Yes there are a number of tools out there for calibrating and profiling
monitors; but most of them do not work very well on consumer flat screen
monitors; they work best on CRTs. Similarly, making an accurrate custom
printer profile is not as easy as it may seem. The programs you mention can
create satisfactory printer profiles if you are not too exacting or too
demanding; but more often than not, users have not been all that satisfied
with the results as compared to the use of canned generic profiles produced
by the printer manufactures or the paper manufacturers. Many have said that
the additional benefits of using such consumer methods based on scanners are
not worth the time and trouble. Moreover, scanner based profiling often
meeans that you scanner has to be calibrated and profiles as a spearate
device for the end result to be close to accurate.
filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk wrote:
> Subject: [filmscanners] Screen calibration (was: RE: not enough
> memory?=
>
>
> Hi there is a tool called "Profile Mechanic - Monitor" which can
> calibrate a monitor for 179 USD. Personally I use a "Colorvision
> Monitor Spyder with OptiCal för PC & Mac" which is around 300 USD,
> here in Sweden.
>
> Regarding printer profiles there are probably prepared profiles for
> your printer. Making your own profile may not be that hard. There are
> some "el cheapo" tools for that to. You need an Q60 target
> (), a flatbed scanner and Vuescan Pro.
>
> Check here:
>
>
>
> A good program for adjusting digital images is:
> Picture Window Pro, at www.dl-c.com, PC-only.
>
> A certified toolchain is much more expensive.
>
> Regards
>
> Erik
>
> Wednesday 14 July 2004 20.21 skrev Laurie Solomon:
>> First, unless you have a really high end flat panel monitor, costing
>> in the $1000 us range, you will have difficulty calibrating and
>> profileing the monitor display. Current consumer and prosumer
>> models of flat panel displays tend not to lend themselves to
>> calibrating and profiling with the prosumer monitor calibration and
>> profiling programs and devices on the market today, which work best
>> with CTRs. The problem is that the color shifts on flat panel
>> displays as one changes one's viewing angle; and the current
>> prosumer calibrating and monitoring programs and devices cannot get
>> an accurrate measure off of them.
>>
>> Second, I am not all that familiar with Photoshop Elements enough to
>> say what it has and can do versus Photoshop; but Photoshop Elements
>> was neither designed nor intended for professional use by
>> photographers or artists. It was intended to compete with the
>> hobbyist consumer level image editiing programs on the market. I
>> would assume that it does not have many of the color management
>> features of Photoshop since it was targeted to those who intend to
>> merely edit and print theriown image files for themselves and for
>> distribution via web mostly and via print occassionally to others
>> and not for those who demand accurrate color management between
>> multiple users and systems such as those who produce images for
>> printing on commercial presses or for sale in galleries.
>>
>> Thirdly, generic monitor profiles typically come from the monitor
>> manufacturer and not Adobe; and generic printer profiles usually
>> come from the printer manufacturer and are based on use of their
>> inks and papers only. Custom monitor profiles are generally done
>> either by the user or a custom profile maker for a specific brand
>> and model monitor; but their quality will vary depending on if the
>> monitor is a CRT or a flat panel and will need to be reularly
>> updated as the monitor ages over time if the monitor is a CRT. For
>> printers, custom profiles ordinarily are made professionally by
>> third partys and are based and dependent on the specific paper and
>> ink combinations being used. Each change in inks (and sometimes ink
>> lot) or media will necessitate its own profile. ICC profiles are
>> merely made using ICC standards; but they work the same as any other
>> type of profile.
>>
>> Welcome to the wide world of high tech where nothing is simple,
>> nothing of quality is turnkey, and only in the world of advertising
>> hype are things push button automated. Now for the less demanding
>> who are willing to compromise and accept merely satisfactory quality
>> and color management, some semblance of autopmation and turnkey
>> operation is available; but not for the demanding professional,
>> commercially targeted, or high end operation. This is why many of
>> the professional high end big operations need to maintain
>> professional technical experts on staff to keep the digital workflow
>> going smoothly and with some efficiency not to mention accurrately.
>> This was also the case in the old analog world once one got into the
>> professional and commercial operations. Photo labs had to run daily
>> test runs to make sure that everything was calibrated and up to
>> quality levels some times two times a day. Printing press
>> operatiors would have to constantly tweak the presses. Artists would
>> constantly test paints and medium to make sure that what they gat
>> was what they wanted and would work together.
>>
>> filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk wrote:
>>> on 7/13/04 7:54 PM, Berry Ives at yvesberia@earthlink.net wrote:
>>>> on 7/13/04 8:47 AM, Bernie Kubiak at bkubs@comcast.net wrote:
>>>>> Berry,
>>>>>
>>>>> That's a question to toss to the folks at Adobe. Unless you're
>>>>> doing real critical work, you probably don't need the profiles
>>>>> (sounds like heresy, I know). Getting custom profiles done can
>>>>> be an expensive proposition.
>>>>>
>>>>> Bernie
>>>>>
>>>>> Berry Ives wrote:
>>>>>> Here is Epson's response:
>>>>>>> Photoshop Elements has a certail level of color control built in
>>>>>>> to the application but i not advanced enough to handle the full
>>>>>>> capabiities of ICC profiles. Photoshop Elements 2 has slightly
>>>>>>> more support, but the full range of features and ways to apply
>>>>>>> the profiles is not available in the Elements version of
>>>>>>> Photoshop. To use the ICC profiles correctly, you would need to
>>>>>>> be useing certified ICC profiiles in conjunction with a program
>>>>>>> that is certified to handle ICC profiles.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So this would mean that I would need to upgrade to the full PS.
>>>>>> Has anyone else used ICC profiles with Elements? On a Mac or PC?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Berry
>>>>
>>>> Hi Bernie,
>>>>
>>>> Frankly, I don't know how to ask the folks at Adobe anything. They
>>>> have a useless forum where there is a lot of chatter about all
>>>> kinds of details that the software folks should have automated
>>>> long ago in my opinion.
>>>>
>>>> You go to the profiles area, and you have one option for Macs:
>>>> download a
>>>> 4.2MB thing that may have nothing that I need. There is no info or
>>>> selectivity provided about what you might need.
>>>>
>>>> I am really pissed at how hard it is to do just this simple thing:
>>>>
>>>> -using a Mac G4 with adequate memory
>>>> -using a Mac flat panel monitor
>>>> -using PS Elements
>>>> -using an Epson 2200
>>>> -using a standard Epson paper
>>>>
>>>> to make the image on the screen match the printed image. Now, is
>>>> that so bad?
>>>>
>>>> All of that, one would think, would have been easily automated by
>>>> now. But instead, I am asked to buy $600 software from Adobe, or a
>>>> few hundred to develop custom profiles (for standard products) or
>>>> various and other sundry gyrations. You know, I am a photo artist,
>>>> not a GD computer jock, and frankly, all the computereze stuff
>>>> bores me to hell.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry to dump, but why is this so hard? I don't even know really
>>>> if buying the full PS will solve this simple task. What do you
>>>> think?
>>>>
>>>> Berry
>>>
>>> I should have said, to be technically correct, "to make the image
>>> from the printer match the image on the screen."
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>> -
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