My view/rant on Moniter calibration

[Paul_B]

Fisrt thing I'd like to mention, I'm new at this, with so much to learn. Just a comment really in my quest to learn it all.

I've spent much of my time learning how to take photos, only now have I been looking into how to print them. I guess first thing to learn is exposure, white balance... then move onto getting some nice prints.

Reading this forum has helped a great deal. Silly me, I didn't realize without moniter calibration, I would never get on paper what I see on screen. It only makes sense, each person normally sets a moniter to how they like it (not thinking how it might look printed).

Now, this is where I should mention I work for a Printing company.

I fiqured I might save a few dollars, and ask our "color specialist" on the topic of moniter color vs printed color. (thats his job, he makes sure colors are correct for million dollar Heidelbergs).
For example, at work I know the Xerox DocuColor 6060. I've seen him create a color curve to match a customer sample based on what he sees on paper (he doesn't care what he sees on screen). I guess he adjusts for whats on paper, rather than whats on screen. Having witness him do this, it is incredable to me. Based on what comes out on paper, he can adjust CMYK to get what he needs.

So, I ask him what software/hardware he uses for his moniter. The response I get "nothing". Our color specialist does nothing different than you and I. Turn it on, adjust, and thats it.

Ok, I"ll go and see what the "Desktop Dept" is using. They are the same, they are using nothing. MACs and PCs are setup however looks good to them.
(I should say, most of color they deal with are CMYK/Pantone/RGB color, does't matter how it looks on screen, it's whats on paper that matters)

So at this point I tell them why I need/want to calibrate my moniter (digital photos). They tell me that the amount "all" printers drift, that they can't posibly chase it. A color device calibrated at 8am, and is in use till 4pm "will not stay the same". They tell me this includes a 4 million dollar Heidelberg to a $400 home printer. Seems this is the "color specialists" job to get color correct.

Example they gave me.
I create a photo that looks nice on my calibrated moniter, then send off to print at both Company A and Company B, they will not match.

For those that "own" your own color printer, and are doing a calibration for moniter/printer, regularly, I have no doubt, you are getting what you should.

Myself, I've been creating a "best of" every few weeks/months, burning them, and then having local photo shop print them off. From what I've been told at work, I will never get perfect/correct colors, printers drift to much in a day, let alone a month.


Anyhow, I'm learning as I go along. Calibrating Moniter is most likely a good thing so long as you own the printer too. If you have no printer, then it would seem to me that you have zero control over calibration of the printer. Thus making your calibration over moniter obsolete.

Again, I would like to say, I'm new at this. I am posting what I've learned from asking questions.

[rdenney]

Don't think of calibrating your monitor as solely something you do for making prints that match what you see. The point of calibrating and profiling your monitor is so that what you see on the monitor conforms to a standard. Thus, 127,127, 127 will be neutral gray, and not pinkish, greenish, or blueish gray. Your gray scale will all look gray, instead of part of it being pink an part being green (that's called a crossover). When you have that, then what you see on the screen conforms to a standard color definition, within reasonable tolerances. You correct your images to match that standard color.

Printer profiling is a targeting activity. You profile the printer, and then use the printer profile in your preview mode in Photoshop, to match what you see on the printer. You can then make the adjustments necessary to get a pleasing output on the printer.

I've used printer profiles that were accurate but that made the ink look splotchy, and I've used them that had a lovely, clear look but that weren't accurate. Printer profiling is indeed as difficult as your color specialists have told you, but at least you can get reasonably close.

But even without setting up a printer profile, it's worthwhile to have a calibrated and profiled monitor, because then the images you send to others who also have calibrated and properly profiled monitors will see the image the same as you do. People who view your images on the web are one example.

Fortunately, it's much easier to calibrate and profile a monitor than it is to really accurately profile a printer. The $200-300 calibration and profile kits that include the colorimeters work pretty well for that, unless your monitor is really substandard.

So, to summarize, you want to correct your images to a correct color, and that correction process requires a calibrated and profiled monitor. Then, you want to target your images for various output devices (printer, web, etc.), and those targeting process also require color profiling. Even if you can't get the target profiling done well (and it is difficult), at least start with a calibrated and profiled monitor so that when you look at an image, you are looking at it in the say way others will.

By the way, printing companies don't care, because they are matching to a customer's requirements, right, wrong, or indifferent. They get the sample, adjust their system to match the sample. And the art department probably does not do artwork that is highly critical, unless they do lots of four-color photographs in high-dollar productions.

I'm much more critical than most printing companies--I can't tolerate green skin tones, and that's why I got before I color-matched my system, even when I had the prints made at the lab.

Rick "separating correction and targeting processes" Denney

[PacAce]

Fisrt thing I'd like to mention, I'm new at this, with so much to learn. Just a comment really in my quest to learn it all.

I've spent much of my time learning how to take photos, only now have I been looking into how to print them. I guess first thing to learn is exposure, white balance... then move onto getting some nice prints.

Reading this forum has helped a great deal. Silly me, I didn't realize without moniter calibration, I would never get on paper what I see on screen. It only makes sense, each person normally sets a moniter to how they like it (not thinking how it might look printed).

Now, this is where I should mention I work for a Printing company.

I fiqured I might save a few dollars, and ask our "color specialist" on the topic of moniter color vs printed color. (thats his job, he makes sure colors are correct for million dollar Heidelbergs).
For example, at work I know the Xerox DocuColor 6060. I've seen him create a color curve to match a customer sample based on what he sees on paper (he doesn't care what he sees on screen). I guess he adjusts for whats on paper, rather than whats on screen. Having witness him do this, it is incredable to me. Based on what comes out on paper, he can adjust CMYK to get what he needs.

So, I ask him what software/hardware he uses for his moniter. The response I get "nothing". Our color specialist does nothing different than you and I. Turn it on, adjust, and thats it.

Ok, I"ll go and see what the "Desktop Dept" is using. They are the same, they are using nothing. MACs and PCs are setup however looks good to them.
(I should say, most of color they deal with are CMYK/Pantone/RGB color, does't matter how it looks on screen, it's whats on paper that matters)

So at this point I tell them why I need/want to calibrate my moniter (digital photos). They tell me that the amount "all" printers drift, that they can't posibly chase it. A color device calibrated at 8am, and is in use till 4pm "will not stay the same". They tell me this includes a 4 million dollar Heidelberg to a $400 home printer. Seems this is the "color specialists" job to get color correct.

Example they gave me.
I create a photo that looks nice on my calibrated moniter, then send off to print at both Company A and Company B, they will not match.

For those that "own" your own color printer, and are doing a calibration for moniter/printer, regularly, I have no doubt, you are getting what you should.

Myself, I've been creating a "best of" every few weeks/months, burning them, and then having local photo shop print them off. From what I've been told at work, I will never get perfect/correct colors, printers drift to much in a day, let alone a month.


Anyhow, I'm learning as I go along. Calibrating Moniter is most likely a good thing so long as you own the printer too. If you have no printer, then it would seem to me that you have zero control over calibration of the printer. Thus making your calibration over moniter obsolete.

Again, I would like to say, I'm new at this. I am posting what I've learned from asking questions.

The only comment I can make is that maybe printing documents and brochures have different set of requirements for color management compared to printing photographs. I'm no printing expert so I'm more asking than suggesting. I do know that when converting from one color space to another, the rendering intent specified can vary depending on the type of printing being done, i.e. photographs vs graphs vs brochure pamplets, etc.

[Paul_B]

The only comment I can make is that maybe printing documents and brochures have different set of requirements for color management compared to printing photographs. I'm no printing expert so I'm more asking than suggesting. I do know that when converting from one color space to another, the rendering intent specified can vary depending on the type of printing being done, i.e. photographs vs graphs vs brochure pamplets, etc.

I hear what your saying here. Just let me say, while my company would never print pamplents. We also do not do photographs either. We do everything from Anual Reports to Art Prints.

I am by no means trying to say because me (my) work is a printing company, that we/me are an expert in the field of photo prints.

I am saying, no one at my company uses any kind of moniter profile/tool to get on paper vs what they see on screen.
They don't correct color on a moniter, they correct it with ink.

Again, this may or may not have anything to do with photos. I myself was very surprised "no one" at my work uses any kind of color moniter profile to print anything.

[mbze430]

When you say Art prints, do you mean prints that gets display in muesums? Or posters you buy for $10?

I am also assuming you guys are a off-set printing company (CYMK) instead of RGB. I am amazed that no one is working in an ICC profiled manner. What's the company again?

However I do know some printing companies that does everything by "eye", but these companies are relatively small, and does small circulars for part of the city and small print magazines.