Client has multiple Dell PCs and takes high res images, needs to touch up the images for use in ads and to show clients, problem is that what you see on screen is not exactly what you get on print.

So we are just starting to get into the realms of colour management...

So firstly, looking to get ColourVision Spyder Pro2 (or similar) to calibrate the montiors.
Does anyone have experience with this or any good alternatives and good reasons for it...

Then we need to get a profile for the printer, the local digial photo place will take a printout of a colour chart and generate a profile from it. Anyone has good expereince with any sw/hw that does it for themselves, would be nice to not have to fork out £65 each time you change paper types or ink or whatever.

Anyone have any good, dummies guide to colour management websites that give a good this is what you are trying to achieve and why rather than just the steps, I hate not quite getting what I am trying to acheive... lol

Thanks,
Rich

 

I have a lot of experience with colour management, but what you are trying to achieve will be very difficult.

Sure you will get a better result profiling your printer and calibrating the screens but it depends on how good the screens are, if you are using bog standard pc screens the colour will never be spot on.

Why dont you try and get a profile from the printer manufacturer and then use that saving you the profiling costs?

If you are doing colour correction on screen then really you dont use the screen for accurate changes, you should have an accurate colour output device such as a Dupont digital cromalin and use that to assess any changes necessary. Then make adjustments using colour values not what looks good on screen.

Then output another proof and so on.

The other point is that the printer you are using wont acutally produce proofs that show an accurate representation of how the ad will reproduce when it goes to press. So its a bit pointless really.

You need to get a press profile from the printers or use a generic cmyk euro standard one, and get your proofer to use that and then you have a starting point.


Sorry, a bit to much info really but I do this stuff for a living.

Jake.

 

I know a little not as much as Jake. I do know Turner Broadcasting recently bought a Binuscan solution from us to do something similar.

If you get stuck let me know as I havbe some contacts that may be able to help on this. You should try speaking to James Lewis ( from 4Sight) as he may know someone locally.


AllanB

 

Thanks guys.

Allan, funnily enough I did get a mail from him not so long along, will drop him a line.

 

Also note that Quark only shows previews in RGB unless you mess about with the Profiles, Photoshop gives you the best "real world" view of the colours but the other way to do it is to calibrate your monitors using Pantone reference books....that way the colour you pick on screen will be a lot closer to the one that prints....however, if you want you printer to look the same as what is on screen it gets a bit more complicated - is it PC or Mac? If it's Mac you can use Colorsync which can have profiles which go across the range of output devices and also get used in your programs (Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator etc).

If it is PC there are less options but it's still possible.

Scotsys do calibrations for companies but sometimes you are better to just buy a calibration kit yourself.

Or....do what we now do and softproof all your ads!! We send PDF's now to all our clients - if they want to see a Cromalin or other hi-res proof we charge separately....stops them asking

If you get Pantone references off your clients you can't go too far wrong (unless you have to convert to CMYK - oooh nasty conversion lol) With spot colours you should be fine - 4 colour is a bit less predictable but at least your printer is offering to create a profile to be used....better than flying blind!

 

Rich I've got a meeting with James tomorrow morning so I can ask him then for you.



AllanB

 

He mailed me back actually Allan, he suggested Grafx, they do do it but I am awaiting a reply from them, any other thoughts are welcome.

The setup I have to deal with is all PCs sadly (being a Mac man)! Only photoshop work.