For those of you who use Spyder colorimeters to calibrate your monitors, this is for you!

I just bought a Spyder2 Pro on Amazon, it will be here tomorrow. Up until now, I've never calibrated my monitors, but everything's adjusted so my prints are verrry close to what I see on screen. It just hasn't been a priority of mine to calibrate. Well, I'm just wondering, how are your results, and what do you have to do to get your images from labs looking dead-on? Are they calibrated to the generic adjustments that these calibration systems make? I'm pretty much retarded when it comes to this stuff, but I hope to learn more about it. Would love your input.

Also, I'll be printing a lot more AsukaBooks... I want to make sure those are as close color-wise too.

Hope that post made sense.... It's been a long day.

Makes perfect sense to me, and I'd like to know how it works out. I don't calibrate because my WHCC prints look good to me too. But I do worry about these things not always working so smoothly. Interested in how the rest do this too.

*bump*

my colorimeter comes today

wish I could help, but I'm in the same boat. We plan to buy a calibrating system, but so far have not gotten around to it, and our prints come out looking good.

You have to calibrate your system and as soon as the others do the same you are fine. You don't have to worry about different vendors as soons as they have their systems calibrated, which they do.
I just came to the point when I got it right.

Here is how you have to do for LCD:
- if you have color presets in your monitor, select the closest preset to your target (6500K). DON'T adjust RGB levels on your monitor separately. Or set it to hardware white point whatever it is in your monitor. The closer it is to your target, the better.
- calibrate your monitor using your device. Change brightness using your monitor brightness nobs/buttons. NEVER use driver's (software) brightness/contrast controls.
- at the end adjust your britness to fit your room lighting. Make it comfortable to your eye.

Calibrating your monitor is the first key step in a good workflow. Especially if you have a less expensive monitor. It is also more important if you make prints yourself and soft proof in PS. Labs wil just want a sRGB profile on your images. The calibration is for your adjustments, making sure you do not blow out highlights and the such. All-in-all very well worth the money.

Well, my Spyder Colorimeter came today. Freaking awesome! Having never calibrated my monitors before (as I said, I've been printing for 3 years through various labs including WHCC and my prints were always "close enough") the process was VERY straightforward, and now my Apple 20" and 23" HD displays are matched, along with my 15" MacBook Pro to the 6500K and 2.2 Gamma point.

I talked to WHCC earlier, and as I had assumed, they basically calibrate their machines to the above standards, and its simply your job to match (calibrate) your system to that, and everything should work out nicely. The lady on the phone was super-cool (as always. Thats why WHCC will have me as a customer for life!) and told me to go ahead and submit five test 8x10s to be printed at no charge, just like when I set up my account.

I look forward to getting those prints and verifying my color settings, but for now I'm super stoked, and very impressed with how easy the process was. I also soft proofed for AsukaBook and the tone shift is minor - but still something to keep in mind when I design the books.

Hi Trevor. When you get those prints from WHCC would you update us? I currently have the inexpensive Huey calibrator and my prints from Costco matched it really well but WHCC not. Also frustrating because my 24" and 15" mac book pro were both calibrated but they don't quite match each other– a little off. Do your computers match 100%?

thanks!

now my Apple 20" and 23" HD displays are matched, along with my 15" MacBook Pro to the 6500K and 2.2 Gamma point.

maybe this is the problem with my computers not matching... how do you set the 6500k and 2.2 gamma point?

thanks again!

You have to select it in your calibration software. They are your targets. It will build table to translate monitor colors into right colors to match the target.

what he said


i'll keep you posted when i get those prints.

UPDATE:

my test prints shipped out yesterday.... overnight UPS for FREE! now, i dont know about other labs, but i didn't even ASK whcc to have these to me by today (friday) and yet they did that anyway... they're absolutely amazing.

Anyway, the prints look great. I printed some of the bridal shots that I took with Colin Michael last month, and the whites are perfect and the color is dead-on with my monitor. Yay for easy calibration!

For anyone interested, I bought my Spyder2 Pro at Amazon.com for $199.99