Hire of Calibration tools

[bouyant_clown]

i'm sure someone here will know if there is anything like this available.
i know that quite a few places will rent/hire camera equipment but is there any place around that hires monitor calibration equipment? cost to buy is quite high but if i could just hire occasionally i might be able to justify the cost.
cheers

[sirhc55]

Not sure on the rental front but, it is advisable to calibrate your monitor(s) every month. This would make hiring an expensive way to go.

[Oz_Beachside]

Antsl, put me onto a great entry level device, the Huey Greytag, they are about $120 melbourne retail.

here are some...
http://www.streetwise.com.au/index.php?cPath=138_232

[bouyant_clown]

sirhc55, i was figuring that once every 6 to 12 months would be better than the hit + miss affair that i work with at the moment.
Oz_B, $120 is a lot more managable than the $500+ figures that i've heard before. have you been happy with it's performance and noticed a difference in your print results? how easy is it to use?
cheers.

[ATJ]

If you are a DSLRUsers member, you can get discounts: http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?t=26218

[Marvin]

I have a spyder 2 that you are welcome to borrow sometime. It only does monitors, not printers, but it does a good job.

[Oz_Beachside]

have you been happy with it's performance and noticed a difference in your print results? how easy is it to use?
cheers.

Very happy. It sits in a cradle next to my monitor measuring room light, and adjust to ambient (if you choose), and asks me about once a month to stick it on my monitor surface, and it ticks away, and does its job.

I dont print, so cant comment through to print, but it has certainly helped with my color correction.

its very compact, hardly notice it, I guess its an entry level device, but it works very well, and I think its good value if you have nothing...

[shakey]

I thought the "calibrate your monitor once a month" appled to CRT monitors only. I understood LCD monitors are much more stable. Mind you my monitor is a calibrated CRT which still stays in spec after 6 years and refuses to die.

[bouyant_clown]

Hi Oz_B,
you say that you don't print but that it has helped you with colour correction? My understanding was that the calibration process should help ensure that what i see on the screen looks the same (or close) to the prints that i get processed (i don't bother with printing at home). How do you tell that your colours are correct?
Thanks for the offer Marvin, i might take you up on it, even just to see how they perform before getting one.
cheers

[ATJ]

My understanding was that the calibration process should help ensure that what i see on the screen looks the same (or close) to the prints that i get processed (i don't bother with printing at home).

Screen calibration is more about helping to ensure that what you see on your screen is the same or close to what someone else sees on their screen. Printer calibration is more about helping to ensure that what you see from your printer is the same or close to what someone else sees from their printer. Of course, with both the screen and printer calibrated, you will also get similar results from the screen to the printer.

[Steffen]

Display calibration means bringing the display to a known state. It usually involves setting a known white point and gamma (such as 6500k, 2.2) while maxing out the useful dynamic range of the display. Display calibration involves changing display settings (like brightness, contrast, individual colour responses) and video driver setting, esp the colour look-up table (LUT) in the video card.

Home printers (at least the ones I had the chance to use) cannot be calibrated, there's nothing you can adjust there. I'm sure big shop printers can in some way...

Profiling a device (display or printer) means determining its behaviour (after calibration) and storing that information in an ICC file. Device profiles tell the colour management system (CMS) how a device will respond when fed RGB values. This allows the CMS to perform colour matching between devices (like on-screen soft proofing for you printer), and to make an image look the same on various devices (if they are all profiled).

Printer profiles are always profiles for a specific printer/paper/ink combination and assume a specific illuminant to view the prints under, like a 5000K light box.

Calibration and profiling are different but interdependent processes. Obviously, if the device deviates from its calibrated state (e.g. by fiddling with the brightness knob), the profile obtained for that state no longer applies.

Confusingly, video LUTs (created during calibration) are stored in display profile ICC files, most likely for lack of a better place to keep them...

Cheers
Steffen.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[ATJ]

Screen calibration is more about helping to ensure that what you see on your screen is the same or close to what someone else sees on their screen...

Providing that "someone else" has calibrated their systems too.

Obviously.