COLOR CALIBRATION DEVICES - RECOMMENDATIONS PLEASE!

[helpdesk]

OK - I am looking for a good solution to calibrate a few of our monitors to our new HP color printer. Is it possible to get a good hardware calibration device with software for about 5 or 600 dollars that will build profiles for using photoshop? I am looking for the best cost effective solution.

We are haveing a terrible time getting prints to match gamma corrected screens without doing a lot of expensive test printing!

Thanks!

[thablanch]

We are using Pantone colorvision Spider Pro and we are quite happy with it.. ( works fine with our shitty screens...)

It did cost around 500 bucks, a year and a half ago..

We do have a calibration software for our Fuji Printer as well, wich gets both results quite close

[natty]

We are using Pantone colorvision Spider Pro and we are quite happy with it.. ( works fine with our shitty screens...)

It did cost around 500 bucks, a year and a half ago..

We do have a calibration software for our Fuji Printer as well, wich gets both results quite close

Yeah me too ....works well..

[timmatron]

Yep, the Spyder is great, and easy to use.

[Da_elf]

here is an important questoin. you guys are calibrating your monitors to show the same as what you print. how is LWF affecting this?

[Dman3d]

Using Pantone Eye-One 2
http://www.pantone.com/products/prod...ype_Products=0
Inexpensive and works good so far

[jujubee]

Anyone get LUT errors when using the pantone spider? I bought two separate devices and both times they wouldnt work.

[gafl]

Use eye one display II from GretaMcBeth.
No problem

gael

[flipside]

If you buy a spider, buy the pro version, or you're screwed. It doesn't work on dual monitors either, as it seems windows cannot assign 2 different profiles to two different monitors on one graphics card. So you'll need two cards also.

[helpdesk]

jujubee...What do you mean screws up lut? What is lut and how do I use it? I noticed that it resides in the gamma settings of max 8....I dunno how to use that.?

Betweeen the two products listed so far in this post....Which one is the top shelf? I only want to make this purchase one time. Also, how does this affect LFW?

Thanks for all the help fellas!

[Gleb_ATL]

I have MonacoOPTIX for 2 years but now it refuses to work with my new EIZO CG210 so I got Eye-one II from gretagmacbeth.
It works great. But color profile for monitor is just a part of the bussines - you need to have a color profile for your printer as well.
Most pro printers have a set of ICC for different media, same for a paper manufacture - they can have ICC for your printer.
Here some Soft Proofing Basics http://www.steves-digicams.com/techc...mber_2005.html

[3ddesign]

I've actually gotten great results just by using Adobe Gamma (see my tutorial here:http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...ec040883a33cb9). My prints match my monitor almost exactly. Even though I have access to an Eye One, I prefer the quick and easiness of Adobe Gamma. I have the Monitor Calibration Target as my monitor background image and do a visual test every day.

For accurate color printing, you MUST: Accurately calibrate your monitor; use one of the LWF methods described by Vlado here http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...ic.php?t=15303; use good color management (here are TONS of great links: http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pho...lormanagement/); and use the appropriate HP printer profile.

What HP printer are you using? If you have any specific questions or workflow problems, I'd love to help anyway I can.

Craig

[jujubee]

On three separate Nvidia cards I have, I've installed the Spider system and upgraded to the Pro version to see if I could get it to work. All the times I've tried it, I get an error message saying that it had problems 'writing to the LUT' and it wouldn't work. Three separate computers, three separate monitors, three separate cards.

I tried extensive searches on the web, as well as calling up their technical support to see if they were aware of any issues. The problem was never solved so I returned it.

Overall, I've had pretty good luck with Adobe Gamma in conjunction with some of the methods listed in the Linear Workflow methods. You can't use the single gray target but the RGB ones and sit back at a distance. My prints almost always turn out spot-on when an image is converted to CMYK.

[helpdesk]

jujubee, did you have a typo in this sentence? It doesn't make sense..?

"You can't use the single gray target but the RGB ones and sit back at a distance."

What is ....lut?

[RErender]

jujubee, did you have a typo in this sentence? It doesn't make sense..?

"You can't use the single gray target but the RGB ones and sit back at a distance."

What is ....lut?

No typo, makes sense.

On the more target line "Monitor Calibration Wizard" is the best software calibrator i have used, it has 8 targets for each of RGB. It gives some really good results.

http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp