Hello everyone, I've read a number of posts with great interest but haven't found something that really matches what I am looking for. I would value your (impressively expert-looking) advice.
I run a small graphic design studio; we produce printed matter, mostly books for the art sector, and work with rather high-end print shops for that. We don't do prepress-style lithography, only what I would like to call "creative image tweaking", i.e. "oh the shadows here look kinda dark let's just fix that" style of things; final lithography is always done at the printer (CMYK conversion with per-paper, per-print-screen profiles, neutral grey balancing, UCR, GCR and whatnot), where one would assume they have the know-how and technology. They make us GMG or other color-accurate proofs, and often we additionally do press proofs.
I guess we would simply like to be more certain that what we're seeing has some resemblance with "the truth", or the final result and need (budget) monitor calibration for that. We've got one iMac workstation (and secondary panel monitor), one Mac with an aging 23" Cinema HD (and secondary panel monitor), and two Macbook Pro mobile workstations. Screens may get replaced of course, the Cinema HD is oldest and it might become a Dell 2711 or a NEC 271 (or whatever is nice and not glossy, really), but not in the near future. We have an Epson 2100 inkjet that, honestly, we hardly ever use, but probably would sometimes if we could get it to produce somewhat predictable output.
On the one hand it would be good to have the different stations somewhat in sync, but maybe I'd be more comfortable to just have each of them to close to "the truth" as possible, if the alternative is to compromise the display on the best screens.
So what I would like to know is basically what color calibration thingy to get; I understand that many of you have 3rd party hardware. While it's cool to have that option in the future (I see that this Basiccolor software doesn't exactly cost an arm and a leg), I'd hope to make do with the included software for the foreseeable future. I'd like to spend €350 or less. Much less, ideally :-)
I've looked at the i1 Display, of which there are wonderfully many versions, the differences of which are a mystery to me. And apparently the whole i1 line is in the process of being refreshed with a completely new, different software?
I've looked at the Spyder 3 Elite which seems to be pretty good too but I've not found as much info about them.
Just now I found the Basiccolor Squid which seems a bit pricey if I need three additional software licenses (seriously guys)
None of the above includes software that can also calibrate inkjet printers, right?
I thought the Colormunki offered a pretty sweet amount of functionality (printer calibration) but is it just me or is the software really targeted at idiots? I may not currently know a lot oabout all this stuff but really, nothing annoys me more than software that doesn't allow me in-depth interaction when I want it. I mean, just look at the explanatory movies on the website! Can anyone here stand up for the poor Munki and say "no actually it's fine, and all you'll ever need?".
Many thanks foryour input
Kai
