Printing with an inkjet

[andrewch59]

Apologies, what I meant was my printer program qimage then uses the same profile as my monitor. I do use paper profiles as supplied by the paper manufacturer.

[SergeyT]

>> I'd skip any books written on digital printing and spending any time messing with spyder calibration. Just leave your monitor at the factory settings.

That's probably because many such books have been read already and some knowledge gained...
Things that a spectrophotometer and profiling software can tell is how crappy and unreliable the monitor might be, how wrong the printer settings might be for the given paper, etc. And with that comes prevention of wasting of time, paper, ink (frustration).
All links in the chain should be balanced and work as a system aimed to produce the anticipated results in an optimal way. Why bother with a lightmeter if one can always bracket exposures?

[Joshua Dunn]

Mario,

Sorry for chiming in so late, I have been crazy busy and not checking the forum much as of late. If you want to get serious about printing without spending thousands to learn things the hard way (like myself) then I would return the X-Rite1.

Keep this simple. How much effort do you want to put into learning to digital print. If you are serious about putting money in the right places and spending some time with this then you can start producing some really good prints.

The first question is do you have a wide gamut monitor. If you don’t you can print without one however it does make life more difficult. BenQ makes a really good 27” wide gamut monitor for about $600.

Secondly understand what you are really trying to do with all this calibrating and custom profiles. You are trying to get your monitor and printer as close to the ICC profile as you can. Think of this as the same reason people wear glasses, they are trying to get as close to the 20/20 standard as they can. So you need a means to get your monitor calibrated and a custom profile made for each paper you want to use with your printer.

I would highly recommend attending one of Eric Joseph’s inkjet printing lectures. He works at Freestyle Photo in LA. They have a calander of when and where he lectures on their website. Before you spend a ton of money on paper go to one of his lectures and he will have a hundred or so that he talks about. The world of inkjet paper is now heavily influenced by manufacturers of art papers such as Canson, Hahnemuhle, Awagami etc. Their are innumerable options in inkjet paper choices that were never available to the darkroom printer. The easiest way to wade into this without drowning is attending one of his lectures.

To calibrate your monitor (and the reason I think you should return the X-Rite1) use the basICColor Squid 3. This will only be good for calibrating your monitor (not papers) but it is the best tool/software combination on the market. The software that comes with it is like reading German stereo instructions however if you buy it from Freestyle I beieve they will walk you through using it step by step.

Once you have narrowed down your paper choices pay Freestyle to make you custom profiles for your printer. They are $100 a piece however with the money you will save in paper and ink they will quickly pay for themselves. A correctly calibrated monitor and custom profiles on some good paper will have you producing good prints in relatively short order.

I know this is a lot to digest, however I have made almost every mistake you can with inkjet printing. What I have outlined will be the best way forward. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more.

-Joshua
www.joshuadunnphotography.com
@joshuadunnphoto

So, yesterday I went to Samy's here in San Francisco and one of the salesman said to get the i1 Studio. He didn't know much about the Spyder equivalent but he said to check that one out and see which one I liked best. Anyone knows what the Spyder equivalent would be? If you do, which one would you recommend? Thanks.