Monitor calibration enough??
Rocketman766
Registered Users Posts: 332 Major grins
I have what could turn into a two part question and I hope this is in the right area. I am going to calibrate my monitor, that is decided. What I am wondering is if I need to go all out and get the Colormunki system to also create profiles/calibrate my printer. I am currently using a Kodak ESP 5250 for my daily prints and some prints that parents request/purchase. I don't like using that printer for those, but the parents think I am nuts for wanting to do better. Anyway, I have a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II waiting to be set up. Getting to my main question here... the Kodak paper is barcoded which the printer will optimize the image to match the paper... and for the Canon, if I use Canon papers and specify this when choosing the printer, do I need to calibrate either printer if I have a calibrated monitor? A different question could be what setting to use when getting ready to print. I currently print about 95% of my images from LR2 and the other 5% from CS4. Maybe I am totally off in left field... feel free to tell me so, I am still new to this and have a lot to learn...
Thanks,
Lance.
Thanks,
Lance.
0
Comments
If you are also going to do your own printing, you should also calibrate your printer/ink/paper. If you do not, you will most likely not see the exact same results as on your screen so the calibrated monitor is useless as far as printing goes if you ask me.
www.ivarborst.nl & smugmug
I disagree. I never profiled a printer and I got good matches with a calibrated monitor only. You do have some more control if you calibrate both, but the higher-end printers are calibrated and the inks are pretty good. I'd say you can get 95% accuracy in calibrating the display only as opposed to 100% if you own end to end.
Most LCD monitors fresh out of the box are no where near their best calibration. They're always too bright and compared to standards, there is usually some DeltaE that can be recovered in RGB and Gray scale. I see this every monitor review put out by the review sites.
Printers on the other hand, imho, can do quite well where you use the OEM ink, OEM paper, and ICM/ICC paper profile as supplied by the manufacturer. You need to print with a utility that understands profiles. If using PhotoShop CS3/CS4 you can "soft proof" before printing to ballpark the print job. I'm not so sure that LR2 is capable of "soft proofing" or is aware of the printer ICM/ICC profile. I print with QImage Pro which is both monitor and printer profile aware and can soft proof.
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/
To use an ICM/ICC profile you basically undo all the custom tweaks on the printer, enable ICM (per my Canon), and use printing software where you enable ICM and pick the right paper profile.
Where it can get ugly is if you want to use a paper from a third party source or you start using third party inks or both. This is where something like a Color Munki may be handy to build custom paper/ink profiles for use by the printer. I've done something similar in the past and it really can work well but I found it very very time consuming and expensive in terms of ink and paper consumed.
There are complications from the color space you work in - if you work in the AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB color spaces then you should ensure you have a monitor that covers those spaces. You, at home, should be able to print an image with the AdobeRGB color space embedded. However, most commercial printers ask clients to provide images with the sRGB color space embedded.
Something else.... I've used a lower end Canon printer (i960) for some time but have stopped using Canon paper, switching to Kodak Ultima and now it's current iteration. I found the Kodak paper to have much better contrast then the Canon paper. Blacks were blacker on Kodak and colors appeared more vibrant thereby making the Canon paper images appear to be flat. The Canon 9000 uses different inks than I use so maybe it won't be an issue.
You should consider, especially with the expense of ink, paper, and your time, is using profiles generated by a third party. They'll create a profile for your printer, paper, and ink. There are a number of suppliers in this respect. Here's a couple.
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/
http://www.cathysprofiles.com/
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More precisely, the higher-end printers come with really good profiles. For most end users you can't really calibrate the printer but you can and should profile it. I have an Epson 3800 and most of what I've read says the profiles Epson includes are very good. As a result I have not felt the need to make my own profiles. If I use a non-Epson paper, step 1 is to go to the paper maker's website and download the profile for that paper on the 3800.
If the Canon profiles are good, then you can be one of those people who says "I never have to make my own printer profiles." If they are not good, or if you want to use a paper for which no profile exists, then you want to pick up a device like the ColorMunki that can profile papers too. Note that there really is no such thing as profiling a printer. You must actually have a profile for the specific combination of printer model, ink, and paper type, otherwise it's meaningless.
Correct. Use the manufacturer profiles for the paper you're using and it's quite repeatable and accurate. And learn about soft proofing and all that good stuff.
Thanks,
Lance.
In the UK, Fotospeed and Permajet papers are excellent with free profiles.