CAMERA vs SCANNER vs MONITOR vs PRINTER

[Sponge1971]

Hey all!

I'm a happy Canon (XSi & G10) owner.
I've got a HueyPro monitor calibrator, with a profile loaded all good.

I want to get separate components. Canon or Epson. A 'good' scanner and a 'good' photo printer (cd/dvds too!). My budget/needs are in the ~200-400 each range. I'm just a hack and print pictures for the fridge or my wife's scrapbook.

- to make life easy, color-wise, should I also buy Canon Scanner & Printer?
or
- should I go for specs/price and mix brands?

I'm open to all suggestions...


:chatty:Here's my long-winded, un-educated rationale for Canon only...

I kinda understand 'color space/color profiles' and how eyeballs/brains and pixles see/interpret the same light differently. Cameras, Scanners, Monitors and Printers all have different light sensing/emitting 'stuff'. My thinking is that Canon is *really* smart and has carefully 'configured' all the things they build to work seamlessly together.
eg. dump a Canon camera pic into Adobe. Print that pic on a Canon printer. Hold that pic up against your Canon computer monitor (I know, just pretend...). Heck, even scan that same pic with a Canon scanner...then compare both the scan and the camera original on that Canon monitor...They'll look identical, because Canon has handled all the color profiles and all that jazz to make sure they all follow through. They're all from the same 'maker' why shouldn't they all look the same? I read that Canon builds their own chip fabrication equipment, to make their CPUs and imagers, etc. To keep it *all* in-house and under their full control. Wouldn't These control freaks make sure of this kind of color-preservation flow too?
Anybody know if this is actually the case? Is it even feasable, or am I just dreaming? A simple yes/no/you're nuts will do. I'm sure this could spawn months worth of discussion on color profiles vs equipment vs. etc...


Anyway, like many others I'm considering a new Printer and Scanner. I've got an HP Photosmart C6108? all-in-one and I kinda hate it. (wireless networking doesn't, scanner autofeed is iffy, scanner chokes with Vista, prints are bleah, ad nauseum...). I'm scared of all-in-ones in general now (had Lexmark X83? previously...happily slam dunked it into the dumpster a couple years ago)
I've stuggled with that p.o.s. HP to get the color the same as I see it on my monitor, I'm just not getting there...and I'm fed up with the hiccups and crashes, anyway.


After all my searches, I'm wondering if maybe The Moderator might want to consider expanding this chunk of the forum to include 'Equipment' then sub the major pieces also. there's ton's of printer stuff here, but it seems scattered?


Thanks!
Eric
'photographer wannabe'
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

 

[Garbz]

From the onset you would be completely wrong in the main assumption. Colour conversion is done to carefully defined international standards. It has nothing to do with manufacturers and everything to do with profiles.

Every company is a control freak when it comes to colour, simply because every individual piece they design needs it's own profile, and even then it entirely depends on what software you use. For instance when you open a RAW file from a Canon camera in Photoshop / Lightroom you straight away aren't using a Canon profile, but instead Adobe's profiles.

You yourself are a control freak too. You have Huey so even with a Canon screen (assuming they made screens) you wouldn't be using it since you did your calibration and made your own ICC standard colour profile.

That exposes the key word too. "Standard" It doesn't matter if Canon you have a Canon camera using an Adobe camera profile, shown on a screen calibrated with a Huey, and printed on a printer with a profile either prepared by Epson or your own X-rite profile. The point is that the conversion between them are all done via standard ICC profiles, and in this respect a Canon monoculture is no better than a mix of match from various companies who all respect their products enough to include decent ICC profiles for their drivers.

One thing to note though is even with perfect printer / screen calibration you will still be unlikely to directly match the print. Firstly a printer has a far more compressed range of tones so you need to soft proof from one profile to the other, then you need to consider that a screen provides it's own light and a print doesn't, so a calibrated viewing booth is also required. Only then when everything fits together including the lighting of your room will the print directly match the screen.

 

[Sponge1971]

Thanks Garbz. :thumbup:

I didn't have a clear enough picture of the whole 'concept'. I appreciate your clarification and it makes sense. If you happen to have a link (or two) that might hammer this whole color management concept home for me...send away!

I'm going to look for a Scanner & Printer based on Specs/Price/Reviews.

My local camera shop Henry's has many printers on display and 70% of them are Epsons. I guess that's saying something...

I'm just terrified of getting $crewed by crappy software/drivers again. That HP p.o.s. all-in-one cost an extra $100 because it promised wireless or wired connectivity...which never worked properly between our 2 computers. I have to share it thru my file server. The auto-document feeder sucks and the whole TWAIN thing as about as stable as a newborn calf...and it only works from the server directly...forget sharing the scanner.
Sorry for the rant...I guess I should have done more research...

Hey! while I might have your ear (or eye, i guess :er...
Any opinion on the DLNA inter-connectivity standard? Epson is listed as having compliant printers...and I already want to get a DLNA certified: NAS unit, picture frame and maybe an LG blu-ray player. The NASes all act as printer servers, so I figure if the printer is also DLNA it'll work even that much better.

Once again, thanks for the clarification and feel free to keep talking!

Eric

 

[Garbz]

Cambrige in Colour has one basic introduction: Overview of Color Management

Avoid All-in-one solutions if you can. You're right the drivers on those are the biggest let down. Colour management in drivers can actually be bypassed and handled by photoshop and lightroom, but that's a topic for a later post.

Also I have no idea what DLNA is. Never heard of it.