The value of colour calibration?

[ihateprepress]

Originally Posted by Mungo

However the industry here in Australia has preference over "how quick can we get it" rather than quality and colour. If the images look "pretty good" that is all they want.

Spot on. I feel like the trade is killing itself with turnaround and quality is the first thing to go. I also find that when you tell a client that their images aren't up to scratch, they opt to print as-is, rather than pay for them to be fixed and delay the job.

This is why I raised the question, as I'm keen to know how things work elsewhere. The way most of the PPFers speak, it's an entirely different world regarding issues such as this.

[madmac]

Like I said to cost is so cheap there isn't a reason not to have a calibrated monitor.

If you really want t keep the cost down then get a Huey and using it on all your screens.

Better still get one for each monitor and leave it connected ant it will adjust for ambient light changes.

As for when it saved me. Mainly when looking at images.

TBH more in todays market than before. As today more people are scanning their own pictures or using digital cameras. So checking and converting too CMYK is all to often required.

Or another typical example business customer wants a report printing they give you a file done in Word all you pictures and images are RGB. So having converted it you need to check it still looks ok.

Also I find most operators will set their monitor way to bright to everything on screen looks great. So when it prints you end up with images to dark etc.

[TimS]

Let's not forget that you can calibrate your monitor until your head explodes but it still won't look like the printed product. This is because your screen is an RGB device with the light source BEHIND it. When you view a printed page you are viewing light bouncing OFF of a cmyk ink mix. Quite different in terms of the physics of vision.

Yes, you can calibrate your monitor pretty close, but it still isn't the real thing. Very rarely will your clients have a calibrated monitor, which is why soft-proofing isn't really going anywhere. Our green will be blue to them.

If you do tons of photoshop work, or have a lot of colour-critical clients, calibration is good for sure, but a good photoshop operator can look at a proof and make adjustments by the numbers. The majority of clients will be happy if the contract proof looks "good".

[GGraham]

Folks,
My problem is management thinks calibration is a magic built. The impression is that the artist will not have to pay any attention to the numbers and just go by the looks on the screen. That the people viewing jpgs at the offsite office will see just what the printed product is going to look like.
Right now, all those pretty bright blues are printing dull purple and lavenders. The numbers read that there is half as much red as there is blue, which has always made a purple on my color wheel?but they look so pretty on the screen.
I just want to hide in the corner.

[TimS]

Hi GGraham, I understand your situation exactly and you have all my sympathy! Having your offsite office approve colour on screen is simply ridiculous, to be blunt. They are probably viewing them on a pc with an uncalibrated monitor, you use a calibrated monitor on a mac.

Another point to suggest to your management is that the only true proof is the final printed product, because the paper and inks and the skill of the pressman have very important effects on your images. I'm not knocking calibration, which is important, it's just unfortunate that management doesn't understand that a calibrated monitor is just a reference point for a skilled operator to work from. Those nice shiny white contract proofs you get from the printer, and your calibrated monitor, are just "close", they are not accurate. And then they print it on that slightly beige matte paper...

[Mungo]

Originally Posted by TimS

Another point to suggest to your management is that the only true proof is the final printed product, because the paper and inks and the skill of the pressman have very important effects on your images. I'm not knocking calibration, which is important, it's just unfortunate that management doesn't understand that a calibrated monitor is just a reference point for a skilled operator to work from. Those nice shiny white contract proofs you get from the printer, and your calibrated monitor, are just "close", they are not accurate. And then they print it on that slightly beige matte paper...

[Mungo]

Originally Posted by TimS

Another point to suggest to your management is that the only true proof is the final printed product, because the paper and inks and the skill of the pressman have very important effects on your images. I'm not knocking calibration, which is important, it's just unfortunate that management doesn't understand that a calibrated monitor is just a reference point for a skilled operator to work from. Those nice shiny white contract proofs you get from the printer, and your calibrated monitor, are just "close", they are not accurate. And then they print it on that slightly beige matte paper...

Unless you have the money for a kodak xp4. These where great proofs as it used actual screens and you could use whatever stock to be printed on. We used to do newspaper proofs on the asctual newsprint stock so client could check gcr/colour etc for images and graphics as to how it would look in the paper.

[clod]

Unless you have the money for a kodak xp4. These where great proofs as it used actual screens and you could use whatever stock to be printed on.

Kodak Approvals (XP4) are great proofs and are really still the industry default for quality, but honestly, I feel its undeserved and that with a good Rip driving it, an inkjet proof can be much more accurate, both numerically and visually, despite different screening. I've found Approvals to have certain hues that are simply beyond the ability of offset printing to match. This can be toned down a bit with Color management upfront, perhaps using a device-link profile to convert from the press color space to the Approval color space, but then you're contaminating your pure inks, so what's the point in screening the proof. Never the less, we still have a small number of clients who demand an Approval proof, despite showing them that we can match a press with an inkjet proof within an average of well under 1 delta E while the Approval hovers around 3 at best.

Let's not forget that you can calibrate your monitor until your head explodes but it still won't look like the printed product.

Again, with the right equipment (including viewing conditions) and know how, you can get a softproof match that is so visually close as to match a given press sheet as well or often better than any hard copy proofing system. Working by the numbers isn't going away, but its a LOT easier than it used to be with an accurate softproof.