Which Monitor Calibration / Profiling Device?

[Antonio Correia]

Have a nice week-end

[Antonio Correia]

The limitation of ColorMunki Photo is that we can't profile a printer which is not connected somehow with our computer. A shame indeed !

I quote from the link above: "The ColorMunki printer profiling process rasterizes the testchart in the printer driver and does not really allow users to profile printers that are not connected either directly or via network to their computer. This means the remote profiling of printers at external locations like a photo lab or sign shop is not truly supported."

The alternative is to buy the printer and the paper or move to a higher and more expensive equipment

[Nicola]

Antonio,
I'm confused... why you whant to create your own printer profile of your photo lab printer?
can't you use the profile provided from the shop itself? does the lab provide it?
sorry for the stupid question...
cheers
N

[Antonio Correia]

No Nicola it is not stupid.

There are two profiles.
One for the monitor and
Another for the printer/plotter.

With both profiles - at the same time - I am supposed to see in my monitor what I print.
If I have only the printer/plotter profile - generic and not specific for type A or B paper - I am pretty close to the best.
However, the adapted printed profile for that specific paper you love is missing.

It is here that you need to modify the standart printer/plotter profile in order to be able to use paper A or paper B.
One is supposed to have one printer profile for each and every paper assuming the same monitor calibration and the same ink.

Let's think of extremes.
Imagine you have one paper (Y) which has a yellow mild tone and you have another one (W) which is bright white.
If you are using the standart printer/plotter profile alone the results will be different in the two papers. Obviously.

However, if you are printing with a profile suitable for the combo printer/plotter + paper then the results will be very similar if not perfect.

Colin will you please, confirm this ? Thank you.

More infos here (it's where this image came from)

[Manfred M]

I personally have never seen the need to create an ICC profile for my printer, an Epson 3880. I have always been able to get one for every paper I have ever used from the paper manufacturer over the internet. These are supplied free of charge. The colours are spot on versus what I see on my calibrated monitor, when I use the appropriate profile.

I can see there being a problem if I used third party inks or papers that do not have published profiles, but so long as I stay way from those, I don't see the need to have to create ones own custom profiles. I would expect that the profiling instruments that cost at least an order of magnitude or more that the home profiling devices would provide superiour results.

[Antonio Correia]

I went to Lisbon this afternoon just to see the calibrator, the printer and talk to someone in the major lab of Portugal. Well, at least I think it is the one.

Instead of trying to sell me a printer at once the man I was talking to, advised me just to calibrate the monitor and print some test images using the profile of their machine to see how they come out.
If the images are OK then the problem is solved at a lower price.

Not being a professional of the area but liking exquisite images I think this is a pretty good point of view as long as they are (the images) excellent.

It is so obvious that I wonder why I have not thought of it before.

To use a profile for each paper is indeed a very, very (twice) sophisticated way to work and I have been influenced these days by the way certain hight level photographer work: with a panoplia of equipment !

...I would expect that the profiling instruments that cost at least an order of magnitude or more that the home profiling devices would provide superiour results.

Sure Manfred ! I think you are right but... will the difference be worth ?
In other terms: is it worth for me, humble amateur ?

Thank you Manfred for your words.

[Colin Southern]

There are two profiles.
One for the monitor and
Another for the printer/plotter.

With both profiles - at the same time - I am supposed to see in my monitor what I print.

Hi Antonio,

Prints will never EVER match what we see on our screens; anyone who says different is either (a) trying to sell you something, or (b) doesn't have a good eye for evaluating images.

The problems are ...

- Monitors use additive illuminants (RGB), whilst printers use subtractive colourants (CMYK)

- Monitors have an effective dynamic range of around 6 stops, whereas prints can only manage about 4 stops

- Monitors have a different gamut to printers

The net result is that they're as different (as we say) as "chalk and cheese".

Calibration & profiling attempts to match things up -- and for some it may well produce a result that "close enough" -- but in reality (for the perfectionist) it's really only a starting point. The good thing about it though is that it gives you a couple of things:

1. Consistency. Normally the results are less than perfect - but - they'll vary in a certain way consistantly. Eg when I profile canvas I have an unsprayed black point of around 25 (with 0 being a perfect black, and 100 being a perfect white) (so as you can see it's not very black) (the paper I use on the other hand has a black point of around 4 -- so HUGE difference). But at least EVEry TIME I profile canvas, I end up with a similar result and thus have to make similar corrections to the profile - so it's a consistent thing, as opposed to different papers - different settings - perhaps different inks ... and no profile ... which can best be described in 1 word "lottery".

2. The ability to adjust the profile, thus giving you control over how you like the image to appear. Keeping in mind too that not only does creating your own print profiles give you control over a given media type / ink type / settings type / printer type, you can also (if you wish) create a different profile for landscapes / portraits / sports / what-ever-you-want.

Hope this helps

[Manfred M]

Antonio - what I was saying is that in my experience, I have had no need to calibrate my printer, as the icc profiles that the paper manufacturers produce are very, very good. The quality control on inks and paper is very good and I have not noticed any appreciable difference between different batches of paper or after I change ink cartridges. I think this is the same advice that you are getting from the person you were speaking with in Lisbon.

Just remember that that tone of your paper will determine how "pure white" looks when printing, as your printer will not deposit any ink where you are showing pure white. In fact the colour range in a print is not as wide as on my screen. I will usually move my white point output to a value of around 10 (not 0) and my black point to around 245 (not 255), somehow the prints look cleaner this way. The whites don't look blown out and the blacks don't look blocked up.

My point is simply that you should stick to calibrating your monitor and stick with the publicly available colour profiles. This should simplify your calibration work and even a fairly low cost device will work wonders on your display (assuming that you don't have a low end TN type display).

[Nicola]

No Nicola it is not stupid.

There are two profiles.
One for the monitor and
Another for the printer/plotter.

With both profiles - at the same time - I am supposed to see in my monitor what I print.
If I have only the printer/plotter profile - generic and not specific for type A or B paper - I am pretty close to the best.
However, the adapted printed profile for that specific paper you love is missing.

It is here that you need to modify the standart printer/plotter profile in order to be able to use paper A or paper B.
One is supposed to have one printer profile for each and every paper assuming the same monitor calibration and the same ink.

Let's think of extremes.
Imagine you have one paper (Y) which has a yellow mild tone and you have another one (W) which is bright white.
If you are using the standart printer/plotter profile alone the results will be different in the two papers. Obviously.

However, if you are printing with a profile suitable for the combo printer/plotter + paper then the results will be very similar if not perfect.

Colin will you please, confirm this ? Thank you.

More infos here (it's where this image came from)

Antonio,
thanks for feedback
I know.
but I think if you have to use not yur own printer but a Lab's one you can use the particular icc profile provided by the lab for all combinations between their printers and papaers. if the lab provides it. in this case, why you have to profile a remote printer with color munki?

once you have profiled your monitor (probably a wide gamut) you can run a preview of how your print will be in your monitor loading the icc profile of printer+paper in photoshop (there is the specific command). usually the gamut of monitor is "wider" than printer+paper's one, so you could be able to reach a good result.

[Colin Southern]

Just remember that that tone of your paper will determine how "pure white" looks when printing, as your printer will not deposit any ink where you are showing pure white.

Not necessarily - it's all depends on the rendering intent used. RC won't, AC will.

[Antonio Correia]

@ Colin
Again you were of great help. Thank you Colin

@ Manfred
Thank you Manfred for your valuable words and statement.

... My point is simply that you should stick to calibrating your monitor and stick with the publicly available colour profiles. This should simplify your calibration work and even a fairly low cost device will work wonders on your display (assuming that you don't have a low end TN type display).

At last (!) I made a decision. It was about time indeed. I usually do not hesitate so much in my decisions.
I bought today in Portugal a Spyder4Pro which I will use with my Macs.
I will be printing with a Canon PF 8100 with Canon ink

All images - fine art or my grand son's photographs - will be printed on either Hahnemuhle Glossy FineArt papers or Harman Matt Cotton.
icc profiles are here for the first and here for the second suitable for the papers chosen.
I hope to be able to present myself at the art gallery with a superb work.
The owner of the photography shop - A Carvalho - is helping me on the prints to achieve the best result.
I also plan to print some canvas from Hahnemuhle. I am sure some of my images in black and white will be perfect on that media.
I must have a try but I guess so.
The pure white problem will be solved the easiest way: choosing the white paper not the yellow toned one.

@ Nicola
Yes my latin friend. You are right
-
I wish you all a good and nice week end.

[Manfred M]

Not necessarily - it's all depends on the rendering intent used. RC won't, AC will.

Okay Colin; I'm missing something here I think; please explain?

[Colin Southern]

Okay Colin; I'm missing something here I think; please explain?

Hi Manfred,

Of the 4 rendering intents, the two that photographers use mostly are Relative Colorimetric and Absolute Colorimetric.

RC will shift colours relative to the white point of the paper so "white" on an image will be a "warm white" if it's warm coloured paper.

AC colourimetric will add blue to neutralize the warmth of the paper though (so the colours are "absolute", not relative to the colour of the paper).

[Colin Southern]

My point is simply that you should stick to calibrating your monitor and stick with the publicly available colour profiles. This should simplify your calibration work and even a fairly low cost device will work wonders on your display (assuming that you don't have a low end TN type display).

This is the easiest approach, but it then means you can't customize the profiles to meet your needs - so you then have to customize the image - and you then end up with two versions of each image.

I find it preferable to produce a custom profile for each media -- once done it can then be customized.

Not the cheapest - but gets best results.

[Manfred M]

Hi Manfred,

Of the 4 rendering intents, the two that photographers use mostly are Relative Colorimetric and Absolute Colorimetric.

RC will shift colours relative to the white point of the paper so "white" on an image will be a "warm white" if it's warm coloured paper.

AC colourimetric will add blue to neutralize the warmth of the paper though (so the colours are "absolute", not relative to the colour of the paper).

Thanks Colin - I would never have guessed this is what happens when I read Adobe's description of these rendering intents. I rather got the impression this was more the way that the printer rendered out of gamut images with a bit of an influence of regional printers "standards". Certainly the one thing I have found is that any quality printer I've ever used is that any colour that runs in the range of 0 - 5 renders "black" and anything from 250 - 255 does not lay down any ink at all.

[Colin Southern]

No worries. If you haven't already, grab a copy of Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murphy, and Bunting (2nd edition) - its the industry standard reference for this kind of stuff.

[Antonio Correia]

This thread is more and more important every day

[Manfred M]

No worries. If you haven't already, grab a copy of Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murphy, and Bunting (2nd edition) - its the industry standard reference for this kind of stuff.

Actually I do own it, but have not spent a lot of time reading it yet. Well written, but one has to be in the right mood to read it (and absorb the material).

[Colin Southern]

Actually I do own it, but have not spent a lot of time reading it yet. Well written, but one has to be in the right mood to read it (and absorb the material).

Yeah - it definitely has the ability to make the brain hurt a little on the first read.

Keep in mind though that you can skip a lot of the last chapters as they're program specific ... It ales helps to be able to put the theory into practice.

[colnago69]

HELP PLEASE.....................

I have a dell U2711 wide gamut monitor which has four modes to choose from,
standard
aRGB
sRGB
Custom
I have profiled it in the "cutom mode" using the xrite I1 display and colours look fie in Lightroom
however when viewing the web using IE9 or firefox (which by the way I have confirmed are both colour managed) things look over saturated
I have tried veiwing the web using the other 3 modes but all look the same
My understanding was that I profile it in Custom as the monitor is only wide gamut in the Custom mode and then the other 3 modes are factory preset , and should look the same as a none wide gamut monitor, so why dont they give better results