Digital BW, The Print

The background:

Monitor, ViewSonic P95f+ Pro series 19"

Color printer, Canon i960

B&W Printer, Epson 890 (will be using MIS UT-2 inks once up and running)

Scanner, Canoscan FS4000US (for film) and Canoscan D2400U Prints and
MF (until I figure out which new flat bed to get for MF)

Photo Editor program, Picture Window Pro v3.5

Scanner software, Vuescan 8.1.20

I shoot all four types of material to scan and print from Traditional
B&W C-41 B&W Negs and Slides 

AND I can't figure out what of my choices I should be getting for
color calibration. I'm not a Pro. I don't sell my work. I'm only
slightly Anal. I enjoy photography as a hobby.

I can barely justify spending much more then $250-300.00 on this part
of my hobby.

Digtial Light and Color offers a couple ofsoftware hardware packages
called:

Profile Mechanic - Monitor  for $180.00 it has the spider and will do
my monitor 

Profile Mechanic - Scanner  For $60.00 that will do the same for my
Scanners if I buy a $80.00 target package.

They offer nothing for the printers.

Monaco Systems Inc. has a couple of package setups like the:

   MonacoEZcolor 2.6 Color Management Software $200.00 

This says it will do the monitor scanner and printer all to the same
std. it looks like I would still need 35mm targets to make it work
though it does include a reflective target for my flat bed.

Monaco has other offerings as well.

Color vision offers so many choices I'm totally lost looking at them.



I'm just a Dump Truck driver who enjoys photography wants to print his
own stuff at home and I don't want to become a color calibration
reviewer in the process. It will be hard enough just learning to use
what I have already I really don't want a bunch of more head aches.


Also just to make this short PLEASE don't tell me I should be using
Photoshop, or any other editing program or scanner driver or anything
the items listed above are what i'm going to be using until I wear
them out. 

And while I know you will probably be right I should not scrimp on the
color calibration stuff I just don't have the money for some $1000.00
Pro set up. And if I did I still wouldn't spend it that way.

SO any help or am I beyond help.

Mark W.

> From: awahlster [mailto:awahlster@...]
>
> Digtial Light and Color offers a couple ofsoftware hardware packages
> called:
>
> Profile Mechanic - Monitor  for $180.00 it has the spider and will do
> my monitor
>
> Profile Mechanic - Scanner  For $60.00 that will do the same for my
> Scanners if I buy a $80.00 target package.
>
> They offer nothing for the printers.
>
> Monaco Systems Inc. has a couple of package setups like the:
>
>    MonacoEZcolor 2.6 Color Management Software $200.00
>
> This says it will do the monitor scanner and printer all to the same
> std. it looks like I would still need 35mm targets to make it work
> though it does include a reflective target for my flat bed.
>
> Monaco has other offerings as well.
>
> Color vision offers so many choices I'm totally lost looking at them.
>
> I'm just a Dump Truck driver who enjoys photography wants to print his
> own stuff at home and I don't want to become a color calibration
> reviewer in the process. It will be hard enough just learning to use
> what I have already I really don't want a bunch of more head aches.
>
> Also just to make this short PLEASE don't tell me I should be using
> Photoshop, or any other editing program or scanner driver or anything
> the items listed above are what i'm going to be using until I wear
> them out.
>
> And while I know you will probably be right I should not scrimp on the
> color calibration stuff I just don't have the money for some $1000.00
> Pro set up. And if I did I still wouldn't spend it that way.
>
> SO any help or am I beyond help.

My advice is get a really good monitor calibrator like the GretagMacbeth
Eye-One Display, and forget about calibrating anything else initially.

First of all, for your printer, you're unlikely to be able to produce better
profiles with inexpensive tools than you can get from other people who have
high-end tools, so don't bother trying. I don't know about Canon, but my
experience with stock Epson profiles (on the 2200) are that they're very
good.

Second of all, for your scanner (or for that matter, a digital camera, if
you get one), calibrating and profiling is less important because it's an
input device, so you get to edit the images from it before you use them.
Indeed, you're likely to want to do that anyway, even if the scanner
produces technically accurate color.

Tweaking images to make up for deficiencies in a scanner or digicam's color
rendition may seem like a pain, but it's actually comparatively easy,
compared to the sort of tweaking involved in correcting for poor
screen/print matching. The latter is difficult because you're not trying to
make the image look a certain way, you're trying to make the image have the
opposite flaws of the initial test print: if the test looked magenta in the
midtones, you have to guess aout how green to make it to compensate. Ugh.

However, the reason people have poor screen/print matching is 95% the result
of having an uncalibrated monitor. If you have good printer profiles, which
you probably already do, and you get a good monitor calibration and
profiling package, you'll get good results, maybe not perfect down to a
gnat's ass, but very close.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...