Printer calibration

[rex]

I am just about to get a decent printer now that I am taking things abit more seriously on the photography front. Bee-Jay and I have a few bits of work coming in. I am about to calibrate my moniter but is it worth getting a kit where it includes printer calibratin also. Has anyone gone down this route after having just moniter calibration and are the differences in results worth it.
Just starting to delve into processing and printing of images and finding plenty of time being taken up reading and learning. Much more than expected. Has everyone else found this or is it just me.

[bacchus180]

gretag macbeth do the whole package as one if you are very serious about it.. you can profile your entire workflow. camera-monitor-printer..

however its very time consuming... you could just pay someone else to do it for you.. but bear in mind printers are like monitors and shift every 3 or 4 months..

And yes it is worth it.. depending what your needs are of course

>> Edited by bacchus180 on Wednesday 27th April 12:31

[te51cle]

I have been thinking about the Printfix suite which allows you to calibrate monitor and printer with as many papers as you fancy. Has anyone else tried them ?

[White_van_Man]

profiling makes a huge difference i was amazed by the difference it made to prints i dont think its expensive i will try and digout a name for you but this guy did it for about £25 all you had to do was print a test page from his site send it to him tell him what printer ink and paper you use and he would make a profile for you

[ehasler]

te51cle said:

I have been thinking about the Printfix suite which allows you to calibrate monitor and printer with as many papers as you fancy. Has anyone else tried them ?

Yep, I've got this and the PrintFix part is cp IMHO, although the monitor profiling bit (Colorvision Spyder + Optical software with my kit) is good.

The decent kits (e.g., Gretag Macbeth Eye One Photo) use a spectrophotometer rather than cheap scanner to measure the print output, so is much more accurate. Cost is quite a lot higher though - approx £1k.

Otherwise, I've had very good results by trying out a load of profiles supplied by various paper manufacturers and finding a combination that gives accurate results. If you're lucky, you'll find one that is both very good and free.

The other option, which has already been mentioned, is to pay someone else to make the profile for you - it's very straightforward - they send you a file that you print out on the paper/ink/print settings combination that you want the profile for, you then send it back to them, and they measure the colours and create the profile which they then send back to you. Cost is normally around £30-60 per profile.

Another thing to look into if you're really serious about this is to invest in a RIP like ImagePrint. These replace the standard printer driver, and are able to give better quality output. Some (including ImagePrint) also come with a large library of profiles which are generally considered to be as good as if not better than self-made ones.

[rex]

Ordered Print fix yesterday. Got a call today saying that it was out of stock at the moment and can cancel if I want to. Good job as I have just read your post ehasler. I have access to screen calibration. I realise that Getrag Macbeth will be better but I can't spend 1K on calibration. Lenses must come first.
Back into realms of what to buy then. Will sit on it over the weekend. Thanks for the replys though.