iMac colour management

[Stephen]

I'm still getting to grips with my new 24" iMac, for most things I'm there and it hasn't been a problem. However I tried to calibrate the screen last week using my Spyder 2 Pro. The result was a very magenta screen, so I had to dump that. Not had time since, but this morning attempted to do a print for the first time. Set it up as I did on my PC, letting PS manage colours and the printer profile for the Epson 2100 and semi gloss paper. The resulting print was, suprise suprise, very Magenta.

If I let the printer colour manage, I get a reasonable result, but its not the way to go imo

Anyone any thoughts, on whats wrong.

[coupekid]

Re: iMac colour management

Anyone any thoughts, on whats wrong.

You bought a Mac!

(sorry, couldnt resist!)

[Stephen]

Re: iMac colour management

You bought a Mac!

(sorry, couldnt resist!)

Think I may have sorted it out, had the wrong Epson printer profile selected. It should have been the Standard one and not Premium Semi Gloss which seemed logical as it was the paper type I was using. The paper type is selected in the printer settings dialogue.

So thanks for the help Ben

Oh, and apart from my accounts package which is incompatible, Intuit don't do Mac, I can't think of a single reason why I shouldn't buy a Mac

Just need to sort out screen calibration now

[Ian]

Re: iMac colour management

Think I may have sorted it out, had the wrong Epson printer profile selected. It should have been the Standard one and not Premium Semi Gloss which seemed logical as it was the paper type I was using. The paper type is selected in the printer settings dialogue.

So thanks for the help Ben

Oh, and apart from my accounts package which is incompatible, Intuit don't do Mac, I can't think of a single reason why I shouldn't buy a Mac

Just need to sort out screen calibration now

I dunno, a computer named after a raincoat

Screen calibration - well, have you set the gamma correctlty? Macs are different to PCs in this respect.

This might help:

http://andrewkendall.com/pages/learning/osx/mactopcgamma/tutorial.php

Ian

[Stephen]

Re: iMac colour management

I dunno, a computer named after a raincoat

Screen calibration - well, have you set the gamma correctlty? Macs are different to PCs in this respect.

This might help:

http://andrewkendall.com/pages/learning/osx/mactopcgamma/tutorial.php

Ian

Thanks for that Ian, I had it set on 1.8, but changed it to 2.2 now which is recommended to be the same as a PC. Tried the screen calibrator again, twice and it gives a terrible magenta result. I wonder if its something to do with the fact that its only brightness that can be adjusted, I don't know, but it was only brightness I could adjust on my laptop and that calibrated OK.

[Danny Chau]

Re: iMac colour management

Thanks for that Ian, I had it set on 1.8, but changed it to 2.2 now which is recommended to be the same as a PC. Tried the screen calibrator again, twice and it gives a terrible magenta result. I wonder if its something to do with the fact that its only brightness that can be adjusted, I don't know, but it was only brightness I could adjust on my laptop and that calibrated OK.

Hi Stephen,

Unfortunately the Spyder 2 is not the best calibrator in the world, I have tested about 4 units (2 of them from Ian), and they all go magenta after calibration. You will find the Xrite (was GretagMacbeth) EyeOne Display two will give much more neutral calibration.

Also not all thing are made equal, you will find that no matter how much you try to calibrate these new iMacs and lots of other LCD monitors on the market today, you will get less than 90% accurate to output, first being the small colour gamut (approx. 76% of the Adobe 1998 space), second is the colour to colour (Delta E) accuracy which affects how the colour appears on screen. Some of the latest LCD screens are so bright and contrasty, one is not able to calibrate the brightness properly even with all the levels set to zero. This would mean the printed page will look much darker than the image on screen.

The monitor calibrator can only try to get the colour as close to the standard set by the ICC, but it is still down to the quality of the panel and electronics to match it's colour to display designated colour.

I use a Dell 3007 HC (now recognised amongst some the best monitors presently available) with my Power Mac (main work) and the new 20" iMac for email and PC account software, the difference is quite apparent that I'm not able to trust the iMac for colour correction. This is due to the fact that the Dell can display upto approx. 95% of Adobe colour gamut and have an amazing colour accuracy (colour to colour) within human visual detectable range, as my out put is very close to my monitor (especially with proofing paper under 5000K, I would say closeness of about 95-97% to print).

Sorry having to give you the bad news, but it's better know it than to scratch your head and try to reason why things don't work out as they should.

Danny

[Stephen]

Re: iMac colour management

Thanks for all that Danny, I don't pretend to understand everything about colour management, suffice to say that after I updated the Spyder 2 Pro driver everything seemed much better and I feel happy with what I see on the screen. There is always the worry that these somewhat bright iMac screens will give a wrong result, but the feedback I've had and the prints I've been getting have been OK.

What really suprised me though was that on the PC printing from CS3 I would let Photoshop manage the colours, I now have to let the printer manage the colours and selecting the Epson colour profile in PS does not seem to give a good result. So I'm for the moment letting Printer manage colours and then simply selecting the paper type in the printer dialogue.

I'm not keen to go buy an EyeOne calibrator without first seeing and trying one, or at the very least seeing a comparison test. I'm not sure if there is such a test at the moment though

[Patrick]

Re: iMac colour management

Thanks for all that Danny, I don't pretend to understand everything about colour management, suffice to say that after I updated the Spyder 2 Pro driver everything seemed much better and I feel happy with what I see on the screen. There is always the worry that these somewhat bright iMac screens will give a wrong result, but the feedback I've had and the prints I've been getting have been OK.

What really suprised me though was that on the PC printing from CS3 I would let Photoshop manage the colours, I now have to let the printer manage the colours and selecting the Epson colour profile in PS does not seem to give a good result. So I'm for the moment letting Printer manage colours and then simply selecting the paper type in the printer dialogue.

I'm not keen to go buy an EyeOne calibrator without first seeing and trying one, or at the very least seeing a comparison test. I'm not sure if there is such a test at the moment though

Hi Ian

As you may remember I have a Spyder 2 pro (jointly owned my me and another club member) when I get to the screen identify control in the software I un-tick all of them and found this to work best. My Dell PC monitor is brighter than my laptop also Dell.
I have the PrintFix Pro and make my own print profiles (I use Permajet CIS) I get exactly what I expect from my prints, accepting the screen image is brighter than the paper print, but hasn't that always been the case the monitor gives out more light than the reflective power of the paper.

Patrick