Should I buy a calibration tool?

RWVVV

This topic has 5 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 12 months ago by David Blatner.

Viewing 5 reply threads

Author

Posts
- April 5, 2016 at 3:06 pm #83745
  
  RWVVV
  Member
  
  Hi all,
  
  I am contemplating on getting a calibration tool for my screen, but I want to know, will it be worth it?
  
  To give some information: I use a macbook pro (not retina), mostly use design apps at the same desk, lighting is affected by the weather, rarely lights are turned on. Printing is not always done at the same printer.
  
  What are the pros and cons and what do I need to consider?
- April 5, 2016 at 4:06 pm #83753
  
  David Blatner
  Keymaster
  
  Great question! There is no way your screen can show accurate color or your system be color managed without a monitor profile. Claudia McCue is writing a piece comparing the DataColor Spyder and the XRite i1Display Pro in issue 85 of InDesign Magazine, but spoiler alert: She likes them both. I have a datacolor Spyder 5 and I like it.
- April 6, 2016 at 5:46 pm #83774
  
  Sam Sharpe
  Member
  
  Hi RWVVV,
  
  if you really need colour accuracy then get a monitor with a decent colour latitude, Apple screens are not very good in this aspect.
  
  David is right about most callibration systems being good. The display is going to make the most difference for accuracy. Be aware about differences in gamma curves also from OSX to Windows etc.
  
  Best,
  S
- April 18, 2016 at 7:59 am #84087
  
  RWVVV
  Member
  
  I went ahead an bought myself a Spyder5. My monitor is now calibrated with express settings, just to try it out. I might go into deeper parameters later.
  
  I intend to go into colour management soon and David already suggested me his Lynda.com tutorial in another thread. However, at the moment there is this burning question: I googled ‘match rgb to cmyk’ and it lead me to this website where I can put in rgb values and it calculates cmyk percentages for it. I made swatches with both sets of values but they didn’t match up. I know RGB has a wider gamut range than cmyk (am I saying this right?) so possibly there is no vivid counterpart in cmyk for the colour I am trying to recreate. I was wondering though, (assuming that website’s calculator is spot on), should the cmyk counterpart of an RGB value indeed look the same on my screen?
  
  The reason I ask, is because I want to know wether it makes sense to put two swatches, RGB and CMYK next to eachother in an ID file and try to make them look identical.
- April 19, 2016 at 1:43 am #84112
  
  RWVVV
  Member
  
  Wow, I feel kind of stupid now…When I enter a swatch in Ai, RGB, hex or CMYK, it gives you the values for each counterpart, which look dead on when you change the document colour mode. To hell with that online tool!
- April 19, 2016 at 8:56 am #84123
  
  David Blatner
  Keymaster
  
  It’s actually extremely difficult to put an RGB swatch and a CMYK swatch next to each other and ensure they will always look the same. It can work, but it is not recommended. If you want to match colors, use the same color mode.
Author

Posts