Calibrating help ... Please!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zaphod
  • Start date Start date
Z

Zaphod

Hi

Have a USB scanner, Dell TFT monitor and Epson R300 printer, running XP
Home SP2

I would like to get the calibration as near as possible for the scanner,
monitor and printer, so that what I scan is shown identically on the screen

and what is printed looks like what I see on my screen. I use PSP 8.

I think I should be finding a test page to print, scan and view to campare /
adjust some settings including something called Gamma?

Any ideas / help would be much appreciated.
 
Zaphod" ([email protected]) said:
Hi

Have a USB scanner, Dell TFT monitor and Epson R300 printer, running XP
Home SP2

I would like to get the calibration as near as possible for the scanner,
monitor and printer, so that what I scan is shown identically on the screen

and what is printed looks like what I see on my screen. I use PSP 8.

I think I should be finding a test page to print, scan and view to campare /
adjust some settings including something called Gamma?

Any ideas / help would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...


If any of the above came with an Adobe product bundled with it you might
get the Gamma calibration program for your monitor included. The only
real difference I noticed wias that their brightness setting is a bit
lighter than my original choice, but I can see it kick in each time I turn
the computer on.

Brendan
--
 
Have a USB scanner, Dell TFT monitor and Epson R300 printer, running
XP Home SP2

I would like to get the calibration as near as possible for the
scanner, monitor and printer, so that what I scan is shown identically
on the screen and what is printed looks like what I see on my screen. I
use PSP 8.
Click to expand...

What you scan will never be shown identically on the screen. One is viewed
by reflected light; the other by transmitted light. The two are so
different that there will always be a difference and the best you can hope
for is to minimise it.

Profile Prism (http://www.ddisoftware.com/prism/) will handle the scanner
and printer calibration pretty well. The monitor's a different matter. I
don't know the model you have but most TFT displays aren't really suitable
for graphic work so, once again, there's a good chance that you'll have to
settle for getting it as close as possible. The best way to do this
includes a combination of hardware and software and isn't particularly
cheap. However, as you're in the UK, it might be worth checking out
http://www.scs-imaging.co.uk/. I've heard good things about the service.

Jon.
 
If any of the above came with an Adobe product bundled with it you might
get the Gamma calibration program for your monitor included.
Click to expand...

Gamma adjustment is necessary for establishing a good colour workflow but
it's not the same as monitor calibration.

Jon.
 
Hi

Have a USB scanner, Dell TFT monitor and Epson R300 printer, running XP
Home SP2

I would like to get the calibration as near as possible for the scanner,
monitor and printer, so that what I scan is shown identically on the screen

and what is printed looks like what I see on my screen. I use PSP 8.

I think I should be finding a test page to print, scan and view to campare /
adjust some settings including something called Gamma?

Any ideas / help would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

I am using Photoshop. I bought an IT-8 target from here:
http://www.targets.coloraid.de/

used their software to create a scanner profile, and when I scan
something - I do it without correction in the scanner, but just
applies the color profile to the image in Photoshop, or converts
it to AdobeRGB og sRGB depending on purpose.

Gives me glose to perfect images on screen every time.

For monitor calibration, the best thing is to buy a spider to
calibrate - but there are many software-only free solutions there.

For printing, just use the right printer profiles in your software,
enable ICC in the printdriver, and disable all the other adjustments.
Then you get pretty close if you use correct paper profiles.
 
Thanks to all for your suggestions - a whole new world is opening up for me,
wont have time to surf - too busy matching colours!!
 
Folks

the bit I don't get is the ICC stuff and the printer profiles. If I don't
have the ICC box ticked and use canon easyphoto I get good results. If I
tick the ICC box it doesn't seem to make any difference. Can someone
explain what these are in simple terms for us dummies.

regards

Don
 
Don said:
Folks

the bit I don't get is the ICC stuff and the printer profiles. If I don't
have the ICC box ticked and use canon easyphoto I get good results. If I
tick the ICC box it doesn't seem to make any difference.
Click to expand...

There's any of a number of reasons that could happen, and probably
a lot more that I don't know. But the easiest reason for that not
to matter is if the original image doesn't have an attached color
space attached to it (so ICC's and that such won't and can't do
anything).
Can someone
explain what these are in simple terms for us dummies.
Click to expand...

Not really. Maybe one of those yellow books will be written. :-)
But... it's a matter of characterizing each device being used
(scanner, monitor, printer, and photo-encoding) such that
they can have their colors translated between them with
decent accuracy. Perfect translation is usually not
possible. Printer associated .ICC files are characterizations
of the printer (only).

Do a usenet or web search on the subject and there will be
zillions of discussions. Try read a few of them and I think
you'll get the gist of it. But.... if what you do now makes
you happy, then don't worry about it.

Mike
 
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