Upgrading from a Spyder2: should I calibrate both monitor and printer for better print matching?

Asked 9/12/2010

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I’m using a Spyder2 to calibrate my monitor, but my prints still don’t match what I expect on screen. My display is a ViewSonic 24" widescreen, and I’m moving from an Epson R800 to a Canon PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II. When upgrading my color-management setup, what should I look for in a newer calibration tool? Is it worth getting a solution that profiles both the monitor and the printer so everything is better matched?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

15y ago

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Great choice of printer, it produces some excellent quality prints. It is particularly great at landscape and nature reproduction, with its red and green inks (I can personally attest to its stellar output on Fine Art media, particularly Hahnemuhle Photo Rag...absolutely fantastic landscape output on that paper.) :-)

Given that you do have (or plant to get) the Canon PIXMA Pro9500 II, I would recommend the Spyder3 Studio SR. I recently purchased the Studio SR myself, as a complete calibration solution from start to finish. It provides screen calibration with the Spyder3 Elite, printer calibration with the Spyder3 Print, and camera color checking with their SypderCube, a White, Black, and 18% Gray cube. The SpyderCube is an ok tool, however I think a standar ColorChecker card is a better tool. I personally am looking into getting the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport for field work. The new Spyter3 Elite 4.0 software is a significant upgrade from the previous software, and it offers some extensive calibration options.

The printer calibration is a Strip Reader (SR) calibrator with a nice guiding template, and it makes it very easy to properly calibrate your printer for any paper and any ink (either brand ink or third party, if your interested in getting an external continuous ink supply system.) I have not used it extensively myself, only on standard Canon papers (particularly Semi-Gloss and Pro Photo Platinum) which tend to have too much of a red-saturation shift. I am working on finding and ordering some Hahnemuhle papers, such as canvas, which will require calibration.

The Spyder3 Elite monitor calibrator and Elite 4.0 software are also a good step up from the Spyder2 calibrator. You have both the express calibration options, as well as some extensive advanced calibration and statistical options. It supports things like luminosity uniformity, graphing, multiple display calibration and output comparison, full gray balance, and a bunch more.

You can read a great review of the Spyder3Print at Northlight Images. You can find the Spyder3Studio SR at DataColor's web site.

Alternatively, if you want some of the best calibration available, with fully automatic patch scanning and high speed profile generation, you could get one of the X-Rite ProfileMaker 5 and i1 bundles. These offer some top of the line calibration, however you do pay for it, as they range from $4000-$5000.

UPDATE:

Working a little more with the Spyder3Studio package, I've learned about some additional features that make it even better. The software has the ability to generate profiles for different lighting conditions without even rescanning the patches. You just provide the necessary settings for color temperature and room brightness, and you can regenerate multiple variants of a profile from a single set of scanned patches. This is pretty handy, as viewing light can affect the perceived colors in a print, particularly for papers with optical brighteners (they are often designed to look best when viewed with light that includes UV wavelengths, which is often absent in artificial lighting.) There are many, many options and tweaks that can be made with the Spyder3Print software, and I've barely begun to explore. I just thought I would add a note that for its relatively low cost ($550 list, and there is currently a $50 rebate, which is about 1/10th the cost of more "professional" equipment like the x-Rite EyeOne kit), it certainly seems to produce excellent results and offers a tremendous range of settings and capabilities in the software.

Originally by user124. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user124

15y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

If your goal is better screen-to-print consistency, a calibration system that handles both monitor and printer profiling is worth considering. Based on the answers, the Spyder3 Studio SR is a sensible upgrade path from a Spyder2 because it’s designed as a more complete workflow solution: monitor calibration, printer profiling, and basic camera color reference tools.

The main thing to consider when upgrading is whether you want only display calibration or a full color-managed setup. If your prints are the weak link, profiling the printer as well as the monitor can help much more than replacing the monitor calibrator alone.

From the community feedback, the SpyderCube is usable, but a standard ColorChecker-style target may be a better camera reference tool. So if camera color accuracy matters, that part of the bundle may not be the strongest reason to buy.

In short: yes, profiling both monitor and printer is worthwhile if you want more reliable print matching, and a bundled system like Spyder3 Studio SR fits that need better than a monitor-only upgrade.

UniqueBot

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15y ago

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