Calibration help needed

[sec]

Thanks to everybody who took the time to try to help me. I do appreciate it.
Complicated expensive problems...the story of my life. Just once I want a simple cheap problem.

I am going to order the colormonkey smile and hope it is enough of an improvement that I can live with the results. I would love to have the other one and do things the best way, but that is just not in my budget in the near future.

For future reference, can you get laptops that don't have the TN screen? Every time I shift positions I have to change the angle of the screen.

It's just so frustrating. I have the next two weeks off and nothing I have to do. I had planned to spend that time fishing and working photo organizing and editing. I'm way behind.

 

[Ysarex87 81]

Thanks to everybody who took the time to try to help me. I do appreciate it.
Complicated expensive problems...the story of my life. Just once I want a simple cheap problem.

I am going to order the colormonkey smile and hope it is enough of an improvement that I can live with the results. I would love to have the other one and do things the best way, but that is just not in my budget in the near future.

For future reference, can you get laptops that don't have the TN screen? Every time I shift positions I have to change the angle of the screen.

It's just so frustrating. I have the next two weeks off and nothing I have to do. I had planned to spend that time fishing and working photo organizing and editing. I'm way behind.

A colorimeter (X-Rite Smile) will help even if you have a laptop with a TN display. You can get laptops with better displays but a possibly better (cheaper) solution is to get an external display for the laptop. Your laptop most likely has an HDMI out port. For between $150.00 and $200.00 you can get a decent Samsung or LG display in the 20 to 24 inch size that will be a huge improvement over a laptop TN display -- just plug it into your laptop when you want to edit photos.

You mentioned making your own prints and asked if a printer can be calibrated. The spectrophotometer (Color Munki Photo) can do that but again there are other options that will at least help if you don't have the budget to get something like the CM Photo. What printer do you have available and what software do you have that you use to make prints?

Joe

 

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What printer do you have available and what software do you have that you use to make prints?

My printer is a Canon Pixma MG 6220. I haven't been using any software other than what came with windows 7. I did break down and purchase Lightroom 6 today. Looking forward to learning to use it.

I had never thought about an external monitor. I may try that if I can improve my editing and feel like I can justify the cost.

Amazon has Colormunki Display for $139 and Colormunki Smile for $79. What is the difference and is it worth the extra money?

 

[Ysarex87 81]

What printer do you have available and what software do you have that you use to make prints?

My printer is a Canon Pixma MG 6220. I haven't been using any software other than what came with windows 7. I did break down and purchase Lightroom 6 today. Looking forward to learning to use it.

I had never thought about an external monitor. I may try that if I can improve my editing and feel like I can justify the cost.

Amazon has Colormunki Display for $139 and Colormunki Smile for $79. What is the difference and is it worth the extra money?

I'd stick with the Smile for now as it's all you need for your laptop. If you do get better over time and more serious, especially about printing yourself at home, you'll eventually jump over the Colormunki Display and do it right with a spectrophotometer. (Here's another tip: The spectrophotometer (colormunki Photo) is available as a rental item. When you get LR up and running and the laptop calibrated you could consider a weekend rental of the colormunki Photo and create a couple printer profiles for yourself. All in good time.)

Congrats on the LightRoom purchase. That will give you everything you need in the way of software to process your photos and manage printing. LightRoom shines when you start working with camera raw files. If you haven't been saving raw files to this point you now have a really good reason to start.

Your printer is a basic home/office unit with limited color capacity. It will nonetheless still make a pretty good photo once you get everything under control. I have a very similar Canon printer here at my desk and, used properly, it does surprising well considering its basic cost.

Your first step down this road is to calibrate your display.

Joe