08 Jan 09 New website
Hi,
As you can see there is not mucj happening lately but we are putting all our effort in the creation of the new photo student website which we hope to launch in two weeks. Have a preview at http://test.thephotostudent.com
The team
Tags: new website
26 Sep 08 Colour management
One of the biggest challenges digital photographers faces is colour calibration between screen and printer. Even if you bring your photos to a professional printer you need to have the colours right.
There are several systems on the market but we have chosen to have a look at the Spyder3Studio Colour Management from Datacolor. The recommended retail price for the complete monitor and printer system is £376.94 including VAT.
Datacolor provided us with a system to test and we got the Studio in two boxes.
Spyder3Elite is the studio monitor calibration tool for professional users and is the only device in its category which is able to calibrate front projectors.
Installation:
The installation of the software is easy and works through a wizard. It took around 3 minutes to be up and running.
Calibrating your monitor:
After the software was installed we connected the spyder and started the monitor calibration. The Elite has two offers to calibrate; expert mode and through a wizard. For this test we chose the wizard which guided us through the whole calibration. After telling the software which monitor-type you have, controls available on the monitor and setting everything back to default on the monitor the tool was working. It test White, Black, Red, Green, Blue and Grey, creates a profile for your PC and monitor. This profile is loaded every time you start your PC. The whole procedure took 6 minutes and the difference in very noticeable. It was evidentthat I had my monitor settings to blue!
Printer profiling
This is my personal fear! Profiles for paper and printer combinations are scares to get. Yes there are standard profiles available, mostly made by the paper manufactures BUT they are calibrated on their printer nor yours and most of the time under perfect circumstances, which you probably dont have in your environment. Iam using Kodak Professional Paper with my Canon PI8500 printer and the profile provided by Kodak and yes in general the print is OK although mostly a little darker then the screen (this could be because my screen wasnt really calibrated). By using a tool like Spyder3Print you can create profiles for all the paper you are using on your printer.
Installation: Again very easy and quick, took around 4 minutes to be up and running.
Profiling my main paper:
The profiling is done via wizards and after asking you a little about your printer name for the basis the software prints out a colour profile reference card. This is the card you use to read the colours printed and create the profile. The tool is a spectrocolorimeter you use to read, measure, the colour block on your printer reference card.
The wizard shows the card on the screen and which colour you need to read. By putting the meter on the read point of the colour block and click the button on the meter it reads the colour, tells the wizard it has done and goes to the next colour. Depending on the depth you need for your work you have more colours to read. I used the expert mode and had 275 colours to read. The whole procedure took me an 30 minutes and the software had created a profile.
The test, is it better?
I used one of my older photos of a landscape that had always come out a little darker then the screen and printed this with the new profile through Adobe Lightroom 2.0. The result was far better then the Kodak profile and what is more: this time it wasnt darker then the screen and this is the first time that this happened to me. The photo is exact.
Is this money well spend?
I think that you should calibrate your monitor at all times because if that is wrong everything is wrong and that should be prevented. If you are delivering your own prints to customers then you must profile your printer in the right way and not depend on the standard profiles from manufacturers.
Depending on your needs Datacolor delivers several possibilities for all levels:
For the amateur user Spyder3Express which has a rrp of £67.98 incl VAT
For the enthusiasts and semi-pro users Spyder3Pro with a rrp of £104.90
For professional users Spyder3Elite at a rrp of £174.95 incl VAT
Printer profiles Spyder3Print come at £314.72 incl VAT
But if you are really dedicated to deliver top quality then go for:
Spyder3Studio which will set you back £376.94 (incl vat) but it is money well spend.
Happy shooting
Tags: Colour calibration, Colour management, Datacolor, photo, printer, Printer profiling, printing, Spyder, Spyder2Elite, Spyder3Express, Spyder3Print, Spyder3Pro, Spyder3Studio, the photo student
23 Sep 08 I found a restaurant!
This was very easy in the end. I visited two restaurants tonight. One needed to contact head office first and will come back to me but another, smaller, restaurant I got a talk with the owner and it was settled in 5 minutes and I have a shooting appointment on Thursday. The introduction letter was glanced over but not of a real impact this time.
Now the shoot it self to do
Happy shooting
Tags: assignment 1, restaurant, restaurant shot
22 Sep 08 Flickr group for Student
Hi,
We have created a flickr group for the Professional Photography Course as: http://www.flickr.com/groups/dppcourse/
Please become a member and lest make that group big.
Happy shooting
Tags: flickr
