Since early in my photography career I have been aware of the need for color management and have used some system for calibrating my monitor for years.\u00a0 I have always loved printing as well, color management meant controlling the management of color from initial image capture through the printing process. Until now, I had stopped short of creating \u00a0custom profiles seeking, with mixed success and great effort \u00a0to obtain \u00a0them from various print media companies for my specific printer.\u00a0 In the year 2000 I took a Fine Art Digital Printing class just after I took my first photography class.\u00a0 I paid $700.00 for the10 week class.\u00a0 I had an Epson Stylus Pro 2000 and wanted to print. I love printing.\u00a0 But my images were coming out horribly.\u00a0 I knew absolutely nothing.\u00a0 I can remember at the end of my first class thinking that that class alone was worth the $700.00.\u00a0 It had introduced us to “COLOR MANAGEMENT OFF” and the concept of profiles and custom profiles. My printing has improved progressively since that night.<\/p>\n
The profiles I create are only as good as the data I feed the X-Rite devices. That means understand the drivers and settings of the device I am working on.<\/p>\n
With my \u00a0recent \u00a0use of X-Rite’s ColorMunki Photo<\/strong> and the even more sophisticated i1XTreme<\/strong>, all of the \u00a0sufficiency and control that I need to \u00a0create accurate \u00a0profiles and printer and display matched color is at hand. \u00a0I am having success with this process.<\/p>\n ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder The profiles I create are only as good as the data I feed the X -Rite devices. That means understand the drivers I? and settings of the device I am working on.<\/p>\n Calibrating the \u00a0monitor using the default settings is a “piece of cake” and got me close to matching my monitor to my print within moments, without me having to make any adjustments to my monitor at all. \u00a0While the color was beautiful, the prints were a bit too dark. \u00a0That means my Monitor was too bright. I have a LaCie 324 Monitor with hood and work in a consistent light environment. \u00a0I contacted X-Rite about my “brightness issue”\u00a0 and was told that this probably meant that my target luminance was \u00a0too high. X-Rite suggested that I use the ColorMunki in its ADVANCE mode. \u00a0This mode gave me the opportunity to measure ambient light and to create a target luminance level for the device to factor in, which\u00a0 adjusted my monitor brightness appropriately upon my new calibration. \u00a0These X-Rite devices are\u00a0 amazing when fed the information they need.<\/p>\n To create a custom profile for my printer for a specific paper means creating color targets to scan with the ColorMunki Photo<\/strong> or i1XTreme<\/strong>. \u00a0Again, the new profile will only be as good as the printer settings I select for \u00a0my target print. \u00a0I must say that I found creating printer settings for my Epson printers to be far easier than creating settings for my Canon printer. \u00a0With Epson, there is the ability to choose printer \u00a0“COLOR MANAGEMENT OFF” \u00a0– and it’s done. With Canon, I felt that I had to learn their language for managing their drivers and found it was far less clear and even confusing in making some selections.I must say that persistence is one of my greater qualities. After sufficient trial and error I selected printer settings such that when the color targets were printed and scanned with the ColorMunki Photo, I am getting good monitor and print match.<\/p>\n I will describe my settings:\u00a0 In the initial PRINT dialog box my printer is selected. In the column to the\u00a0 right of this I have the choice of Color Management or Output. I selected Color Management<\/strong> – we don’t want Output Management.\u00a0 (I had hesitation there because in the Epson system you want to chose ‘NO Color Management”)\u00a0 But now there comes the choice for COLOR HANDLING.\u00a0 Choose Photoshop Manages Color <\/strong>as opposed to Printer Manages Color.\u00a0 I found the following a source of confusion. Just under the option to allow Photoshop to manage color there is a yellow warning sign which reads “Remember to disable the printer’s color management in the print settings dialog box.” this of course is exactly what I wanted to do but I never found such option in Print Settings and will welcome feedback from anyone who points out where this option resides.\u00a0 Under Rendering Intent, I chose Relative Colorimetric<\/strong> .\u00a0 I then went into the Print Settings. I chose a Media Type with characteristics closest to that which I will be printing on (in my case, when creating my initial profile, I chose Photo Paper Plus Semi Gloss because I was going to create a custom profile for a luster paper which I had 250 sheets of). It was recommended that my Print Quality remain at Standard. At some point I will experiment with “HIGH” , which creates slower ink dispersal on the paper for potentially finer detail – but the paper salesperson\u00a0 suggested that the “HIGH” setting might put down too much ink and should likely be left for a high gloss paper. I left all of the image enhancements options unchecked<\/strong>.\u00a0 I left Color\/Intensity at AUTO<\/strong>.\u00a0 Confusing to me On the Page Setup Page were the options under PRINT OPTIONS – read them if you like but my experimentation suggest to leave the options unchecked, however, and this turns out to be the defaults.\u00a0 I saved these settings and named them a name which reflects the use of my intended paper.\u00a0 It is very important to do this because it is this set of settings which will be used to print the target and to print future images using this media.<\/p>\n ngg_shortcode_1_placeholder I am in the midst of exploring the full capacity of \u00a0i1XTreme. I decided to start by calibrating my monitor once again but using i1XTreme’s even more advance profiling capability. I decided to do this in the advanced mode right off the bat. Well, the question is “How great is my capability to move around and adjust my monitor settings to feed it the information it needs to do a refined calibration?” \u00a0\u00a0I have to work on that. \u00a0Mean while when I did my ambient lighting reading with this device, I was given a range in which my ambient light levels and the color temperature should fall for best monitor and print viewing. I have to tell you that with respect to both I was not in the ball park – not remotely so.\u00a0 The ambient light in my workspace was far too low – did not even register at the low end of the ambient meter measurement scale, and the color temperature of my workspace was far too warm. \u00a0The remedy for both was very easy. I purchased daylight bulbs and simply upped the amount of the light until both areas measured as adequate. \u00a0I have far yet to go. I want to calibrate my monitor using i1XTreme’s most advanced features. I will also create new paper profiles.<\/p>\n Both ColorMunki Photo and i1XTreme will allow me to calibrate my projector which desperately needs to be done.\u00a0 I will be excited to have my presentation screen match my computer screen during my presentations to my clients or during workshops and training.\u00a0 I will do this in a\u00a0 relatively short time and let you know how it goes.<\/p>\n My Beginning in Color Management Since early in my photography career I have been aware of the need for color management and have used some system for calibrating my monitor for years.\u00a0 I have always loved printing as well, color … Continue reading
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\n<\/span><\/p>\nRelated Images:<\/h3>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"