on 12/1/00 6:26 AM, Richard at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> This seems a mad way to go about profiling. Wouldn't it make more sense for
> Optical to supply a special sheet of paper to print the target on and then
> for the Spyder to analyse the print, or something like that. Having to rely
> on my Umax 2000U to assist in the profile creation seems ridiculous as its
> the weakest link in my set-up.
Yes and no. The Spyder can't measure color patches for building output
profiles. It's a colorimeter intended for just dealing with the display.
Scanners can sometimes be very effective for measuring color for building
profiles and sometimes fail miserably. A lot has to do with the type of
printer you are profiling. Scanners can do a reasonably good job with *most*
ink jets. They don't work at all on printers like dye sub. The other problem
with scanners is they don't record spectral data (you need a device like a
Spectrophotometer to do that). These devices are usually much more
expensive, starting at about $600 for a hand held "read one patch at a time"
kind of unit and going up to $6000+. They a really the best tools for
building profiles. ColorVision has a new version of their software about to
ship called ProfilePro that supports a number of Spectrophotometers and it
works really well. I'm not sure what the pricing is yet.
One other issue is the UV optical brighteners in many photo papers which
will drive a scanner crazy (they can't react correctly to this). So you end
up with a profile that's way too blueish or yellowish. Here, a
Spectrophotometer with a UV filter will deal with the issues just fine.
Bottom line is that these lesser expensive profiling products that use a
scanner can work quite well in some situations and not in others. You could
get a great profile for Epson matte paper and an awful one for a glossy
photo type paper. The scanner setting plays a role too. So the scanner is
the weak link here for some kinds of profiling needs.
Andrew Rodney
