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October 12, 2005 Getting Your Color Right
If your pictures on screen or on prints consistently look washed out or a bit greenish, bluish or reddish, you might want to consider color calibration of your monitor and/or printer. Your digital camera, photo editing program and printer all automatically apply various types of color management to insure that the picture you take with your digital camera is reproduced faithfully on-screen and when printed. The default settings for these systems usually work very well, but not always. We recently tried a calibration system to get our color right on screen and in prints. Here’s what we found: Spyder2 Plus (Colorvision, Windows and Mac, $269) provides tools to perform any needed color corrections. The program includes the Spyder2 colorimeter device that is meant to be placed flat against your monitor screen. The Spyder2 houses color sensors that accurately measure the color content of your monitor’s screen display. Also included is color management software to guide you in creating new color profiles for your monitor and printer, Pantone Colorist software that allows you to pick from more than 1,000 Pantone matching system colors for your projects, and Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0, a richly-featured photo editor. The colorimeter can be used on LCD flat panel monitors, laptop screens, or CRT monitors. Using the tools in the program, you can create custom color profiles for your monitor and printer. These profiles are sets of rules telling the monitor and printer how to display and print a specific shade and brightness of color as recorded by your digital camera so that it matches what you photographed. These profiles are then saved in your computer and, if you choose, become the default profiles used for on-screen viewing and printing. This insures that the picture you took is accurately displayed and is accurately printed.
Following installation of the programs, you begin by first calibrating your monitor. The Spyder2 software steps you through the process using a Wizard that describes each step including additional details if needed. The Wizard asks for information about your monitor (such as "is it a LCD or CRT type, what specific controls are available," and the like), has you adjust brightness and contrast to specific levels using on-screen aides, and eventually asks you to hang the colorimeter over the top of your monitor (a counterweight is provided to keep it in place) and position the colorimeter over the on-screen icon. A series of automatic color measurements are then made, and the initial color settings are displayed. Here is where you’ll need to make adjustments to the red, green and blue colors of the monitor using the monitor’s color adjustment controls. These controls vary considerably on different models, so you may have to consult the monitor’s User Manual. For us, there was some trial and error getting the monitor settings to match the ideal settings created by the program. You also have a chance to compare your new settings to the previous settings using the Before and After feature. You then save the newly-created profile, and the program provides instructions on how to set this as the new default. Our new profile demonstrated a dramatic improvement in picture color accuracy. We then turned to our printer and created a new profile for it by using the included ProfilerPLUS software. Unlike the Sypder2 monitor calibration program, which is used as a standalone program, ProfilerPLUS installation creates a plug-in that can only be used while running the included Photoshop Elements 3.0 program. Using Photoshop Elements, we printed a special test pattern that was provided by the software. We then scanned this print using the parameters recommended by the program, and guided by ProfilerPLUS, created a trial profile for our printer; next we reprinted the test pattern using the new test profile. Oops, too washed out and blue looking. We needed to run the ProfilerPLUS again, and with trial-and-error settings for contrast and blue, we re-created the profile and then saved and used the profile to print yet another test print. After a few more back-and-forth sessions, we got a print that matched the monitor picture. Now when we print from Photoshop Elements, we can use the newly-created printer profile and be assured of accurate color. The new printer profile can also be used in other application programs that allow you to select printer profiles. Spyder2 Plus installs easily and steps you through the process of calibration and profiling for both monitor and printer. You will need some trial and error to match the ideals set by the program, but help is available on screen and in the included on-disc manuals. We found support from www.colorvision.com Web site very useful as well. If you’re happy with the appearance of your digital pictures on screen and in prints made on your printer, then there may be no need for calibration and re-profiling. But if you aren’t happy with their appearance, consider calibration with a program such as Spyder2 Plus.
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