FINALLY!!! I'm calibrated.

I got my Monaco Optix XR yesterday and I was so anxious to get home an hook everything up(new PC hardware too). In a freak wind storm, we were left without power for about 32 hours. I've finally got my new system up and running and my monitor is calibrated. I was doing pretty darn good with the Adobe Gamma program, but boy, was I off. This is more like what I was hoping to get from my prints. I think if you are waiting to get your calibration hardware for a reason... wait no more. Plain and simple, if you want your color to be accurate. Gamma software is better than nothing, but unless your eyes are true to color, you won't have correct calibration.

Another note, the new PC (AMD Athlon 64 3300+ with 1 Gig)... nice. I wondered how it would be to be able to edit 16 bit ProPhoto RGB files without having to nap, and shower between steps.

Any recomendations on how to get a good calibration other than going thru the onscrene calibration.....I feel it is still too much geared to your interpretation of the white square used to calibrate.

As John says, you'll get a pretty good calibration with Adobe Gamma (especially if there's a manufacturer's profile for the monitor and you start from that), but you'll never get as close as you will with a colorimeter based setup. The colorimeter takes the place of your eyes, and isn't subjective - that's the whole point.

I'm with John - I think a colorimeter based setup is not something to wait for. You could be spending hours post-processing a file when all along you don't have an accurate perception of the colours and you've actually not got some key parameter, such as the white balance in the RAW converter, correct back at the beginning of the process.

If you don't get your print workflow accurate that is not such a disaster; so long as your files have accurate colour, you can always correct the print workflow later without having to rework the files.

David

you won't till you get ICC Profiled printer+ink+paper.

I am actually using an ICC profile for my printer+ink+paper. Thus far I've only been using Canon paper with my Canon printer, and the printer/paper profiles they provide work pretty good. Now if I decide to try using a different paper, I'm screwed because I have an IP6600D printer and nobody seems to have profiled this with their paper. I know that it's not as precise as it would be if I actually profiled my printer myself as printing characteristics can and do vary from printer to printer and even with like printers (i.e. my 6600 may print slightly different than someone else's 6600), but I do not print any commercial prints with my printer and it's more for my personal use so I am not too concerned if it's precise. I just want it to look somewhat right... and the profiles I use with the paper that I use on my printer do look right. The commercial prints I do are always sent out since they use the commercial grade equipment... and the guys I use locally and internet use sRGB calibrated printers... so I'm good there.

I can create your printer+ink+paper for a small fee. all you do is download a target you need to print using your printer+ink+paper, and snail mail it back to me, and I can create your ICC stock. And email it to you.

I appreciate the offer, but I'm ok with using the Canon paper for my personal proofs... but for the sake of satisfying my curiosity and for possible future reference, how much would you charge... and I'm guessing it's on a per profile basis, right? I'd have to print out your target on each and every paper brand and type I'd want to use for which you'd create a profile for each of them? The idea of having perfectly calibrated prints at home is nice... and maybe I could justify a small fee of having the profiles done rather than the huge cost of buying the stuff to do it myself.

It would be good to do a bit of research about colorspaces, as the widest gamut is not always best. Also since you shoot raw you might want to take advantage of the calibration tab/+ Mecbeth colorchecker tablet if you are a Adobe camera raw user.

The more paper you want the better discount I can give you. This way I do a bunch of them before breaking things down again.

My workflow is based on the Macbeth's spectrophotometer. Its is 96-97% accurate, it can be up to 98% but it requires several target printed again after the initial target. But in most cases 96% accuracy is well beyond expectation. The target itself is 3 sheets of 8x10 patches. Totalling of 918 patches from the RGB gamut.

My price for RGB is $80, if you go 5+ paper stock than we can definately talk about a price break.

CMYK (Pre-press) is $250.

Yes, I use ACR and I notice that the only option under the calibration tab for me is ACR 2.4. How would one go about doing as you suggested?

Download this script

http://fors.net/chromo​holics/download/

You will have to shoot a colorchecker