Scanner Color Profiling Software

I'm looking to profile my scanner and it's easy to find suitable targets but I'm having trouble figuring out what software to get. I'm quite willing to pay for suitable software but I can't afford to spend $500 or $1,500 on the fancy software that does all sorts of things besides just take an input and compare it with the reference file and generate a profile. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Silverfast (Lasersoft) makes software ($200) for specific scanners which will analyze various targets (one is included). Silverfast scanning software will use that profile automatically. You can also apply (without conversion) the profile to a scanned image, then "convert" the image to a standard color space, including sRGB and AdobeRGB. There are also Photoshop plugins which do the same, but all are 32 bit the last time I looked.

 

You will see that a calibration profile consists of three curves, one for each color, constructed using polynomial interpolation analysis. The best you can do by eyeball is match one or two colors of the target. If you prefer to do it yourself, I can recommend a text for the computer part, "Numerical Analysis," by Donald Knuth, but you'll have to provide the data using a photometer or spectrophotometer.

Edited November 3, 2018 by Ed_Ingold

Ditto for SilverFast and their (newer) target.

Thank you to both of you. When I price out SilverFast AI for my scanner the price I'm quoted is $450, which is really more than I can afford to spend. I suspect my price is higher because of the higher-end scanner I'm using. I also already use VueScan for my scanning software and I've spent a lot of time refining how I use it so I was hoping to find a solution that was just for creating profiles, rather than a complete scanner software system.

Thing is, I don’t know that you can find a target and software to build a scanner profile for less.

OK. Thanks. I did find one open-source system but it seemed to require another piece of open-source software that is no longer available.

 

It seems like there should be a service where one could send the reference file and the scanner output and get back a profile but maybe there isn't enough demand.

I have used a plug-in, "InCamera" by Pictocolor to create profiles in a scanner, using a Gretag-MacBeth target. The price is $200, but only works with a 32 bit version of Photoshop. I keep a version of Photoshop CS6 just for that purpose.

 

inCamera

 

SilverFast SE 8.5 is a light version, for $200.

 

LaserSoft ImagingSilverFast SE Plus 8.5 for Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II Scanner (DVD)