Densitometer Calibration

[Pawlowski6132]

Can someone walk me through the calibration procedure for an x-rite 810?

I have a manual but, I'm a little thick these day and need some hand holding.


Thane in advance.

Joe

[Peter Langham]

Joe,
It has been a while for me, but as I recall, you just follow the direction in the manual. Can you be more specific?

[Larry Gebhardt]

Do you have the calibration negative (transmissive) and plate (reflective)? If not you won't be able to calibrate following the books directions. If you do, the book explains it better than I can.

[Pawlowski6132]

I have the plate and the negative. However, the negative is pretty damaged and I woudn't trust it. I do, however, have something I ordred from Stouffer last year. It's a 4x5 5 Step Calibrated Wedge. Can I use that? If I'm only using this for B/W film testing, do I still need to calibrate for reflective measurements?

[Nathan Potter]

Yes you can use a 5 step calibrated wedge and interpolate for in between densities providing that wedge covers your range of interest. Make a plot of the Stouffer wedge densities vs the densitometer readings. Forget about reflective measurements if you are not needing that mode of operation.

Do your calibration run in a darkened room to avoid reflected room light from influencing your readings, especially when checking high densities.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Helen Bach]

What is the highest density step on the Stouffer wedge you have? (4.0?) After pressing CAL twice to enter calibration/setup mode you should be able to set that as the CAL HI value in all four channels - assuming that it is neutral, and assuming that you do not have have Status M red, green and blue values. Then complete the zero and CAL HI. Just follow the exact sequence of button presses listed in the manual.

Unless you have a calibrated target your measurements will not be bang-on accurate (ie the truly correct absolute value), but that may not matter. Follow the same calibration procedure every time and you should have precise enough measurements for comparative purposes, albeit without great accuracy.

Good luck,
Helen