Are color calibration devices generally a worthwhile investment?
From what I know and have seen, it is impoossible to keep a CRT monitor in color calibration consistently. The flat screens are better, but still not perfect. If I had the money, I would definitely invest in a system that allows you to calibrate the monitor every time you turn it on and also calibrate your printer to your monitor. There is so much time wasted going back and adjusting curves or levels and money wasted on printing proofs that I think it’s definitely a worthwhile investment if you are serious about your art. I mean, you want complete control of your final product, right? It’s your vision. As always, the constraints for me are money and the time it would take to completely investigate and choose the right solution. I think that may be one of my goals for the new year.
Monitor calibration devices are definitely worth it, but if you’re doing your own printing, you want to make sure you have profiles for your printer too. There are some services out there that will create printer profiles for you and they do pretty high end work. If you’re sending stuff out to be printed, you can just embed your monitor profile in the image and the printer should be able to do the conversion. So yes, if you’re serious about your photography, buy a monitor calibration device. That said, there are a number of devices out there and the info can be a bit misleading. Call up the folks at Nancy Scans for info about color calibration. They do high end photographic output from files and can tell you absolutely everything you need to know.
If you want cheap and marginally effective, the ColorPlus system is better than eyeballing it. For a bit more, the ColorVision Spyder2 is an OK choice. Personally, I’d go with the Monaco Optix XR, which gets good reviews, and costs only slightly more. If you have the money, the Sony Artisan series of monitors have built-in color calibration, as do the NEC/Mitsubishi 2141SB (though the puck will cost you more) — the LaCie Electron Blue IV’s are the same monitor, and thus offer the same built-in calibration.
If you’re sending stuff out to be printed, you can just embed your monitor profile in the image and the printer should be able to do the conversion. Or you can convert the image to the lab’s profile before sending it, which will probably work better at the low-cost places like Costco that don’t do any color management. Dry Creek Photo offers profiles for lots of digital photo labs, probably including one in your area. They have one for a lab about three miles from my house, in fact.
I find that color calibration is definitely worth it; however one need not obsess over doing it every day, like many graphic bureaus are apt to. The best thing is to find a friend who has one and borrow it once a month or so. I have a cheapo spider, and thus supply calibration hardware to a dozen people or so. It is borderline legal (technically you only have a license to install software on one computer, but the software is worthless without hardware which can only be at one place at the time, so my conscience is not too bothered). If you live in or near Seattle, I can help you out.
