Calibrated my monitor with Spyder3 Elite but

<p>Do I set for printer to control the colour management or allow PS8 to control it</p>

<p>Sorry for the newbie question, but I'm getting confused.</p>

<p>How your monitor is calibrated doesn't really have anything to do with the printing process. For printing, you need to use the profile that is provided by the paper manufacturer, set to be used as apprropriate for the printer you're using. Each paper manufacturer will have specific tips on the best way to use their products with a given printer maker's hardware, and their web site's FAQ will help you decide when to let PS control color, vs. letting the printer driver software do so. Too many variables to guess at, here, since we don't know what paper you're using, what printer you're using, and under what operating system.</p>

<p>let Photoshop handle the color management.</p>

<p>DONT set your Photoshop RGB space to your custom monitor profile.. a newbie error ; ) leave it at adobe rgb, srgb or Pro Photo.. i work adobe rgb personnaly.</p>

<p>have a look at this, old post but still pretty much this;</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00MBIJ</p>

<p>I'm using...<br>

Win 7 Home Premium<br>

Epson R2880<br>

Epson Velvet Fine Art... if it ever arrives.<br>

More questions... How <em>would </em>I set the Photoshop RGB space to my custom profile, I thought the Spyder software I've just run said that PS will now load that profile automatically<br>

If I go into PSE Colour settings I have the option of <br>

No colour management<br>

Optimise for Computer screen<br>

or<br>

optimise for printing</p>

<p>So when I edit, which should I be on?</p>

<p>...More questions... How <em>would </em>I set the Photoshop RGB space to my custom profile,...</p>

<p>read my answer just before.. you DONT set your Photoshop color space to your monitor profile.</p>

<p>If I go into PSE Colour settings I have the option.....<br>

optimize for printing</p>

<p>Thanks Patrick, I understood your point, but I'm asking how would i? How can I check to see of the Spyder has done this automatically, where do I check to see that PS is still in control?</p>

<p>At the moment if I switch between Optimise for screen and optimise for printing, I see absolutely no change. Nothing</p>

<p>The monitor calibration is happening outside of PS. It's how Windows itself decides to fine tune the way it's sending a signal to the display. This part is invisible to the applications you use, and you don't have to worry about it. Just be sure that in the printer driver dialogs that you're correctly identifying your use of Velvet Fine Art paper (which, by the way, is one of my favorites - gorgeous paper!).</p>

<p>Hi Tony,</p>

<p>You are using Photoshop Elements 8 (PSE8) not the full Photoshop CSx. Your options in color management are somewhat restricted; that is one reason PSE8 retails for $99 while CS5 retails for $699.</p>

<p>When you check Optimise for Screen, PSE8 saves the file in the sRBG color space. When you check Optimise for Print, PSE8 saves the file in the Adobe RBG color space. The colors in the file will match the colors you see on you screen, because you monitor is profiled. Those are the only options you have in PSE8; there are considerably more options in CS5.<br>

Of course you do not see any difference when you look at the screen; the conversion is done when you save or print the file. You "check" to see if the Spyder has done its job when you see the final print - assuming the printer/paper profile is correct.</p>

<p>By the way, now that you have a profile that matches your monitor, has the "green" cast disappeared?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks Brooks, I think I get that</p>

<p>Yes the Green cast has totally gone, switching between calibrated and uncalibrated is really quite scary, however.....<br>

I still feel the screen is a little cool, it may be to do with the warm paint colour in my office. Also the Spyder requested that I manually reduce the brilliance to as close to the target of 52 before it calibrates, I couldn't get it that low even though the monitor is now set to zero! Reds also seem a little electric.</p>

<p>I'm used to colour grading 35mm motion picture negative via a Colorist using sophisticated telecine suites, but trying to get this monitor looking right is starting to wear me down. I'm running an old Viewsonic VP201B as a desktop extension which is a good setup, but I'm starting to think I might switch back to the viewsonic for colour correction. It lacks the vibrance of the Dell but looks far more colour realistic to me.</p>

<p>What kind of monitor is this? Is it a wide gamut monitor?</p>

<p>Another question.<br>

Assuming the paper profile sets the printer to produce a given end product, is that profile not going to be where the Spyder is aiming to get my monitor? </p>

<p>If not, whats the point of calibrating the monitor and how do I achieve WYSIWYG?</p>

<p>I didn't really understand the comment by Matt "How your monitor is calibrated doesn't really have anything to do with the printing process". Surely the calibration of the monitor is imperative to match the output of the paper profile with any given printer / ink set? </p>

<p>Roger - Its a Dell U2410, sorry I dont know if thats a wide gamut or not....</p>

<p>Tony: the monitor calibration process simply gets the display to be "honest" by widely accepted standards. Loosely speaking, that's what allows you to be sure that you're seeing true colors on the screen. THEN you choose a paper/printer profile so that the printing process carries those same colors/densities to the paper. Two separate things. <br /><br />The printer profile isn't making the print look like the display, the printer profiles is making the print (with the chosen ink, printer, and paper) <em>accurate</em>, just like the display profile is making the screen accurate. When neither the screen nor the printer are lying to you, then WYSIWYG.</p>

<p>Thanks Matt, thats what i thought, I thought you were saying that the monitor calibration was irrelevant to the printing process, which obviously its not, its essential.</p>

<p>So really the Spyder is a bit unnecessary. if I were to print a file of a Macbeth chart (or similar), using the paper profile for my printer, then manually calibrate the monitor to match that print, I'd be as ball park as the Spyder?</p>

<p>You'd be very unlikely to be able to make it a perfect match by hand, actually, so calibration hardware turns out to be very important if you want good results across the spectrum.<br /><br />As for the monitor profile being integral to printing: not really. You could have your display completely out of whack, but open up a properly exposed and white-balanced image file, choose the right printer profile, and print ... and your print would look great. But if you want to be able to <em>edit</em> the image and see what you want to see, then you'd also want the display to be calibrated.</p>

<p>"But if you want to be able to <em>edit</em> the image"<br>

Isn't that the point? Otherwise I may as well whack the card into the reader on my HP 7960 or whatever it is.<br>

You're assuming the print is to represent what was in front of the camera, surely thats a rarity? Who wants reality? You may as well bypass PS/Lightroom<br>

As an example I like to saturate an image, for example with a Tobacco and a Yellow#8, and then grade most of it out. the palette I'm then left to work with is unique and very interesting. It works better from a fill neg admittedly but still holds merit in the I/O world<br>

Thank you everybody, I'm learning a lot.</p>

<p>No, Tony, the Spyder, or something like it, is very necessary.</p>

<p>An example (a very simple example, for illustrative purposes only):</p>

<p>Let's say Photoshop displays a red of (240,0,0) where (R,B,G) is the (Red, Blue, Green) value of the pixel. If you display is "off" it may really display a red (235,0,0). With the Spyder system, the Spyder software displays a color (240,0,0) and the Spyder sensor reads the color (235,0,0) from the screen and generates a correction table. This table is loaded into the Look Up Table (LUT) in the display card (or in some cases in the LUT in the monitor; for the U2410, it is loaded to the dispaly card). Now when Photoshop sends (240,0,0), the dispaly card applies the correction factor from the LUT and the display displays the proper color for (240,0,0). That is why you see all those color patches being displayed and read during the calibration and profiling process.</p>

<p>Now we have the application, Photoshop, and the hardware in sync - Photoshop "thinks" it is dispalying (240,0,0) and the display is generating the color that corresponds to (240,0,0). So far so good. If you display your file on another computer that is also profiled and calibrated using a color managed application, your image should look exactly the same as on your monitor.</p>

<p>Your printer manufacturer/paper manufacturer has generated another color correction file for the printer using much the same technique. They generate a print made of different color samples, read the samples with a spectrophotometer, and generate a correction file which is used by the printer driver. Now the color (240,0,0) which you saw as (240,0,0) thanks to the monitor profile and LUT, is corrected so the printer prints (240,0,0) and that is what your eye sees on the print.</p>

<p>Please read this review of the U2410 <a href="http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2410.htm">http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2410.htm</a> especially the section about calibrating the monitor under the heading <strong>Calibration Results, </strong>which is halfway down the post.</p>

<p>Thanks Brooks, I'd read that before purchasing but admit I understood very little of it and not sure I get it much more now.</p>

<p>I'll play for a while and read again in a month or two</p>

<p>My point, Tony, isn't that you don't find yourself needing to edit your work. I was trying to illustrate the fact that your monitor calibration and the profile that's used to handle it aren't actually part of the <em>printing</em> process (since it seemed as though there was still some confusion).<br /><br />And just as a side note, I frequently do my editing on a completely different platform than the one from which I print. Much of my printing is done from a machine with a non-calibrated display ... and I don't care! Because I know I've already got the images whipped into shape while working elsewhere, and I know that I'm using the right printing profiles when it goes to hardcopy.</p>

<p>The Dell U2410 monitor is "wide gamut" meaning that the primary colors are more saturated than those on a normal monitor. Without a monitor profile you are likely to get way-too-vivid colors. With the profile they should be tamed when using color managed software like Photoshop and Firefox. </p>

<p>One issue I've read about is that your Spyder may not be able to get the white point correct by itself (calibration is a bit too cool, for example) so you might help it out with some trial and error when you make the profile (assuming it gives some control over setting the white point).</p>

<p>Hi related but probably silly question. Getting ready to calibrate for first time and am worried about all my stored images now looking green. (or whatever) Should I be? (worried) </p>

<p> </p>

<p>if youre image look green thats because they are green to start...</p>

<p>a screen calibration doestn change any images, it only change how you see them. if a polar bear was white, it will still be white, if you see it pink, thats because the calibration is not good, or the polar bear was dress for a big party ; )</p>

<p>I have followed this conversation as best as I can but still confused since I cannot physically see what will print after my edits. I really need the monitor to match the printer since I want to know what my clients will get if I print for them (or something similar from a commercial printer). I have a new LG LED Flatron monitor and an Epson Artisan 810. The monitor coloring is cooler and blue tinted while the printer has warmer, reddish tones. I've tried to follow your examples as best as possible to no avail :( Any advice, in layman's terms?! Thanks.</p>

easy answer then....

 

1. you cant

 

2. they and you need to have a monitor calibrated with a device so what you and them see is pretty close.

 

3. learn how to correclty print using the icc profile and what you get should be pretty close ( with the printer you have) to

what you can see on your monitor if you look at your print under a good daylight lamp.