowledge that he will get most, but not all, of what his equipment can deliver, then hardware calibration, and even the use of profiles are unnecessary. Furthermore, this (and I’m being frank here) probably includes a preponderance of the posters in this and other photoshop/imaging forums and newsgroups.
Unnecessary, however, does not imply that it is easier. Once you’ve learned how to work with accurate profiles, color management is (relatively speaking) *easy* since it takes all of the guess work and trial-and-error brain damage out of the process. As both of us have seen, there are people who land here every day that have spent weeks (and lots of $$$) just trying to get a simple screen-print match that is *close.* To be sure, I’ve paid my dues.
I’m sure you’re aware that a profile in and of itself does not
intrinsically
impart any quality to the final image. That is to say no one can tell whether a particular print, monitor image, or scan was profiled by looking at it or even by measuring it. Nor is the consistency of an image, for a one or two person operation, affected by profiles, particularly when only one output device is involved .
Once again, agreed. OTOH, if he ever intends to send stuff out I would make the case that accurate profiling, and the use of profiles in the workflow, becomes much more important, and even arguably imperative. I’ve made the mistake of working with a closed-loop, unprofiled service bureau once before…never again.
Or, are you suggesting that he simply use Adobe Gamma, and use the printer driver to control color management?
Adobe gamma is indeed more than adequate for this. It is worth some care
to
achieve a good match on your monitor between neutral colors, black and
white
point, and overall brightness. There are other freely available gamma
test
images that may be used to leverage the accuracy of Adobe gamma.
The main problems I have with these tools are that they provide no way to balance the color guns, they slam the Vlut’s in the video cards, and they do not profile the actual color ramps, rather just a single grey point. But, they are better than nothing and can service the average at-home photo printer, provided he/she isn’t too picky.
And yes, there are good, free profiles available for any number of
printers,
particularly for, but not limited to, Epson.
Actually, outside of the high-end Epson photoprinters, there are darned few; to my knowledge, virtually none of the high end HP’s or Canon’s have any true canned profiles. Furthermore, what happens if he wants to use a third party paper? (I don’t know about you, but for our 2200, we use more third party stock than Epson.)
[snip]
Look, still on the subject of printers, Epson, Canon, and other manufacturers check their inks and papers using instruments that cost more than my house. The nozzle dimensions of Epson and Canon printers are remarkably consistent between machines. This is more accuracy than I can expect to get from any device I’m likely to purchase.
No argument there.
I agree that it works
for some people, but it certainly is not the "best way to calibrate my system",
Of course I don’t question your right to calibrate your own system as you see fit, and if the rest of your work is in keeping with this, I imagine
I’d
greatly enjoy your work.
I was quoting the original poster. And that quote kinda sums up where I and others were coming from: he didn’t ask for "OK", he asked for the "best." (Not that you were wrong to, essentially, tell him he might be wasting money on results he may not need, which is another issue.
and it bypasses all the incredible benefits of accurate
profile usage/proofing in PS.
For example, as incredible as your soft proofing may be, I doubt very much you would say it’s more accurate than printing a test image, letting it
dry,
and viewing it in a variety of lighting situations. Would you?
Mike, that’s the *point.* I don’t need to print out "test" images…I already know exactly what I’ll get, under controlled proof lighting. As for varied lighting, you are of course correct. (I could profile for that, and it’s even simpler to correct for it using my photospectromter, but why bother? I’ve only had one client who complained, and after I took a look and got him to swap out his 2600 degree(!!) lighting for something a little more reasonable, the "problem" went away…and his wife liked the new lighting a *whole* lot better anyway.)
[snip]
Indeed, on the input front there are a whole host of problems with
variable
capture situations – lighting conditions, reflected light, that affect the original art. Calibrating that is more difficult than herding a group of snail darters. And on the printing front there are vaguaries with viewing conditions, metamerism, etc, that are not addressed or even mitigated by profiling. For this reason the best of fine art printing demands using
test
prints – why not focus on that instead of mumbo jumbo numbers, patches,
and
screen suckers?
Sure, there is a place for profiles, but the cachet and hype is a little ahead of the actual benefies, particularly for small operations. To you folks who use one printer and monitor: spend your money and time on other good ways to improve your images.
That’s my story and I’m stickin to it. 🙂
Fair enough, and I’m leaving it there because it *is* good advice for lot of people. The only thing I would ask folks to consider is that if you have spent the $900-1300 to buy Photoshop and a good high-end inkjet, and want to make it as simple as possible, do not be afraid of profiles or calibration. It is really pretty easy, doesn’t take much time, and it *can* be done cost effectively.
—–= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—–
http://www.newsfeeds.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–== Over 100,000 Newsgroups – 19 Different Servers! =—–
