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Monitor calibration
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Folks, I’m about to do my nut trying to match my prints with what I’m seeing on my screen and Adobe Gamma just isn’t getting me close enough. Does anyone use a calibration device that they would recommend or if there’s somewhere you can get this done without having to fork out on the whole system?
Cheers :)
I came accross a post in some other forum that they were recommending SPyder 2 Pro, see below.
Spyder 2 Pro.
Both lap tops, the dual screen editing station and the projector are all calibrated.
You need to be working on calibrated equipment if you’re charging money for your work and calling yourself a professional IMO. Unless you only show prints that have had a lab correct them (i know some school and T&I sports photogs that work this way), or do only B&W.All 5 of the monitors I’ve adjusted were off, some a lot. Will the average person tell the difference? No. But why go to the trouble of WB, good lenses, PS over PS-E, etc and then leave the last step to chance?
If you do your own CC and use a pro lab you can pay less for prints- often 50% less. In December that saved me $800 in print costs, easily paying for the CC hardware.. I’ve had 3 labs approve my CC – and without a CC monitor this isn’t possible
Spyder Express version is quite good…good enough for me anyway….cheap too.
Cian,
Sheldon Photographic are in Malahide.
Sheldon can sell you the Spyder calibration system or give him a call and I’m sure he could sort something out for you.https://www.photographyireland.net/viewtopic.php?t=3848
I use the Monaco Optix XR myself and can highly recommend it or the Pro version. I personally would steer clear of the Spyder (based on poor reports I’ve heard of the earlier versions although I understand that they have gotten their act together and are now far more accurate). The Optix XR isn’t that much more expensive. A great site to find out more about what is available with lot’s of useful information to be found there as well is Colour Confidence. There are also some good (if somewhat dated at this stage) reviews over at Dry Creek Photo (scroll to the bottom of the page to the Which product should I purchase? section)
I use the spyder system, becareful though as there is three versions
the cheapest one, after talking to sheldon i belive has no upgrade path now, the other two do.
I have the middle of the three, got it from sheldon and its great and very easy to use.
but just having monitor calibration does not mean you will get on screen the same thing on the printer
thats a little more complicated and expensive
stcstc wrote:
but just having monitor calibration does not mean you will get on screen the same thing on the printer
thats a little more complicated and expensive
That#s a point well worth noting! For monitor and print to match your ENTIRE process needs to be profiled and that includes print profile for each paper/ink combination you intend to use.
Thanks folks, I dont print at home at the moment and order all my prints from a lab but I am also contributing some images to a few books and working on my own publication. Once my monitor is calibrated and profiled I assume that is as far as I need to go with it for those purposes?
cian
yea that does make sense
give sheldon a call he is one of the dealers for the spyder system. nice thing is its a mac and pc version in the box so you can do both
spyder 2 is ace – i’ve used it before – it’s really easy and does a great job.
Tim
there are other things to consider aswell
the monitor, use a cheap rubbish monitor and no amount of calibration will help
even using cheap cabling between you graphics card and the monitor wont help
the other thing to make sure is that you set your graphics card to the basic settings ie not colour adjustments etc from withing the graphics card driver software
sorry to hijack this tread but is it possibly to calibrate a laptop monitor? I have tried using adobe gamma but I do not have control over the contrast of my laptop screen only the brightness and so can only complete some of the steps. I have a sony vaio fj 1s.
i have a HP laptop and used my spyder to calibrate it.
Its not bad, worked ok
well the picture looks like it does on my desktop monitors
Spyder 2 works on LCD monitors really well, if you use that and use the correct ICC profile for your printer/paper combination then you are sorted. Made a huge difference to my workflow anyway.
By the way Colour Confidence were doing post free to Ireland. See here http://shop.colourconfidence.com/index.phpI bought a HP A3+ printer last year. When I opened the box there was an Eye-One Display which I hadn’t expected. It can calibrated LCD or CRT screens, you select the screen type at the begining of the calibration. I think most calibration equipment can handle every type of screen.
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