Digital BW, The Print

Barry,

as others have suggested the XRite 810 is a reliable workhorse, and I did buy 
mine from eBay at a good price. However, I have found that the better way to 
go is the XRite Digital Swatchbook. It's a lot cheaper than a new 810 ( though 
a bit more than an eBay deal on a used one).

The big benefit is not in the price, however: Not only does the Swatchbook 
replicate all the functions of the 810 (via the included Colorshop software), but 
also calculates dot gain and acts as a spectrophotometer! The bonus on top of 
that is that your readings are automatically entered in palettes you can save 
and export (to Excel or wherever you like). Beats typing in values from the 810 
by hand. 

More info on: http://www.xrite.com/X-RiteGateway.asp
(and no, I am not associated with X-Rite! <s>)

These solutions do not address your monitor calibration needs, however. I 
use X-Rite's monitor calibrator for that  with Optical. There may be solutions 
that only use a single instrument for everything, but I have no direct 
experience, so cannot comment. 

Antonis



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "flyfishingusa2002" <tflyfish@c...> 
wrote:
> Hi All,
> Is there anyone using Quad inks that uses a densitometer to 
> calibrate their system? If you do could you please let us know what 
> model densitometer you might use? I am using a windows XP system and 
> are considering the purchase of a X- rite densitometer. 
> I think that it would be a acurate way to set up the monitor and to 
> check the dot gain on my 3000.
> Any comments?
> 
> Barry