Introduction to Calibration Including How to Calibrate Your Monitor and Printer

Event Details

Yes, the event details, but first...

Free Parking

Parking is free in the secure lot beneath the building. Easy directions: Exit the 405 freeway at Santa Monica Blvd. Capitol One 360 Café is immediately east of the freeway on the north side of Santa Monica Blvd.

Meeting Topic: Introduction to Calibration including How to Calibrate Your Monitor and Printer

One of the blessings (and sometimes curses) of being a digital designer is that we have an innate drive to create beyond what we see and experience -- and to re-present our own unique vision to others in a way that THEY can see and experience. We want the visualization of what we see on our screen to match what the world sees -- whether it be on paper, on another screen or on one of a thousand digital devices.

While our technology does a great job of displaying what the ones and zeros that make up a digital file describe displaying a horse or an apple of the text of a book, the exact color of that apple might differ from the original ever so slightly if we are lucky or in a huge way if we aren’t. This is because despite beginning with the same digital file, the various devices don’t talk to one another in the same language. In order for the brown of the horse to be identical on two devices, we need a common language that both understand. That common language exists in the form of color profiles calibrated to a precise standard.

Technically any device can have a color profile, but at this meeting of the Los Angeles lnDesign User Group, Stephen Burns will focus on monitor and printer profiles and calibration. He will begin the presentation with an introduction to monitor calibration, including an explanation of the overall process, a description of the equipment used and the steps involved in the actual calibration procedure. This will take us into understanding profiles, how they work and how to apply them in lnDesign and sister applications Photoshop and Illustrator. Stephen will explain all the printer settings to get the two devices to speak the same language. Finally, Stephen will create paper profiles so that the two devices understand the characteristics of the media that is being used. Yes, a piece of paper can have a profile!

Once your system is calibrated, you can be confident that what you see on screen in lnDesign will express accurately your creation on paper. Stephen will be using Datacolor's Spyder Studio to share insight as to how this is all done.

Agenda

7:00 p.m. - Meet and Greet

7:10 p.m. - Presentation (with mid-presentation break)

9:30 p.m. - Raffles

10:00 p.m. - Goodbyes

Meeting Notes

By Alvin Takamori

On January 15, the Los Angeles InDesign User Group met at the Capital One 360 Café in West LA. It’s a nice modern looking facility with a big screen monitor. The parking was free and so were the hot drinks.

Our guest speaker for the evening was Stephen Burns. He’s been a presenter for us before and why not? Among his many accomplishments, he’s a digital artist, author and internationally-known trainer who teaches on Xtrain, Photoshop Café, and writes for Layers Magazine. He’s also the president of the San Diego Photoshop Users Group, the nation's largest.

This time he came to teach us the basics of color calibration. It may not be the most exciting topic, but it might be one of the most important. Whether it’s a design or a photograph, having the color you envisioned match the final output is critical. It can also be confusing and overwhelming because every monitor, every printer and every type of paper can produce a different range of colors.

Stephen explained to us that to control color, first you have to understand gamut. Gamut is the range of colors that can be seen or produced. The human eye has a gamut of colors that it can perceive. Every device has a different gamut and coordinating them so that the blue on your iMac with retina display comes close to matching the blue on the BK Reeves off white paper that comes out of your Epson Expression printer is the role of the color profile.

The color profile is like a language that various digital devices can understand to interpret what should Pantone 297 look like on this monitor. In a closed loop system, your monitor, your printer and your paper can be optimized to produce consistent color. But once you send work outside the system, to a client or a commercial printer, if you want them to see or produce the same color you saw on your system, you need to share color profiles.

You can expect to accumulate a big collection of profiles, because you need one for each printer and paper combination. Even if you use the same printer, if you change paper, you need to create another color profile. Also, your monitor can change over time, so you need to create a new profile for it every few months.

Stephen demonstrated the process of creating a color profile using a Spyder 4 Elite colorimeter to analyze the monitor in Capital One 360 Cafe. The device is similar to a photographic light meter. He placed it on a tripod and pushed it up against the monitor. At home you’d hang the colorimeter with the wire over the top your monitor and the meter pressed against the screen.

One of the first things he needed to do was to select a white point. It is measured in units called Kelvin. A Kelvin of 6500 is how white looks in daylight conditions and a Kelvin of 5000 is what white looks like under halogen light, which is often used in galleries. The higher the Kelvin the bluer the light is, and the lower the Kelvin is the redder the light. Stephen usually targets a white point from 5500 to 5800 Kelvin.

Once the white point is chosen the analysis process is initiated and the colorimeter reads the light coming off the monitor to determine it’s dynamic range. The software displays blocks of white, black, red, green and blue and a range of grays and color values on the monitor while the meter reads and analyzes the results to create a color profile for the monitor. That information is stored on the computer in what Stephen referred to as “profile heaven.” On a Mac you go to System Preferences and select Displays or Screen Resolution, then Color Management and you’ll find a list of your color profiles for the monitor.

Next, Stephen addressed creating color profiles for printer output. Using the Spyder Print software he could select a range of targets. A target is a table of gray or color squares of various gradations. By selecting more targets to use, a more precise color profile can be created. You print the different targets on the paper you are interested in. Then you can place the colorimeter on the printed targets to analyze the color on that paper. The software makes a direct comparison of how each color in the target looks on the monitor and how it comes out when it is printed. The colors generated by a monitor are created by a transmissive process, but colors on a piece of paper are reflective, which has a much more limited gamut, so the colors tend to be darker. Anyway, using this information the Spyder software creates a color profile for that specific printer-paper combination.

When you open a photograph or design file in a software like Photoshop, you can go to the Edit Menu and under Assign Profile you can select a color profile to attach to that file. Under Preview you can see the color of your image as it will come out on the paper in the profile. When you print the image make sure you let Photoshop manage the color not the printer. Similarly if you want to see what your image is going to look like when you use a commercial printer, you can go to them and get a color profile for their equipment.

Farthest Attendee

The person who travels the farthest to attend the meeting will receive a one-year subscription to InDesign Magazine. This prize has a $69 value. If everyone is kinda sorta in the area, then this prize will go the person who just had or is about to have a birthday. Winner — Barbara Cott

Raffle Prizes and Winners

6-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION: eDocker CREATE! Value $774.00 Winner — Param Sharma

Beats by Dre Studio Wireless Headphones, White. Value $379.95 Winner — DeShawn Burton

1-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION: MathMagic. Value $300.00 Winner — DeShawn Burton

3-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION: Stock Layouts. Full access to the entire Stock Layout template library for three months. Value $299.00 Winner — Trish Weber Hall

SOFTWARE: in5 from Ajar Productions. Value $219.00 Winner — Robert Gaylord

1-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION: FTP2DTP for Mac from Markzware. Value $199.00 Winner — Carmela Garcia

SOFTWARE: Font Agent Pro from Insider Software. Value $99.95 Winner — Isabel Renteria

12-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION: Dollar Photo Club. VIP Membership includes 99 free images. Value $99.00 Winner — Isabel Renteria

SOFTWARE: Stylism for Illustrator CS5 to CC 2014 from Astute Graphics. Value $50.00 Winner — Dallas Dorsett Mathers

EBOOK from O'Reilly Media. Value to $50.00 Winner — David Morin

SOFTWARE: TypeDNA. Value $49.00 Winner — Carmela Garcia

SOFTWARE: iDML iPad App for iPad from DTP Tools. Value $19.00 Winner — Isabel Renteria

SOFTWARE: ColliderScribe for Illustrator CS5 to CC 2014 from Astute Graphics. Value $15.00 Winner — Philip Postovoit

TICKETS: LA Web Professionals Meeting. Value $7.99 (four raffles) Winners — Trish Wener Hall, Richard Krause, Dallas Dorsett Mathers, Connie Schurr

Thank You to our Sponsors

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Dollar Photo Club
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LA Web Professionals
Markzware
MathMagic
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Stock Layouts
TypeDNA