Monitor Calibration & Printer profiling

[Colin Brett]

I recently bought a Monitor Calibration tool, the "Pantone Colorvision Spyder2 Plus".

 

My results since using it are much improved, with prints coming off the printer virtually the same as seen on screen.

Not cheap but I think it was worth it for the satisfaction value.

 

The added bonus was the inclusion of "Photoshop Elements3".

 

Cost was around £190 from Warehouse Express.

 

Steve has probably got one[?] and can probably the ins and outs explain better than me?

 

Colin

[Steve Randles]

Nope I dont have one because of its prohibitive cost, so far anyway,

 

There are a lot of pros who do have and swear by it, and as such it makes it wysiwyg from monitor to print, which cant be sniffed at, especially if you do a lot of printing.

 

Myself I have now gone another route in that I have just recently started to get my prints done by a local shop - whose name escapes me at this moment. (Klick photoprint I think)

 

8x6's @ 33p each, 10x8's @ £2.49 and 12x8's @ £2.99 Good enough price wise for what I need and will do untill I can afford a large format printer...if I ever go down that route. The advent of digital and its use has brought print prices down quite a bit so that when you consider the cost of the printer and its consumables its only when you get to the larger sizes (12x8's and above) that any major savings are made, not too mention the convenience.

 

My monitor calibration to print has been achieved over time by having a print and comparing to the onscreen view and using a few tools to optimise the resolution to be able to view the best of the highlights and shadows. Now when I have a print done, its incredibly close and at this stage is all I need. I will want the spyder hardware as soon as I have the larger format printer though, at that size tonal differences will be more than obvious and will definately need correcting from screen to print.