Questions about calibration (printer/scanner/monitor)

Rhuarc

So I have the basic Spyder software and hardware for monitor calibration but I had some questions about calibrating the rest of my devices.

Q - Is there anyway to calibrate my prints that is cheaper than PrintFIX Pro? I really like the looks of it, but I can't justify that kind of money ($549) on it.

Q - I also have a scanner that I am interested in getting calibrated. Are there calibration sheets that I can get to scan and calibrate the scanner?

Q - If this is possible, after the scanner is calibrated could I then use the scanner to scan a printed test sheet and then use that image to calibrate my printer?

Thanks in advance for the help!

cabbey

Rhuarc wrote:

So I have the basic Spyder software and hardware for monitor calibration but I had some questions about calibrating the rest of my devices.

Q - Is there anyway to calibrate my prints that is cheaper than PrintFIX Pro? I really like the looks of it, but I can't justify that kind of money ($549) on it.

Q - I also have a scanner that I am interested in getting calibrated. Are there calibration sheets that I can get to scan and calibrate the scanner?

Q - If this is possible, after the scanner is calibrated could I then use the scanner to scan a printed test sheet and then use that image to calibrate my printer?

Thanks in advance for the help!

My old epson scanner came with a calibration print, it was about 3x5... or maybe 4x6. It also had software to do exactly what you're talking about. First scan the calibration print and in the software, crop the scan to contain just the color swatches. (I had to do that every time I turned the scanner on if I wanted decent scans, sadly after a while I had to re-do it after scaning two or three images to warm the bulb up.) Then print a copy of the same card on your printer and scan it, it then generated a profile that kinda mostly fixed up print quality. (I don't think it was an icc file, I seem to think it installed it's own print driver that only worked with other epson products. but it's been over 10 years... some of the finer details are long lost)

This and this might help. They include a link to a jpeg of the IT8 target. This open source software package can use a scan of that to generate a profile (ICC v2, but still usable). They're actually pretty flexible about the target image you use, with a number of common ones already setup, I'm tempted to suggest smugmug should create a template file for their calibration print.

Rhuarc

I'll have to give this a shot. Thanks for the help!

claudermilk

Here's a link to a place to get the IT8 targets. For scanners AFAIK the two big dog apps (SilverFast and VuewScan) both can deal with using the IT8 targets. I'm planning on going through that once I finally get set up to scan. These days scanners & their software are a little more polished & user friendly than the past (I still recall weeks-long feuds with the scanner/PC/SCSI to get things working).