OK, here are my recommendations for purchasing a monitor profiling and calibration setup:
First decide what your goals are: how will you be using your computer and associated imaging software? Consider two extremes: The most basic is someone just browsing the web looking at photographs and posting their own, wanting to be pretty sure they're seeing what the image is "supposed" to look like (within the limitations of their monitor. The most critical is someone making large, expensive fine art prints through a geographically distant service bureau. In the former case the cheapest hardware and most basic software will suffice just fine. In the latter example an expensive, high end setup is pretty much essential - the print buyer or gallery is going to be very demanding of print quality and the cost (and time delay) of getting a print re-done will be absolutely unacceptable. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle: We have high quality monitors and make our own inkjet prints at least occasionally. The frequency with which we print, the typical size of the prints and their end use (show to friends/hang on wall/sell commercially/show in gallery) will determine how close to either end of the quality spectrum we want to go when purchasing a profiling/calibration kit. Even preparing images for a book isn't as critical as the outsourced-fine-art-printing scenario I chose as the high end example, because time delay (usually) isn't as critical and proof copies can be run at a reasonable price (and include all images in the publication). After evaluating your needs step 2 is to buy a profiling/calibration kit that's a little better than you think you'll need. That'll allow some breathing room for monitor upgrades and changes in your output needs. -- Mark Roberts - Photography & Multimedia www.robertstech.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
