Calibrating monitor

[kentaroC]

How do make sure that what you see on the monitor gets developed exactly?
are there software to help? i have heard of the syder but is really good and is it very ex ?

 

[waisj]

It actually would very much depends on what you are after,

For instance if you'd only want to post your pictures digitaly on the web, then i guess the monitor calibration according to CIE would be useful. Then again the majority of the population doesn't even have a calibrated monitor.

If you want to send the pictures to the lab to be printed, then the output profile, be it with paper simulation or without will be needed, on top of a calibrated monitor. Of course not to mention physical calibration prints from your LAB for comparison and fine tuning purposes.

so far i have only used the Gretag Macbeth's EYE ONE, EFI's ES1000 and Heidelberg's Print open to create output and simulation profiles for offset and digital print; also for monitor calibration. My personal view is that you MAY be able to skip the monitor calibration part, if you know what to do ; i.e playing with ADOBE gamma or the knoll software(which is very old and outdated, but works wonders!!!!)

One thing to take note though, all labs have/uses consumables, thus sometimes you will find that your colour prints "drift" a bit from the desired output(from what you see)

hope that helped.
cheers

 

[kiwi2]

Hi waisj, for offset printing and digital prints from labs, do you convert the images to CMYK first?

Are there any consumer labs here that you could kindly recommend which know what in the world are calibration and stuffs like that? So far, most people I know simply send their images to be printed without much care for the colour accuracy.

I'm still learning about colour correction and reproduction... it's a monster subject on its own!

Thanks...

 

[waisj]

Hi waisj, for offset printing and digital prints from labs, do you convert the images to CMYK first?

Are there any consumer labs here that you could kindly recommend which know what in the world are calibration and stuffs like that? So far, most people I know simply send their images to be printed without much care for the colour accuracy.

I'm still learning about colour correction and reproduction... it's a monster subject on its own!

Thanks...

hi there kiwi2, For offset printing, it is a must for for the file to be in CMYK, since if you dont, the RIPS will produce blank plates.... as for labs, i leave it in RGB (actually i see no reason why it could not be in CMYK, since all the RIPS and Physical hardware are CMYK.)

As for the consumer labs, why dont you have a look at consumers corner and services, it will give you a head start.


As for me i have just obtained a profile from KT, found it to be a monitor profile, and not a valid CMYK output profile, thus i am offsetting my monitor settings and adobe gamma settings to match their colour prints, still mucking around with the green hue though... :think: still cant get it right.

As for calibration and characterisation/profiling, as you have said is a huge, broad subject by itself, anyway for short, calibration is to ensure consistent and predictable prints, and characterisation/profiling is to ensure that you are able to produce prints that are similar to the final output, ie printing that is similar to what you see on your screen. (for the case you have mentioned)

As for the fact that people do not care for colour accuracy is because the labs colour correct for them, thus eliminating a headache of their own.

hope that helped
cheers

 

[Watcher]

hi there kiwi2, For offset printing, it is a must for for the file to be in CMYK, since if you dont, the RIPS will produce blank plates.... as for labs, i leave it in RGB (actually i see no reason why it could not be in CMYK, since all the RIPS and Physical hardware are CMYK.)

Simple, the labs may have a better RIP that can understand the nuances of the output device better than the generic one that PS has when converting RGB->CMYK.

 

[Watcher]

If you want to send the pictures to the lab to be printed, then the output profile, be it with paper simulation or without will be needed, on top of a calibrated monitor. Of course not to mention physical calibration prints from your LAB for comparison and fine tuning purposes.

so far i have only used the Gretag Macbeth's EYE ONE, EFI's ES1000 and Heidelberg's Print open to create output and simulation profiles for offset and digital print; also for monitor calibration. My personal view is that you MAY be able to skip the monitor calibration part, if you know what to do ; i.e playing with ADOBE gamma or the knoll software(which is very old and outdated, but works wonders!!!!)

One thing to take note though, all labs have/uses consumables, thus sometimes you will find that your colour prints "drift" a bit from the desired output(from what you see)

hope that helped.
cheers

The major problem for us is that the display/monitor device + software is the most affordable! . Compare the price between EyeOne (aka iOne) Display vs Photo vs Print and you will immediately see (pun not intended) what I mean.

I've been trying to find a good lab that does regular fine tuning and provide quality profile. The problem is that almost everyone, even those on CS are fine even if the pictures are not exactly the same as they see. This is acceptable most of the time but what if I need it to be exact just one time? I hope these "pro" labs improve their service...

 

[waisj]

Simple, the labs may have a better RIP that can understand the nuances of the output device better than the generic one that PS has when converting RGB->CMYK.

oh is it? wouldn't it be stricter rather than better? since computer to plate and/or computer to film technologies in the offset printing world will need/only use four physical plates for colour reproduction save for the fact of Pantone and Munsell.

According to my friend in Kodak, the interpreters are the same for both the RIPS for offset and labs, both are CPSI 3011 or 3015

could anyone confirm this?
:dunno:

 

[waisj]

The major problem for us is that the display/monitor device + software is the most affordable! . Compare the price between EyeOne (aka iOne) Display vs Photo vs Print and you will immediately see (pun not intended) what I mean.

I've been trying to find a good lab that does regular fine tuning and provide quality profile. The problem is that almost everyone, even those on CS are fine even if the pictures are not exactly the same as they see. This is acceptable most of the time but what if I need it to be exact just one time? I hope these "pro" labs improve their service...

yeah i would have to agree on that, the price factor is really a royal pain


But i guess even if the labs have the equipment for fine tuning and regenerating profiles, which would already cost them a bomb; they still need to fine tune the profiles after the recreation, thus more man hours >>> more cost. sigh

Even if they could afford to always fine tune the output profiles, i guess there is still no escaping the fact whereby consumables will always wear out and output quality will always be degraded because of it.

are there any labs that you have used that you have used, of which the colour consistency is very good? which also provides a device output profile? i'm interested ;p

PM me if you could
thanks

 

[Watcher]

yeah i would have to agree on that, the price factor is really a royal pain


But i guess even if the labs have the equipment for fine tuning and regenerating profiles, which would already cost them a bomb; they still need to fine tune the profiles after the recreation, thus more man hours >>> more cost. sigh

Yep. List price in the order: US$ 240 vs 1295 vs 2455 (w/o the profilemaker!) See here for the full listing.

They don't really. The minute variances during a run is fine.
For labs only:
I would recommend them to re-profile the device every time they change the chemicals for each device. The paper should more or less remain the same, though on the safe side, they can just do a check on the delta-E whenever a new batch of paper comes in. The initial effort as you can imagine is significant: m x p (m -number machines, p - number of types of paper) of profiles :sweat: . Subsequently, they can just generate a profile and let the profiler check the delta-E. If it is too big, then they have to re-profile and tweek. If the profiling s/w + h/w is good, each machine should not take more than 1 hour (with 2-3 papers) as the will be only minor tweeking needed.

As for print presses, the soft proof will suffice. The variances due to paper and ink and all other factors makes profiling impractical.

Even if they could afford to always fine tune the output profiles, i guess there is still no escaping the fact whereby consumables will always wear out and output quality will always be degraded because of it.

are there any labs that you have used that you have used, of which the colour consistency is very good? which also provides a device output profile? i'm interested ;p

PM me if you could
thanks

Yep, you totally get what I'm thinking :sweatsm: . It will never, ever be perfect.

I'm going to test :devil: a shop across from Lau Pa Sat. Let me see how accurate they are and get back to you

 

[kentaroC]

thanks everyone !